For more than fifty years, Title IX stood as a promise to every girl in America: you will get your fair shot. Signed into law in 1972, it guaranteed that schools receiving federal funds could not discriminate on the basis of sex. One word. Clear as glass. Generations of women earned scholarships, broke records, and built athletic careers on that foundation. Then the Biden administration decided that word didn’t mean what the entire country understood it to mean.

The fallout was immediate and ugly. Girls across the country found themselves competing against biological males who claimed a female identity. Scholarships evaporated. Records were rewritten. Young women in Connecticut, California, and elsewhere filed lawsuits, arguing – correctly – that they’d been robbed of opportunities they’d trained years to earn. Parents raised alarms, and school administrators just shrugged and pointed toward Washington. The only real question was how long this madness would survive contact with reality.

From The Post Millennial:

The Department of Education on Monday formally rescinded the Biden-era rewrite of Title IX, which expanded the protections afforded to women to sexual orientation and gender identity, including for men who believe they are women. In its place, the Trump administration has reinstated the common sense 2020 regulations from Trump’s first administration.

This change is meant to formally protect women’s sports and to disallow men who claim to be women from competing in women’s categories. Several states, however, require elementary, middle, high school and colleges to allow men to play on women’s teams, creating an unfair playing field. Some girls, from Connecticut to California, have brought suits against their schools for allowing men to play against them, saying that this has caused injury and loss of opportunities such as in scholarships or awards.

Good. This is precisely the kind of clear, resolute action Americans have been demanding. Education Secretary Linda McMahon – never one to sugarcoat things – called the Biden rewrite flatly “illegal” and said Monday’s move “clears the Biden Administration’s illegal rewrite of Title IX from the Code of Federal Regulations and restores the commonsense language promulgated in the first Trump Administration.”

In an exclusive sit-down with OutKick, McMahon put it even more plainly: “We’re just acknowledging that boys and men are in boys and men’s sports and girls are in theirs.” It shouldn’t require a cabinet secretary to say something that obvious. But apparently it did.

The courts saw through it too

This wasn’t some gray-area policy squabble. Back in 2025, a federal judge ruled that Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services “exceeded its authority” when it shoehorned gender identity into Title IX’s text. The Trump administration had already resumed enforcing the original 2020 regulations by January 31, 2025. Monday’s formal action simply scrubbed the illegal language from the Code of Federal Regulations – housekeeping, really, but important housekeeping. As the Department’s own fact sheet explained, the goal was ensuring “schools, students, and families can easily identify the Title IX regulations that are actually in effect.”

And in June 2026, the Supreme Court cemented the legal landscape by upholding laws in Idaho and West Virginia that restrict girls’ sports to biological females. The judiciary, from district courts to the highest bench, has spoken with remarkable clarity.

Real restitution for real athletes

What makes this restoration meaningful – not just symbolic – is the precedent already established for making victims whole. Consider the University of Pennsylvania. Under an agreement with the Department of Education, Penn was required to restore records and titles stripped from female swimmers who lost to Lia Thomas. The school also had to issue formal apologies. McMahon highlighted this to OutKick: “Not only were apologies extended, but the titles were then given to the women who had rightfully won.”

That’s not paperwork. That’s justice with teeth.

Holdout states aren’t off the hook

Not every state has caught up. Maine, California, and Minnesota still permit biological males to compete in girls’ athletics. The Trump administration, however, isn’t relying on polite requests. A Title IX Special Investigations Team now operates in coordination with the Department of Justice. The federal government has filed suit against Maine directly. States flagged as “high risk” no longer receive education funding upfront – they must submit receipts proving their dollars went where they should.

McMahon’s counsel to parents whose daughters face this at the local level? Raise it with your superintendent. Report it to federal authorities. The machinery exists now to act on those complaints.

Title IX was written to protect women. For a few reckless years, ideologues in Washington twisted it beyond recognition. Now the regulations reflect what the statute always demanded, what the courts have affirmed, and what biology never stopped insisting. Boys compete with boys. Girls compete with girls. The promise of 1972 holds – stronger, frankly, than it has in years.

Key Takeaways

• The Trump administration formally erased Biden’s illegal Title IX rewrite, restoring the original 2020 protections for women.
• Courts at every level – including the Supreme Court – confirmed that Title IX means biological sex, not gender identity.
• Female athletes like those at UPenn have already had stolen titles restored and received formal apologies.
• Holdout states face federal lawsuits, DOJ investigations, and funding restrictions until they comply.

Sources: The Post Millennial, OutKick