President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week, rolling back Biden-era guidance that offered Title IX protection based on gender identity by requiring federal agencies to implement policies based on the biologically-defined understanding of the male and female sexes.
Conservatives lauded the change as a "massive win for America," with some declaring the "radical woke gender ideology" of the previous four years to be dead.
Among them is Alliance Defending Freedom president, CEO and general counsel Kristen Waggoner, whose group represents parents, educators and other school officials in cases involving free speech, parental rights and more.
"I think that the Biden administration promoted an Orwellian view that men can become women, and it has eroded and nearly gutted the rights of women, and we are now seeing the Trump administration help us turn the corner on that and say that sex is neither chosen nor is changeable, and many states want to go in that direction because it's a return to common sense and biological reality and even touches on the rule of law what we know to be true," she told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.
"I think that we're going to see states and local school board policies breathe a sigh of relief that they won't have the federal government coercing them into what has become nothing more than social experimentation and coercion."
Waggoner predicts the move will have far-reaching effects on education by restoring protections for biological females and influencing school policies regarding single-sex spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms and accommodations on school-sponsored trips.
"It will impact women's sports. It will impact housing, how women are treated in private spaces. It will impact how schools are rooming students on school-sponsored overnight trips. It should impact secret transition policies that we're seeing in public school districts," she said.
"It also wipes away what some school districts have hidden behind, which is suggesting that the federal government requires them to embrace radical gender ideology, and they can no longer say that, which is critical in this battle that is occurring across the United States, not just at a federal government level, but at a state level and a local policy level as well," she added.
Trump's executive order requiring government entities to adhere to the term "sex" rather than "gender" came shortly after taking the reins from President Biden last Monday. By proxy, the move ushered in changes such as mandating government-issued identifications such as passports and visas acknowledging "an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female."
Education news source Inside Higher Ed said the order includes provisions that require the Department of Education to "take action and issue guidance about how colleges should comply."
"Depending on how the department responds, the order could complicate institutions’ efforts to accommodate transgender students and eventually change how the federal government enforces Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972," the outlet continued.
New York City-based higher education attorney Susan Friedfel said, per the report, that taking other state and federal laws designed to protect LGBTQ+ students into account creates "a lot of questions," adding, "It’s challenging because we have conflicting laws that apply to the same space."
Waggoner, adding on to her remarks about Trump's executive order, suggested policies regarding preferred pronoun use in educational spaces could also see some changes.
"We have had, at Alliance Defending Freedom, a number of cases on behalf of both teachers in the classroom and counselors, many of whom have been fired because they refused to participate in the transition of children behind the backs of parents and because they have refused to participate by using their own pronouns," she said.
"This makes clear what many courts have said already, that you can't coerce people to say things that they believe to be untrue, and it also means in the litigation that we have across the country, the federal government should be switching sides in that litigation or even potentially dropping certain cases in appeals where we have won these cases in the courts and have to continue fighting, which puts everyday Americans caught in the midst of this horrendous battle at great risk – those who have lost their jobs and are no longer able to get a job in a public school classroom because of what the government has done to them."
ACLU LAWYER CALLS FEMALES ‘NON-TRANSGENDER WOMEN’ IN RANT ABOUT TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER
During the Biden era, some school districts adopted clandestine practices to leave parents in the dark if their child identified with a gender identity different from the one corresponding with their biological sex.
Some red states and conservative districts pushed back in their own ways. Parents, in many cases, objected to the progressive practice as well.
Waggoner said she "wouldn't be surprised" if some blue states pushed back against the order, while also noting that the Trump administration has the ability to withhold federal funding from governments and school boards "refusing to follow biological reality."
"You shouldn't receive federal funds if you're not going to follow federal law and if you're going to erode the rights of women," she said.
"Right now, we believe all of America is waking up to the dangers of this ideology, so I think you will see our state governments and local school boards more willing to speak truth in this area… I think you're going to see more and more Americans really take part in what President Trump has launched as a revolution of common sense, and you're going to see more parents and school board members and citizens stand up and say, 'No, we're going to pass good, common sense policies because now we know the federal government is also with us, and that just gives even more courage.'"