If Democrats want Transgender protections, then they need to fight for them to be directly legislated, not through Arcane Interpretations of a law (Title IX) that clearly doesn't address transgenderism. Enough Said. Glad this "guidance" is being rescinded.
I am glad that the law will be interpreted the way it was meant to be, and this time we didn't even need a court of law to make the right decision. I thought that, last year, at least one court had already ruled against the administration.
Actually, the 4th Circuit upheld the applicability of Title IX to discrimination against transgender students in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board. The court held that the statute was ambiguous enough that the governments interpretation should be given controlling weight under Chevron deference. Granted, under that reasoning the federal government is within its rights to switch its position as to the correct interpretation of Title IX. That doesn't make Trump's decision to do so any less deplorable.
Look, was Title IX intended to cover discrimination against transgender people? No, probably not. But like most civil rights legislation, Title IX was intentionally written broadly enough to cover new forms of invidious discrimination that the drafters might not have been able to foresee at the time it was passed. If you believe that civil rights laws are forward-looking tools, then there's nothing "undemocratic" about using an existing act of congress to combat new and inventive forms of discrimination as they arise.
Here is a fascinating essay by the great Judge Learned Hand.
http://mtweb.mtsu.edu/cewillis/Hermeneutics/Hand%20How%20Free%20is%20a%20Judge.pdf"But the judge must remember that he should go no further than he is sure the government [i.e., the legislature] would have gone, had it been faced with the case before him. If he is in doubt, he must stop, for he cannot tell that the conflicting interests in the society for which he speaks would have come to a just result, even though he is sure that he knows what the just result should be. He is not to substitute his juster will for theirs; otherwise it will not be the common will which prevails, and to that extent the people would not govern."
