President-elect Donald Trump and his allies have made it clear — through statements policy position And Selected campaign surrogates — that his administration wants to bar trans athletes from playing on school sports teams that match their gender identity.
“The president banned it,” Trump said said at a Fox News event in Georgia last month. “You just don’t let it happen. No big deal.”
Trump and other Republicans initially Trans Girls Threaten Participation in K-12 Sports ProgramsCollege athletes won’t be immune to any of Trump’s decision-making, however.
Trump’s threat raises the question: Could he challenge the right of trans athletes to compete in school sports?
How will Trump impose such a ban?
The short answer is yes. Trump can repeal civil rights and discrimination Enumerated protections under the Biden administration, This applies specifically to trans students.
The executive branch has a lot of control over what counts as discrimination in education, thanks Title IXA Civil Rights Act was originally intended to advance women’s equality. The Biden administration has taken the position that the law’s protections against discrimination “on the basis of sex” mean that discrimination against trans students based on their trans identity qualifies as gender discrimination.
That interpretation of the law faced legal challenges and was rejected by about half of the states. The Trump administration could — and likely will — simply take the position that Title IX offers no protections to trans students.
According to John Vaillant, director of the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy, the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX could go further by arguing that “participation of trans athletes in girls’ sports discriminates against girls.” .
New legal battles over Title IX could come if Democratic governors and attorneys general move to block the new interpretation — essentially the opposite of the current Title IX landscape.
Ultimately, the administration could go through Congress and try to rewrite Title IX, specifically citing those positions rather than simply interpreting the current law that way, Vaillant said. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN) already has a proposal In July, the law rolled back the Biden-era regulation. Trump also said he would ask Congress to pass a bill Only two genders exist.
Republicans will have narrow majorities in both the House and Senate. It is possible that such a bill could pass, although it would probably encounter some difficulty in the Senate, where Republicans lack a filibuster-proof majority.
Outside of federal action, some states prefer Florida There are already restrictions against transgender students participating in school sports. Only people in that law Women assigned at birth can play on girls’ sports teams.
Such laws could be stepping stones to erode trans people’s rights to non-discrimination in schools and workplaces, as well as their ability to access health care, Jillian Branstetter, communications strategist for the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and LGBTQ and HIV Project, told Vox.
“I can’t think of a single state or politician that has taken on this issue that has decided that they’re only going to narrowly focus on the rights of transgender athletes,” Branstetter said. “They, using exactly the same legal arguments, using the same legal language and generally using the same lawyers, have used them as well. [tactics] Banning gender-affirming health care, limiting what bathrooms trans-people can use, and a long litany of other restrictions.”
