Federal judges are blocking Biden’s plans to protect LGBT+ students

Within a week, Republican-appointed federal judges have blocked enforcement in 10 states of newly enacted policies to protect transgender students.

The decisions follow a pair of lawsuits from Republican attorneys general taking aim at President Joe Biden’s anti-discrimination platform, which could now be headed for the Supreme Court to decide as GOP officials and conservative Christian legal groups fire off at least five other lawsuits striking back at the president’s transgender-inclusive policy changes.

Landmark civil rights law known as Title IX has barred discrimination in schools based on sex for more than 50 years. Biden’s regulations announced in April expand the scope of those protections to explicitly include discrimination targeting sexual orientation and gender identity.

Those protections – which would apply to every school in the country that accepts federal funding – would allow trans students to play sports and use bathrooms that align with their gender, and allow students to use their preferred names and pronouns.

But on Monday, District Judge Danny Reeves issued an injunction that blocks those protections from going into effect in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Last week, District Judge Terry Doughty blocked the rules from going into effect in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.

Education Department attorneys have argued that a Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling– which affirmed workplace discrimination protections for LGBT+ people – should then extend those protections to LGBT+ students.

The judges rejected that argument.

Doughty, who was appointed by Donald Trump, wrote the new rule is “an abuse of power” and a “threat to democracy.”

“Title IX was enacted for the