Trump Administration Renames June As ‘Title IX Month’
In a continued effort to target trans people, the DOE is attempting to erase Pride month under the guise of “protecting women.”
The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) announced in a press release on Monday, June 2, that the month of June will officially be recognized as “Title IX Month.”
“June will now be dedicated to commemorating women and celebrating their struggle for, and achievement of, equal educational opportunity. 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,” the press release states.
The move follows the Trump administration’s persistent actions to undo protections for transgender athletes, and numerous investigations launched against K-12 districts and higher education institutions for allowing trans women to compete in women’s sports.
U.S. Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, stated, “The Department is recognizing June as ‘Title IX Month’ to honor women’s hard-earned civil rights and demonstrate the Trump Administration’s unwavering commitment to restoring them to the fullest extent of the law. Title IX provides women protections on the basis of sex in all educational activities, which include their rights to equal opportunity in sports and sex-segregated intimate spaces, including sororities and living accommodations.”
The Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced its first initiative for ‘Title IX Month’ was to launch a direct investigation into the University of Wyoming and Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado for “allowing males to join and live in female-only intimate and communal spaces,” according to the press release.
The initiative refers to the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority admitting a transgender woman into its University of Wyoming Chapter in 2022. Six of the sorority’s members sued the organization over the decision to admit a trans woman, but the case was dismissed by the U.S. District Court, which ruled that the government cannot interfere with how a private and voluntary organization chooses its members.
“A school receiving federal funding that supports, sponsored, or promotes a sorority or fraternity, must meet its obligations under Title IX to protect its students from sex-based harassment and sexual assault, regardless of the sorority or fraternity’s policy. A sorority that admits male students is no longer a sorority by definition and thus loses the Title IX statutory exemption for a sorority’s single-sex membership practices,” said the press release.
As Pride Month begins, the Department’s rebranding of June as ‘Title IX Month’ solidifies a troubling trend—the co-opting of women’s rights discourse to roll back protection for trans women.
