Last week, during his address to a joint session of Congress and the nation, President Joe Biden acknowledged the historic nature of a female vice president and speaker of the House of Representatives sitting on the dais, and said, “we need to ensure greater equity and opportunity for women.” Unfortunately, he has done exactly the opposite in his first 100 days in office by making good on his promise to push gender identity ideology—which seeks to erase the vitally important genetic and physiological differences between men and women.
Last June, in Bostock v. Clayton County, the U.S. Supreme Court radically re-wrote Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by holding that sexual orientation and gender identity are included in the statute’s prohibition of sex discrimination in matters of employment. Sex non-discrimination laws are meant to protect biological women, and the Court’s insertion of gender identity ideology flips the law’s intent on its head. On his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order requiring that the Bostock re-definition be adopted across the federal government.
In this order, President Biden specifically mentioned Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which provides equality for women in sports. He also signed another executive order that effectively undid the previous administration’s good work in the education space, further entrenching the LGBT agenda into schools and obliterating women’s sports and private spaces.
The previous administration had responded to Bostock by issuing a memo that affirmed biology and equality in regard to Title IX—the Department of Education (ED) under Biden has since archived that memo. The Department of Justice issued a memo on Bostock’s application to Title IX, indicating that it did apply. Further, ED has withdrawn the previous administration’s letter of findings against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and its member schools regarding its violation of Title IX for allowing biological boys to compete in sports designated for biological girls.
Additionally, President Biden has used the phrase “all genders” in various memoranda and proclamations. One of the most egregious references is contained in the proclamation for American Heart Month. The president said that heart disease affects “all genders” and merely acknowledged that “the symptoms of a heart attack can be different for men and women.” He didn’t acknowledge the importance and need for further sex-specific study. The world-renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital notes that it has only been in recent non-male-focused studies that this differential has become more known. Johns Hopkins has its own Women’s Cardiovascular Health Center that provides education, comprehensive treatment, and diagnostic services to prevent and manage heart disease in women. A National Institute of Health listed study from 2010 entitled “Gender differences in coronary heart disease” concluded that, “A greater awareness of the differences in presentation […] between men and women, with gender-based interpretation of diagnostic tests, is mandatory […] to improve therapeutic strategies and outcomes in women.”
This necessity extends across the medical field. Medicine must be based in science and the patient’s physiological makeup, yet President Biden’s actions have made it clear that he disagrees. He nominated Xavier Becerra as secretary of Health and Human Services despite his having no relevant experience. His only credentials are being radically anti-life and anti-faith and advocating for radical sexuality ideology. For assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, Biden nominated Rachel Levin, who severely failed to properly handle the COVID-19 pandemic while serving as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health. Levine has an alarming record of prioritizing the radical sexuality agenda over public health and advocates gender transition for children, which is extremely harmful. Sadly, young girls are a particular target of this agenda.
Furthermore, legislation that the president has supported in both official statements and his joint session speech are detrimental to women. He called on Congress to pass the Equality Act, a massive bill that would overhaul our federal civil rights framework to, among other things, mandate acceptance of gender identity ideology, leaving women and others to suffer the consequences. If enacted, the bill would go much further than allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports, thereby unfairly penalizing female athletes. It would also obliterate women’s private spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, and battered women’s shelters. This would be especially devastating for battered women who need a safe and private space to heal because biological men would be allowed to enter their shelters.
President Biden also called for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and made official statements praising H.R. 1620, the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization of 2021. VAWA was indeed enacted in 1994 to improve the criminal justice response to domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking and increase the availability of victim services. Unfortunately, the 2021 reauthorization bill would undermine VAWA’s purpose by further traumatizing battered women by allowing biological men into shelters designated for women. It would also reduce resources for battered women, given its mandated acceptance of gender identity ideology, which creates onerous burdens and litigation. The 2021 reauthorization would also allow organizations known to cover up abuse and sex trafficking to access VAWA grant funds. Lastly, it would put incarcerated women at risk of abuse by allowing biological males, sex offenders included, into women’s prisons if they say they identify as a woman.
While all of this looks bleak for women’s rights, privacy, and safety, fortunately, there is hope. Little traction exists for the Equality Act, and there is both federal and state legislation to protect women in various areas like sports, shelters, and medicine to hopefully stop the administration’s harmful agenda. This fight is just beginning. We will have to see how it plays out over the next four years.