Trump administration snubs Pride and declares June is ‘Title IX Month’
The Trump administration previously said June is now Title IX Month, not Pride Month. (Getty)
The Trump administration previously said June is now Title IX Month, not Pride Month. (Getty)
June is no longer Pride month – at least that’s what the Trump administration has said.
The US Department of Education (DoE) has made the formal declaration that Pride month doesn’t, in a report proclaiming it was federal policy that June was now Title IX month.
Published in the first week of Pride month – errr, we mean Title IX Month – on Monday (2 June), the Trump administration’s decree announced this month would honour the 53rd anniversary of the signing of Title IX of the Education Amendments.
Signed in 1972, the landmark legislation prohibits sex-based discrimination by any educational institution that receives funding from the federal government.
A DoE spokesperson said the government would dedicate June to “commemorating women, and celebrating their struggle for, and achievement of, equal education opportunity”.
Officials took the report as a chance to take a dig at former president Joe Biden, saying: “Throughout the month, the department will highlight actions taken to reverse the Biden administration’s legacy of undermining Title IX and announce additional actions to protect women in line with the true purpose of Title IX.”
During his presidency, Biden passed amendments to Title IX’s anti-discrimination rules, extending them to trans people. These were blocked in more than 26 states, a move given the green light by the Supreme Court last year.
The DoE, led by former wrestling promoter Linda McMahon, said it planned to celebrate the month by trying to ban trans women from female sports in two states, starting separate investigations into the University of Wyoming and Jefferson County Public Schools, in Colorado, for “allowing males to join and live in female-only intimate and communal spaces”.
The DoE’s announcement comes as LGBTQ+ activist groups and not-for-profit organisations marked Pride month by sharing their concerns about the worldwide rise of anti-trans hate.
A GLAAD report, published on Sunday (1 June), highlighted at least 932 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents in 49 US states in the past year – an average of 2.5 every day. 52 per cent of these were against transgender and gender-non-conforming people and, overall, resulted in 10 deaths and 84 injuries. The advocacy group claimed the spike in numbers was a result of the continued anti-trans rhetoric being voiced by politicians and pundits.
In 2024, Republicans reportedly spent nearly a quarter-of-a-billion dollars on anti-trans political ads, while a record-breaking 575 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in US state legislatures so far this year.
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