The Biden administration cannot enforce new protections for LGBTQ+ students in Ohio, Virginia and four other states, a federal judge ruled Monday, becoming the latest court to rebuff efforts to expand the scope of a decades-old law that prohibits sex-based discrimination.
US District Judge Danny Reeves said in a 93-page ruling that the new protections – which are set to take effect August 1 – cannot be enforced in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia while a lawsuit brought by those states’ attorneys general plays out.
The new rules require schools to protect students from all sex discrimination, including sexual violence and sex-based harassment, expanding that definition to include discrimination based on pregnancy or pregnancy-related conditions like childbirth, termination of pregnancy or recovery from pregnancy. Compliance with the new rules is required to receive federal education aid.
Indiana claims that schools have to use a student’s preferred name (whether it be a nickname or they are trans) with parental consent.
As my daughter can tell you, her trans friend in an Indiana public school is deadnamed by the administration despite his parents giving that consent. My daughter said she was confused every time it happened to him because she didn’t think of her friend by that name, or as a she.