The slow motion collapse of the American economy. An illegal war in Iran claiming countless innocent lives but, more importantly, raising gas prices. The terrifying rise in illnesses once believed to be nearly eradicated, thanks to anti-science populism. These are all problems that the leaders of one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations on earth, and in fact in the history of mankind, could choose to solve.
It is obviously more important, however, that transgender women going to college be destroyed.
The latest in a long, long, long… long list of federal battles being waged over the mere existence of trans Americans is, yes, the Trump administration launching an investigation into the admission of trans women into Smith College, an all-women liberal arts school in Northampton, Massachusetts.
You’ll have to excuse me if I’m somewhat incredulous of the fed’s concerns for a women’s liberal arts school, considering… you know… the personal beliefs of every Republican man in the nation when it comes to the topic of women in college and anybody pursuing a liberal arts degree. If I were a cynic, I might even suggest that an investigation into the admissions rules for an all-women liberal arts school has more to do with a desire to disenfranchise trans women and remove us from public life as completely as possible than like… protecting women, or whatever.
The Justice Department, the federal organization responsible for this investigation (and many other flagrant wastes of taxpayer dollars, of late), released a statement on Monday:
“Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened an investigation into Smith College, one of the nation’s largest all-women’s colleges, for admitting biological men and granting them access to women-only spaces, including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams. OCR will determine whether the college violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) by allowing biological males into women’s intimate spaces.”
The referenced Title IX is, of course, the law disallowing discrimination based on gender in American education. It’s been used as a political football for well over a decade now, with the Obama and Biden administrations declaring that it protects trans Americans from discrimination, while the Trump and Trump administrations interpret it in exactly the opposite way.
The statement goes on to read, “Title IX contains a single-sex exception that allows colleges to enroll all-male or all-female student bodies—but the exception applies on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity. An all-girls college that enrolls male students professing a female identity would cease to qualify as single sex under Title IX.”
The confidence with which this is stated, when the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX protections is only one of many interpretations, is sort of amusing. This is not some concrete truth, and in fact, Smith College officially began accepting trans women as applicants more than ten years ago, during the Obama administration, when this was indisputably allowable. All that’s changed in the intervening years is the rise of an ontologically evil, fascist regime in American politics. I mean, uh… a more ontologically evil, fascist regime in American politics than previous ontologically evil, fascist regimes in American politics.
“An all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males,” said Kimberley Richey, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and vile mouthpiece for a genocidal despot. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance under federal law. The Trump Administration will continue to uphold the law and fight to restore common sense.”
This is when I must remind you that Executive Orders (the foundation of the Education Department’s claim that Title IX does not protect trans women) are not legally binding, and that only Congress can make, alter and abolish laws in the United States of America. The president and the Education Department can’t establish their own legal system for fun; instead, they’re threatening to pull federal funding for any college that doesn’t comply with their demands to discriminate against trans Americans. Some institutions are refusing to comply, even though losing federal funding would cost them everything. Others are folding to Trump’s demands, sometimes with unbearable consequences.
We can only hope that Smith College chooses the path of bravery and fights these miserable fucking ghouls every step of the way.
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
