Katy native, LGBTQ activist and Executive Director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT) Cameron Samuels reacted last week to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s victory against the Biden Administration’s Department of Education, stopping its attempt to have Title IX extend to transgender policies. In June 2023, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Department of Education for issuing what his office called “arbitrary and capricious guidance that unlawfully extended Title IX to include ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ as protected classes.” A press release from Paxton’s office said that the policy would have forced Texas schools and universities to allow biological males to use women’s restrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-specific spaces. “Any Texas school refusing to follow the mandate risked losing federal education funding. Today, a federal court vacated the unlawful guidance nationwide and issued a permanent injunction against its enforcement against Texas and its schools,” concluded the statement.

"School officials hold a duty to create an inclusive and protective educational environment for all students,” Samuels said in a statement to the Katy Times. “Since its inception in 1972, Title IX has been a cornerstone of educational equity, designed to protect all students, not just cisgender girls and women, from discrimination based on sex. This federal law has played a crucial role in ensuring that every student, regardless of gender identity or expression, can pursue our education in a safe and inclusive environment.”

"Recently, Texas has wasted taxpayer dollars on frivolous federal lawsuits aiming to narrow the scope of Title IX protections,” Samuels continued. “Texas’s onslaught of discriminatory laws and executive actions target some of the most vulnerable students in our community, undermining our rights and well-being, despite deserving equal protection and the same opportunities as peers. These flippant actions foment a discriminatory political climate in Texas, where school districts have recently adopted or proposed resolutions rejecting Title IX protections and are even discussing the possibility of rejecting federal funding to uphold unnecessary bigotry and prejudice against their students. SEAT calls on school districts statewide to support and uphold Title IX in its true spirit, ensuring that every student in Texas is afforded the dignity, respect, and protection we deserve."

Samuels organized nationally-recognized efforts against book banning and LGBTQ+ internet censorship in the Katy Independent School District and testified last fall before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, addressing book bans happening across Texas and the rest of the country.

Cinco Ranch High School student Jarred Burton – who has spoken to the Katy ISD board of trustees several times during public comments -- also weighed in on the decision. “If Texas and other alike states are successful in blocking the Title IX reforms permanently, school districts just like Katy ISD will be further emboldened to discriminate against their transgender students,” said Burton in an email to the Katy Times. “While anti-trans politicians sit in their offices writing our rights away, those of us in the classrooms are still suffering from the effects every day. These reforms have given us hope, and we’re not about to let people like Paxton take that away from us.”