Abstract
The struggle for equality in education begins with language. Legal categories like “sex” and “gender identity” shape who is protected and who is left behind. When the Supreme Court decided Bostock v. Clayton County, it extended protection to LGBTQ+ workers but offered no definition robust enough to secure similar rights for students under Title IX. Subsequent efforts by the Department of Education to bridge that gap—culminating in Tennessee v. Cardona and constrained by Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—reveal the limits of agency action in a post-Chevron era. This Note calls for a legislative solution: an amended Equality Act Bill (“EAB”) that defines “sex,” “gender identity,” and “sexual orientation” through inclusive, non-binary language. By reimagining how federal law conceptualizes identity, the EAB can transform equality from aspiration into reality.
Recommended Citation
Negar Khalaf,
THE HETERONORMATIVE LANGUAGE OF LAW: THE WIN IN BOSTOCK AND THE LOSS FOR TITLE IX,
34 J. L. & Pol'y
233
(2025).
Available at:
https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/jlp/vol34/iss1/9
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