{"id":691428,"date":"2022-06-15T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T11:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/?post_type=article&p=691428"},"modified":"2022-06-20T09:04:18","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T13:04:18","slug":"women-who-fought-for-title-ix-50-years-ago-divided-over-transgender-inclusion","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/article\/women-who-fought-for-title-ix-50-years-ago-divided-over-transgender-inclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Women Who Fought for Title IX 50 Years Ago Divided Over Transgender Inclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Margaret Dunkle remembers how complicated it was back in 1975 when she helped draft regulations to curb generations of inequality in men\u2019s and women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was three years after Title IX \u2014 the federal civil rights law banning sex discrimination in education \u2014 was signed into law. \u201cThe issues we are discussing here were the same ones people, including me, were grappling with when the original Title IX regulations regarding single-sex teams were being written,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The latest debate, about whether Title IX should codify transgender rights \u2014 something that could happen when revised regulations are released in the coming weeks \u2014 has caused deep divisions, and in some cases, pitted natural allies against each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Former Sen. Birch Bayh, a co-sponsor of Title IX, jogged with female athletes at Purdue University in 1972, the year of the law\u2019s passage. (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But while the issue is difficult, especially in sports, it\u2019s a mistake to think that things were less complicated when President Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law 50 years ago on June 23, 1972.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLooking back, things always seem simpler, but I remember how fraught the arguments were, and how difficult it was for people to reconsider their beliefs about boys and girls,\u201d said Susan Bailey, who helped implement Title IX while working at the Connecticut Department of Education. The transgender question \u201cis very polarizing, and people once again want a single, simple solution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Title IX shook all that up\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The fact that it took three years from the time the law was passed to draw up regulations showed that \u201cthe Nixon administration did not have the slightest interest in enforcing this law or equality for women and girls,\u201d said Holly Knox, who was a legislative aide in the then-U.S. Office of Education, covering Congressional hearings on sex discrimination. After the law passed, she became disillusioned with government education and enforcement efforts and established the Project on Equal Education Rights at the National Organization of Women\u2019s Legal Defense and Education Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n