(The Center Square) – An Ohio senator wants state lawmakers to send a message to the U.S. Department of Education to exclude sexual orientation and gender identity from Title IX.
U.S. Rep. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, recently introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 11 that calls on the Biden administration and Congress to remove all references from sexual orientation and gender identity from Title IX.
The resolution also states that members of the Ohio General Assembly find “the broad expansion of Title IX damaging to all women’s sports.” Before President Joe Biden authorized changes, the 37-word landmark legislation signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972 was known as the amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act that gave women and girls the right to participate in high school and college athletics.
Senate Democratic Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, called the resolution an attack on the LGBTQ+ community.
“This is yet another exercise in the Legislature bullying members of the LGBTQ+ community in Ohio and wasting taxpayer dollars through yet another lawsuit,” Antonio said. “As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, this heavy-handed and preemptive resolution is outrageous and offensive.”
Antonio also said a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling defined sex in civil rights statutes to include sexual orientation, indicating that protecting LGBTQ+ students as well as trans-athletes is within the scope of what the law understands to be sex discrimination.
The resolution comes as a Franklin County Common Pleas Court continues to have a hold on the state’s recent law that bans gender-affirming health care for youth and bans males, including those professing to be female, from participating on female sports teams.
The restraining order came after the ACLU of Ohio filed a lawsuit saying the bill violates the Ohio Constitution’s single subject rule, the health care provision, the equal protection clause, and the due course of law provision.
In December, Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed the bill and a week later issued an executive order that banned gender-affirming surgeries on minors and developed corresponding health care rules for children and adults.
The Republican-majority Senate and House easily voted to override the veto in January.
