CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — A U.S. District Court in Kentucky sided with a coalition of West Virginia and five other states on Thursday, preventing a change to Title IX in education that would have expanded its protections to LGBTQIA students.
The update would have changed Title IX to include a process for dealing with “all sex discrimination,” including sexual orientation and gender identity, instead of just “sex-based discrimination” based on the gender assigned at birth. The amendment was originally scheduled to go into effect on Aug. 1, 2024 , but a preliminary injunction was granted over the summer , stopping it.
According to West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, the coalition of states against the change was granted a summary judgment on Thursday by a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. In the decision , the court said that the U.S. Department of Education exceeded its authority by making the changes and should not have bypassed the legislative process to “completely transform Title IX.”
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If the changes had gone into effect, students in West Virginia and across the country would have been able to use bathrooms, locker rooms and other sex-divided spaces based on their gender identity, not biological sex at birth. It also would have forced West Virginia to allow students who identify as female to participate in girls sports and activities…