The Department of Education, acting under the Trump administration, has declared that June will now be recognized as “Title IX Month.” Title IX refers to the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education which was expanded to protect queer identities under Biden and has been restricted under Trump.
On Monday, the Department of Education issued a press release announcing the change. “The US Department of Education (the Department) today announced that it is recognizing June as ‘Title IX Month’ in honor of the fifty-third anniversary of Title IX of the Educational Amendments (1972) being signed into law,” the statement read.
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“June will now be dedicated to commemorating women and celebrating their struggle for, and achievement of, equal educational opportunity.
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“Throughout the month, the Department will highlight actions taken to reverse the Biden Administration’s legacy of undermining Title IX and announce additional actions to protect women in line with the true purpose of Title IX.”
In April 2024, the Department of Education acting under the Biden administration issued guidance ensuring that sexual orientation and gender identity are included under Title IX’s definition of sex. This guidance would have offered federal nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQ+ students at all federally funded schools.
Biden was not alone in this interpretation. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v Clayton County that workplace sex discrimination prohibitions in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects LGBTQ+ employees.
Although the word “Pride” is mentioned nowhere in the Education Department’s recent press release, the full statement details how the Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is now being weaponized to target LGBTQ+ students.
The OCR’s first initiative is “Title IX directed investigations into the University of Wyoming and Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado for allegedly allowing males to join and live in female-only intimate and communal spaces.”
GLAAD, meanwhile, has marked the start of Pride Month this year with a report detailing nearly 1,000 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents in the last year, from “protests at drag shows, to sprees of vandalism targeting Pride flags, to bomb threats against health care providers of transgender patients.”
“This goes along with the really intense conversations that we’re having right now around trans rights,” Sarah Moore, head of GLAAD’s ALERT desk, said.
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