Eve Moulton 

Title IX Against Discrimination 

Imagine that you are an individual in the United States. You are refused housing when you 

search for it and evicted even without causing any problems. Because of this, it is hard to for you to stay 

safe and your important documents and items are at high risk of being lost or stolen. Most homeless 

shelters actually turn you away when you seek help. Without a permanent address, it is hard to nd 

work or have a bank account, making it hard to become nancially stable. You had to drop out of 

school early, which o ers you fewer opportunities now. You have a di cult time getting hired at any 

job, and the jobs that you do get hired at are often low paying and less reliable. In the workplace, you 

are socially isolated, harassed, and have a low chance of being promoted and a high risk of being red. 

Because of these problems, you turn to risky jobs that put your physical and mental health at risk, 

underpay, and/or require illegal actions just to have a source of income. You have a poor mental and 

physical health due to having a hard time getting access to healthcare and being mistreated within in 

the medical system, which makes it even harder to nd and keep work. When you exist in public you 

are at high risk for harassment and violence, further risking your mental and physical well-being. 

Something is wrong here. You shouldn't be treated like this. No one should. But this is life as the 

average transgender person in the US. Obviously, not every experience is the same, but transgender 

people face a wide variety of harmful discrimination that often forces them into undesirable living 

situations and puts their very existence at risk. What can be done to change this? The federal 

government should amend Title IX to prohibit discrimination based upon assigned sex di ering from 

gender identity. 

Title IX is a federal civil rights law that was passed as part of the Education Amendments of 

1972. It states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from 
participation in, be denied the bene ts of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education 

program or activity receiving Federal nancial assistance” (“20 U.S. Code § 1681 - Sex”). This means 

that large institutions, which often receive federal funding, would be made to equally support women, 

and it made a huge di erence in getting women more resources, representation, and attention in their 

work which had previously been put aside as less important. The biggest di erence was seen in 

athletics, where it lead to increased participation of female athletes due to more attention and funding 

being allocated to them. More opportunities allowed more women to achieve fame for their skill in 

sports and the increased number of women in sports improved the overall health of women in general. 

Title IX also increased women’s access to higher education in general, even if they were pregnant or 

parents, and the overall equality in the education they were given even in male-dominated disciplines 

such as STEM. It also improved the equality of the work and school environments by targeting 

harassment and biased systems set in place to purposefully bene t some people at the expense of others 

(“10 Key Areas of Title IX”). It also further protected women by ensuring that inequalities had the 

backing to be legally prosecuted in order to change situations for the better. This could make a great 

di erence in the lives of transgender people by ensuring that the inequalities they face would have legal 

precedence and ensure better and more healthy environments for them. A proposed amendment to 

Title IX that would ensure this is changing the wording from “on the basis of sex” to “on the basis of 

sex or assigned sex di ering from gender identity”. Possible additions in order to protect this 

amendment might also include proposing a time restraint before it is allowed to be revisited, and 

solidifying that it must be debated in a certain fair manner, where transgender people have a voice in 

the decision to be changed. 

Transgender people are harmed in an extreme way by the discrimination that they face daily in 

the US. Transgender individuals experience legal discrimination that leads to the detriment of their 

health. Only 18 states and the District of Columbia prohibit employment and housing discrimination 

based on gender identity, only 17 states and the District of Columbia prohibit discrimination based on 
gender identity in public accommodations, and only 15 states and the District of Columbia prohibit 

discrimination based on gender identity in education (“Understanding the Transgender 

Community”). Because of this, 15% of transgender individuals live in severe poverty, leading them to 

engage in underground economies to survive that put them at increased risk for violence and arrest 

(“Understanding the Transgender Community”). Because of their gender identity, 26% of transgender 

people have lost a job due to bias, 50% have been harassed while working, 20% have been evicted or 

denied housing due to their gender identity, and 78% of transgender students were harassed or 

assaulted (“Non-Discrimination Laws”). “Trans panic” justi cations are excuses that have been legally 

recognized that justify violence against transgender individuals due to a fear of the transgender 

individual’s existence, implying that transgender people are something to be feared and that their lives 

are worth less than cisgender individuals- famously it was used in the Matthew Shepard case (“Gay and 

Trans Panic Defense”). 

Another common issue transgender people face is being denied access to restrooms, which 

leads to physical health problems, due to restraining the body for long periods of time, and mental 

problems, by being labeled as dangerous outsiders without a warrant. There are many instances of 

proposed so-called ‘bathroom bills’ in states such as Kentucky, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, and Texas, 

which put transgender people at risk of being publicly outed and facing violence due to their identity 

(Wong). Transgender individuals are also often denied access to sports teams in the gender they identify 

with, which causes similar problems as bathroom restrictions while also isolating them socially in 

critical phases of development. Even more, transgender people often face di culty changing their 

name on legal documents- a necessity because, without identi cation, they cannot travel, register for 

school or access many services that are essential to function in society. In order to change their 

documents, many states require evidence of medical transition, which is not only invasive and 

demeaning but often exorbitantly expensive and not available to all transgender individuals, even if 

they do want the surgeries, which not all do. And 33% of transgender individuals who have medically 
transitioned still are not able to update their identity documents to their preferred name and gender 

(“Understanding the Transgender Community”). 

Transgender individuals also experience discrimination on a social and emotional level that 

impacts their mental and physical health even more severely. Transgender individuals are more likely to 

be bullied, rejected, and harassed due to over a century of being characterized as mentally ill, socially 

deviant, and sexually predatory. This causes problems in their emotional and social development as a 

child, destroys their ability to create and rely on social networks, and increases the risk of mental health 

problems such as clinical anxiety and depression, self harm, and suicide. 41% of transgender individuals 

attempt suicide, in comparison to 1.6% of the general population (Grant et al.). They are more like to 

have trouble staying in school or at work, which leads to less opportunities or economic stability. 1/5 of 

incidents of harassment or discrimination in New York schools during the 2012-13 school year were 

related to a student’s perceived sex, gender or sexual orientation (Wong). Half of transgender youth 

report skipping school at least once during a month, half of them because they felt unsafe or 

uncomfortable in the school environment. Relatedly, transgender youth had signi cantly lower GPAs 

and college aspirations than their cisgender peers (Wong). The Centers for Disease Control found that 

childhood trauma that transgender individuals face can deter brain development, particularly neural 

areas that control memory and verbal ability and emotions such as anxiety and depression, and can 

seem like learning disabilities in the su erers (Wong). 

Transgender people, especially those who do not have the resources to ensure they “pass” or 

change their legal documents to re ect their gender, are likely to be called by their birth name rather 

than their chosen name and being mistaken for the gender they were assigned at birth. This increases 

their risk for dysphoria and depression and creates issues with skewed mental images of self that can 

lead to risky behaviors such as self harm or eating disorders as time goes on. Transgender individuals are 

more at risk for violence committed both by strangers and by people they know, including intimate 

partners. This, of course, creates physical health problems. It also creates mental health issues, as the 
individual is more likely to see themselves as less valuable and therefore become vulnerable to further 

abuse and manipulation, and the increased assaults lead to an increased risk of PTSD. The federal 

O ce for Victims of Crime reports that transgender individuals face “shockingly high” levels of sexual 

abuse and assault (Wong). 72% of victims in LGBTQ or HIV-motivated hate violence homicides are 

transgender women, 67% of them people of color (“Understanding the Transgender Community”). 

Transgender people also have fewer options for protection from violence or seeking justice, as 22% of 

transgender people who have interacted with the police experienced bias-based harassment from them- 

6% reported physical assault, 2% reported sexual assault, and 20% reported having been denied equal 

service by law enforcement (“Understanding the Transgender Community”). 

Transgender people also face rampant discrimination in health care settings. They are regularly 

denied needed care and experience a range of health risks because they are non-conforming to gender 

norms: Transgender individuals reported very high levels of postponing medical care when sick or 

injured due to discrimination and disrespect, 19 % reported being refused care outright because they 

were transgender or gender non-conforming, 28% were subjected to harassment in medical settings, 

and 50% had to teach their medical providers about transgender care because they didn’t have adequate 

knowledge (“New Report...”). A minority of transgender individuals have had any transitional surgery 

despite the fact that a strong majority stated wanting to have it someday. Also the percentage of 

transgender individuals with infected with HIV is more than four times the national average and over a 

quarter of transgender individuals reported misusing drugs or alcohol speci cally to cope with the 

discrimination they faced without proper support (Grant et al.) In addition, the average lifespan of 

transgender individuals in the United States is 23 years old, as opposed to the national average of 78.7 

years old. In Sierra Leon, the country with the lowest life expectancy in the world, 44 years old, people 

still live signi cantly longer than transgender individuals in the US (“Trans Discrimination”). Steps 

need to be taken in order to combat these things and protect people. 

 There is a precedent for Title IX to be used to protect transgender individuals and it can be 

invoked again. As Title IX only says that it prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, it can be 

interpreted many ways. During the years of 2010-2016, President Barack Obama interpreted it to cover 

discrimination due to assigned sex, gender identity, and transgender status. The O ce for Civil Rights 

said, “Title IX's sex discrimination prohibition extends to claims of discrimination based on gender 

identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity and OCR accepts 

such complaints for investigation” (Carpenter). The OCR took on multiple cases of discrimination 

against transgender individuals, giving legal victories to long-fought battles towards equality. Obama 

issued guidance in the form of Dear Colleague letters saying to honor transgender students' preferred 

names and pronouns, permitted students to participate in sex-segregated activities and use 

sex-segregated facilities that agree with their gender identity, and protected transgender students' 

privacy by avoiding non-consensual disclosure of their gender status (Carpenter). 

However, when Donald Trump became President in 2017, he began rolling back these 

protections that had been put in place. The Trump administration determined that the question of 

access to sex-segregated facilities should be left to the states and local school districts, e ectively taking 

away federal protection and making it more di cult for transgender individuals to nd or enforce their 

protection (Smith and Redden). Je Sessions wrote a memorandum claiming, “‘Sex’ is ordinarily 

de ned to be biologically male or female” and does not “[encompass] discrimination based on gender 

identity per se”, therefore the law does not cover discrimination due to gender identity against 

transgender individuals (Sessions). Early 2018, the Education Department announced that they did 

not interpret Title IX to allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their preferred gender 

identities, and a spokesperson from the Department of Energy announced that, “Title IX prohibits 

discrimination on the basis of sex, not gender identity. . . In the case of bathrooms, however, 

long-standing regulations provide that separating facilities on the basis of sex is not a form of 

discrimination prohibited by Title IX” (Balingit). We need an o cial amendment to be made to the 
legislation in order to cement in protections for transgender people so that they cannot be taken away 

by an administration with di ering viewpoints. 

Transgender individuals need defense in the United States to protect from the rampant 

discrimination they face, which can be combated through amending Title IX to be sympathetic to 

their cause. Title IX ensures that discrimination based on sex is illegal in institutions that receive federal 

funding, and has been largely successful in making school, work, and athletic environments safer and 

more accessible to women. Transgender individuals face a wide variety of very severe forms of 

discrimination in many aspects of their lives that put their mental and physical wellbeing at extreme 

risk, and this can be combated with amending Title IX. Title IX can be interpreted in di erent ways 

depending on the position of the current administration- the Obama administration interpreted it as 

including discrimination against transgender people due to gender identity, while the Trump 

administration interpreted it as not including discrimination against transgender people due to sex not 

encompassing gender identity issues. An o cial amendment to Title IX protecting transgender 

individuals from discrimination, so that protections from it cannot be taken away by an administration 

with di ering viewpoints, is an essential start to changing the dangerous climate transgender 

individuals live with within the United States. Of course, other things need to be done, but this could 

protect some basic rights, and that is the rst large step to take to move towards equality. Further steps 

include making governments issue guidance about what the law means, such as explicitly stating that it 

protects transgender individuals from experiencing discrimination due to their assigned sex and gender 

identity di ering, and enforcing policies that protect this. While this current administration is openly 

showing hostility towards actions such as these, they are the best way to move forward and hopefully, 

in the future, we as citizens will be able to change the climate and the leadership we elect in order to 

make the right change.   

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