This is a continuation of the report from last week about the Biden Administration’s revisions to Title IX, the law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. The revisions would have required, among other things, allowing those born as male physiologically but perceived themselves as female psychologically to choose to: play girls’ sports, use girls’ restrooms, change in girls’ locker rooms, and threaten with punitive discipline those who used a pronoun other than a student’s chosen pronoun.
Fortunately, a federal judge (several of them, in fact) responded to a lawsuit (several lawsuits, in fact) with an injunction temporarily halting any implementation of those revisions.
Did you catch that word, “temporarily”? I wrote to my fellow board members about it urging we take action.
Our culture has been wrestling with this issue of gender fluidity for over a decade, and it is not going away, as evidenced by its inclusion in these latest Title IX revisions. The Ozark School District does not have a policy (that I could find) limiting the use of bathrooms or locker rooms to those of the sex discovered at birth. Similarly, I could find no policy protecting employees’ rights to use pronouns aligned with the sex discovered at birth. (There have been court cases prohibiting requirements to do otherwise, yet the new Title IX regulations would have required them; see https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/pronouns-free-speech-and-first-amendment for more information on that.) One of the last contentious changes in the 2024 Title IX revisions involved the distinction for participation in sports — which has thankfully already been clearly defined by Missouri’s “Save Women’s Sports Act” championed for years by our own Senator Mike Moon and finally passed and signed in 2023. I believe the Ozark Board can and should at least briefly address at least those first two topics, however, with a uniform, principled policy now rather than being pressured to offer an appeasement later.
I believe now is the best time to make that statement because the Board can lay the groundwork to make clear the District’s position before there are any contentions on it. Therefore, I requested an agenda item allowing for discussion of the Title IX expansion be added to the next meeting agenda. I propose the Board discuss, possibly revise, and adapt some version of the following proposed statement:
The Ozark Board of Education recognizes that “sex” is a physiological construct, discovered at birth, relating to how the physical body is hardwired, and that “gender” is a psychological construct, relating to perception and feeling. Even if a person feels an identification with a different kind of gender, it is indisputable that the person’s body is built differently with, for example, higher or lower levels of testosterone, greater or lesser strength in the legs or upper torso, etc. Hence the many requests for surgery or hormone therapies in efforts to eliminate those differences and try to make the physical match the psychological.
Without the assistance of surgery or hormone-altering drugs, the provision of which to minors is now illegal in MO, we see many ways — but especially in the muscular systems — that the impact of those differences between the two sexes is inescapable and overwhelming. The regulation known as “Title IX” came about for exactly that reason: female bodies were not made to fairly or safely compete with or against male bodies.
For these reasons, in addition to the enormous number of states, including Missouri, filing lawsuits and winning injunctions against the Biden administration’s revisions to Title IX, the Ozark School District is not making any changes to our current policies or definitions regarding Title IX. Furthermore, the District recognizes that the terms “gender” and “sex” are frequently used interchangeably in society, so we clarify the use of either of those terms in District policies or procedures or documents to both mean “sex as discovered at birth.”
Thanks for reading! I look forward to updating you soon about the addition of that topic to the August 29 meeting agenda for discussion. Please be sure to contact your representatives on the Board about this or any other topic you’d like to discuss! Contact info is given on the District website, or, if that doesn’t work for you, please feel free to email me at ChristinaforOzark@yahoo.com.
*As always, I speak only for myself and do not intend to represent the Board to you in any way in what I say or write. I do, however, fully and firmly intend to represent YOU to the Board!
Christina Tonsing is a member of the Ozark School Board in Ozark, MO. She is a guest columnist. This is the second of a two-part series.If you wish to be published in the CCT, submit your name and contact information with your article to: ChristianCountyTrumpet@gmail.com.
379600cookie-checkTitle IX: Boys in Girls’ Bathrooms? Not yet!yes
