Despite the Trump administration threatening to withhold funding from Maine schools for allegedly violating federal rules against sex-based discrimination, no funding has been permanently taken away from public schools, so far.

In a , President Donald Trump told Maine Gov. Janet Mills during a February National Governors Association event at the White House that she must comply with his executive order barring transgender athletes from competing on women’s sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Otherwise, he warned, “you’re not going to get federal funding.”

In the wake of that, several federal agencies targeted Maine for its inclusive policies that allow transgender girls to play on girls sports teams. The Trump administration argued the policy is in violation of Title IX, the federal nondiscrimination law that bans sex-based discrimination, and opened several investigations into the Maine Department of Education (DOE). An investigation was also launched into the Maine Principal’s Association, which regulates school sports, and Greely High School in Cumberland after a state legislator posted a picture of a trans athlete from the school on her legislative Facebook page.

In April, the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that Maine had violated Title IX and referred their cases to the U.S. Department of Justice. In a , the federal Education Department also said it would simultaneously “initiate an administrative proceeding to adjudicate termination of MDOE’s federal K-12 education funding, including formula and discretionary grants.”

Last year, the Maine DOE received $183.9 million from the U.S. Department of Education, which of the federal funding the department received that year.

The is pending, according to the Maine Attorney General’s office, but neither federal agency withheld any funding from the Maine DOE as a result of their guilty finding, said Maine Deputy Attorney General Christopher Taub.

Withholding of federal education funding was one of the primary concerns as they introduced several bills aiming to restrict trans rights this past legislative session, .

Also this spring, several from Maine, many of which were challenged or walked back. For example, in April, Maine the U.S. Department of Agriculture for freezing school nutrition funding, which federal courts ordered the agency to restore.

The ruling marked Maine’s first legal victory in fighting the Title IX violation allegations, but other lawsuits are still pending.

The USDA, which never launched an official probe, is the only agency so far to withhold federal funding from Maine schools, the attorney general’s office confirmed. The funding was frozen on April 2, and restored by a federal judge’s order on April 11. to Mills announcing the freeze, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote, “this pause does not impact federal feeding programs or direct assistance to Mainers; if a child was fed today, they will be fed tomorrow.”

But according to Jane McLucas, Maine’s child nutrition director, the agency froze roughly $2.75 million in funds that impacted various aspects of the school nutrition program. While reimbursement funds for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs were still accessible, money used to run those programs — including for the salaries of 12 state employees, as well as funding for office technology and oversight — was temporarily blocked, McLucas said. Also, funding for the Child and Adult Care Food Program, which provides food reimbursements to eligible children and adults in after school programs, child and adult day care centers, was also hit, with providers losing access to “cash in lieu” payments they use to buy food and to administrative funds that cover staffing costs.

Two months later, Maine also the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) after the agency canceled a $9 million grant to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. That grant had been awarded to restore tidal salt marsh habitat and protect coastal infrastructure from flooding. The lawsuit, which is also still pending, alleges that NOAA may have terminated the grant because of Maine’s alleged violation of Title IX, according to Danna Hayes, director of public affairs for the Maine Attorney General’s Office.

Nearly $50 million in federal funding has also been , as of May, including grants that were temporarily frozen and then restored, terminated or threatened. This funding was cut despite the USDA in March that the university system is in compliance with the Trump administration’s transgender policy.

How much of this funding was related to Title IX is unclear, and the university system declined to provide specifics on at least one grant that was withheld due to Title IX, then temporarily restored and ultimately terminated.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com.

The White House on Wednesday said it had “” $175 million in federal funding from the University of Pennsylvania after a transgender swimmer, Lia Thomas, in 2022 won several medals in Division I women’s swimming.

Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Education Department said its Office of Civil Rights had that the state of Maine violated federal Title IX anti-discrimination law after Katie Spencer, a young transgender pole vaulter, won a state championship last month. The department said Maine could jeopardize federal funding if it doesn’t “swiftly and completely” reverse its policies.Ěý

Protests followed after Thomas and SpencerĚýbegan competing in women’s competitions and fared better than they previously had in men’sĚýevents.

The moves follow through on a promise Trump made 16 days after his second inauguration, when he issued an threatening to rescind federal funding from schools that let transgender women play on women’s sports teams

As with other aspects of Trump’s presidency, it leaves institutions in the unenviable position of caving before an increasingly aggressive White House — or fighting back in federal court, where many of the legal issues remain unsettled and, in a few cases, have actually favored trans students.

The order’s practical effect: confusion, especially in the roughly half of states that allow transgender athletes to compete in sports consistent with their gender identity. These state laws and policies now face a powerful conservative backlash that sees trans athletes’ participation at every level as patently unfair and itself, and seeks to remove them — and their accomplishments — altogether.

Leading the charge: the education department’s Office of Civil Rights, which has opened more than half a dozen investigations in two months. Along with probes of anti-semitism, trans athletic policies now dominate OCR’s investigative portfolio, despite to the office by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Jackie Gharapour Wernz, a former OCR attorney who now consults for educational institutions, called the new administration’s approach “unprecedented — but it’s not even just unprecedented. It’s so much further beyond precedent that it just feels like we’re in a completely different world at this point.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said.

‘Fairness and safety’

Penn, Trump’s alma mater, late Wednesday said it had not received any notification or details of the action. But a spokesperson told the that the university “has always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams.”

A spokesperson for the Maine Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

As with Maine, several states are finding that adhering to their own laws can invite a federal investigation — and an abrupt cut in aid — from an administration that is comfortable calling out educators who they see as failing to protect young women in sports. 

The complexity in many ways mirrors public perception. Recent , for instance, find that while 56% of Americans support policies that protect trans people from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces, 66% favor laws and policies that require trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth. 

“As a parent, I’m concerned about fairness and safety for my girls in sports,” said Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty and a mother of four. Allowing “biological males” to compete in women’s events, she said, “undermines the level playing field” that federal regulations were meant to protect, “given the inherent physical advantages men have.”

In 2025, the issue no longer falls entirely along ideological lines. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said transgender athletes playing in women’s sports is “” to female athletes. 

States evenly divided

Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding, but whether that applies to trans students and athletics remains an open question. President Biden in 2022 put forth a sweeping set of changes protecting students against discrimination based not just on sex but on sexual orientation and gender identity, in effect making transgender students a protected class. But the proposal sidestepped the question of athletics, with administration officials at the time saying those regulations would come soon. 

They never came, and the Title IX protections for LGBTQ students have been repeatedly struck down by the courts. Biden put forth a draft rule to protect transgender athletes that acknowledged fairness issues but suggested they could be solved on a case-by-case basis. He last December in advance of Trump’s second term.Ěý

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a transgender ban on women’s and girls’ sports, but the Senate a bid to consider it earlier this month, leaving educators in many states to figure it out on their own.

Add to that in federal courts that have upheld the rights of trans athletes, said Wernz, and schools are in “an incredibly tough position,” especially considering Trump’s order. 

State laws are on the subject: 23 states and the District of Columbia allow transgender students to play on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

Five days after Trump’s executive order, , which oversees sports in public and private schools, that it was banning trans athletes from participating in girls’ sports, saying schools needed “clear and consistent direction” on the issue. For more than a decade, the group had allowed trans athletes to play via a waiver if they undertook sex reassignment before puberty or if they did hormone therapy, among other requirements.

The league, which oversees 318 schools and about 177,000 students, said just five students applied for waivers last year.

In addition to Maine and Penn, OCR is investigating state athletic associations in California and Minnesota, where officials have said they’ll continue allowing trans athletes to compete on teams that match their gender identity. On March 3, it announced an into a school district in Washington State that allowed a trans player to compete in basketball last month.

It’s also San Jose State University and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association for what it says are violations of Title IX.

Wernz, the former OCR attorney, who worked in both the Obama and Trump administrations, said schools and districts must now decide, “‘Do we comply with the federal courts, or do we comply with the Department of Education?’ Frankly it’s a pretty new situation.” 

‘We’ll see you in court.’

To many, the case of Thomas, the Penn swimmer, has come to epitomize the current complications. In 2022, Thomas, who’d on the men’s team before transitioning in 2019, rose from 554th-ranked in the 200-yard freestyle to fifth. In the 500-yard freestyle, she rose from 65th as a male athlete to first in women’s competition.

While Penn and several teammates supported her during the process, three former Penn swimmers to remove Thomas’ achievements from the record books.

Pennsylvania’s interscholastic athletics governing body recently its policy to recognize Trump’s executive order, but the Philadelphia School District said it’ll ignore the change in favor of its own policy, adopted in 2016, which allows trans athletes to play in sports that match their gender identity. 

While a few experts say that could jeopardize an estimated $216 million in Title I funding, Philadelphia civil rights attorney noted that Trump’s executive order doesn’t carry the weight of law — or supersede Title IX, state law or multiple court decisions that have sided with trans students.

She said Trump “has been purposely sowing a lot of chaos and confusion,” with schools fearful of losing federal funds.

The push to ban trans athletes comes despite the fact that vanishingly small numbers of these students are pushing to play. Shortly after Trump issued the executive order, NCAA President Charlie Baker said the organization would to restrict female athletic competitions solely to student athletes “assigned female at birth.” Several sports associations followed suit, even though Baker last year told Congress that of the more than 500,000 students it represents, fewer than 10 are transgender.

Chris Young, the principal of , a 720-student regional school in Newport, Vt., near the Canadian border, rarely thinks about the topic. He knows that if trans female athletes in Vermont want to play girl’s sports teams, they can. Though he has no trans athletes on his roster, Vermont says treating students differently is illegal. 

In an interview, he recalled several conversations with students asking whether it’s fair that a young person who’s transitioning from male to female could gain a competitive advantage in sports. 

“My response is, ‘No one does this as a choice. It’s who they are, and it’s an incredibly difficult road to go down if you are a transgender athlete,’” he said. “‘No one chooses that because it’s easy, and no one chooses that because they want to win a state championship or set a record. That’s just not how it works.’”

But when trans athletes like Thomas win at nearly any competition, the backlash is often outsized. In Maine, Spencer, the transgender pole vaulter, in mid-February won the Class B state championship in pole vaulting with a jump of 10 feet, 6 inches — more than six inches higher than the next competitor. That led state Rep. Laurel Libby, a Republican, to post on X that in a previous season, as a male athlete, Spencer had in the event.

The issue a few days later, when President Trump got into a televised spat with Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, during a meeting of governors at the White House. With Mills’ colleagues looking on, Trump called her out, asking if she’d comply with his executive order.

Mills said she’s “complying with state and federal laws.” Maine bars discrimination based on gender identity.

Trump responded, “We are the federal law,” and threatened to pull Maine’s federal funding. 

“We’ll see you in court,” she replied.

Later that day, the education department . Days later, the administration released a that all but foretold the outcome, saying it’s “shameful” that Mills “refuses to stand with women and girls.” 

For her part, Mills says no president can withhold funding authorized by Congress “in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will.” 

In a , she added, “Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last.”

A federal judge ordered Hanover County Public Schools late Friday to temporarily cease blocking a transgender middle school student from trying out for and, if selected, playing on a sports team this school year.

In February, the student, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, filed a lawsuit claiming the school division violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

ACLU stated that the ruling found that the school board “likely violated” both when it banned the Hanover student from the tennis team.

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“This order is a reminder to school boards that protecting transgender young people is part of protecting girls’ sports,” said legal director Eden Heilman, in a statement. “And it’s a flashing red light to any Virginia school board that might be tempted to think that VDOE’s anti-trans model policies give it license to abuse its power. As the court reminded Hanover County School Board in its ruling, no state policies can shield Virginia schools from accountability for violating federal law.”

Last year, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration overhauled the model policies for transgender and nonbinary students designed under former Gov. Ralph Northam to protect the privacy and rights of such students.

In February, ACLU and Freshfields filed three lawsuits challenging the Virginia Department of Education on the policies that some schools have adopted.

In opposition to a student’s right to decide who finds out about their gender status out of fear of being bullied or harassed, the governor sided with parents’ rights, directing the administration to overhaul the policies.

The administration the policies to require parental approval for any changes to students’ “names, nicknames, and/or pronouns,” direct schools to keep parents “informed about their children’s well-being” and require that student participation in activities and athletics and use of bathrooms be based on sex, “except to the extent that federal law otherwise requires.”

Freshfields and ACLU filed the Hanover case in two courts, the Eastern District of Virginia and the Hanover County Circuit Court. The third lawsuit involving a York County student was in July. That suit claimed that at least one teacher had refused to address the student by her correct first name.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect that the Hanover case is being heard separately in the federal and county courts. 

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on and .

Long considered a swing state, Florida voters fell this year, including in Miami-Dade County, which has long been a Democratic enclave. Just this summer at an education conference in Orlando, former Miami-Dade schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho joked about the state of Florida politics: “The further south you go in Florida, the more north you find yourself.”

But this year, in a political climate defined by social and economic anxiety, DeSantis skated past Crist in Miami-Dade to become the first GOP gubernatorial candidate to secure the county since 2002. In doing so, he positioned himself for a possible 2024 presidential run and a looming showdown for control of the GOP with former President Donald Trump.

“We not only won election,” DeSantis said during his victory speech Tuesday night. “We have rewritten the political map.” 

DeSantis — who rose to national prominence for mask mandates, from participating in girls’ athletics and cracking down on — secured nearly 60% of votes. During his victory speech, he boasted about his response to the pandemic, which , and grievances about schools.

“We chose facts over fear, we chose education over indoctrination, we chose law and order over rioting and disorder,” said DeSantis, who first squeaked into office in 2018. “We fight the woke in the legislature, we fight the woke in the schools, we fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”

The extent to which DeSantis leaned into education as a political motivator was seen in his decision to endorse 30 candidates in local school board races this year. All six of the DeSantis-backed school board contenders won their runoffs Tuesday, meaning 24 of the 30 candidates the governor supported were victorious, .

The Florida governor’s growing stature hasn’t been lost on Trump, who could announce his third presidential bid as early as next week. During just three days before the midterms, Trump highlighted favorable poll numbers that showed him at the head of the pack in a race for the GOP nomination in 2024. 

“There it is, Trump at 71,” the former president said before laying into the governor with a jab. “Ron De-Sanctimonious at 10%.”

Trump’s name was never invoked by DeSantis on Tuesday who hinted at his larger political ambitions.Ěý

“I believe the survival of the American experiment requires a revival of true American principles,” he said. “Florida has proved that it can be done. We offer a ray of hope that better days still lie ahead.”

Sen. Beth Mizell has once again authored , which would place the restriction on high school and college sports teams. Her bill advanced without objection from the Senate Education Committee Thursday.

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“We’re asking women to go sit down and let somebody take your place,” Mizell told the committee. “And win or lose, that line is in the sand.”Ěý

The bill, which heads next to the full Senate, cited “men generally having denser and stronger bones, tendons, and ligaments, larger hearts, greater lung volume per body mass, a higher red blood cell count, and higher hemoglobin as well as higher natural levels of testosterone” as reasons that people born male have an unfair physical advantage over females in sports.

Allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports would be a violation of Title IX, a federal law approved 50 years ago that protects those in the education setting from discrimination on the basis of sex, according to the bill.

Opponents of last year’s bill, including Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, have said it could deter major sporting events from being held in Louisiana. Mizell countered that argument Thursday, saying 10 of the 15 states with transgender athlete bans have hosted NCAA championships.

Jennifer Marusak, a lobbyist and former student-athlete at Natchitoches Central High School and Northeast Louisiana University, brought her letterman’s jackets from each school to testify in support of Hewitt’s bill.

“If I’d been competing against birth males in high school or college, my name would not be in any record books at either of my schools, and my letter jacket wouldn’t look like this,” Marusak said, noting several championship patches on her high school coat.

Patricia Landeche, coach of the reigning 5A state champion girls’ basketball team at Ponchatoula High School, also spoke to the committee in favor of Mizell’s bill. She suggested competition options be made available to transgender athletes similar to intramural sports in higher education and for participants in Special Olympics.ĚýĚý

“Isn’t there some other solution for reaching an answer instead of infringing on the rights of a biological female athlete?” Landeche asked during her testimony.

There are no transgender athletes who compete on the high school or collegiate level in Louisiana, said SarahJane Guidry, executive director of Forum for Equality, an umbrella LGBTQ group in Louisiana. The Louisiana High School Athletics Association already bars them from participating in prep sports, she added.

Mizell’s bill isn’t a solution to any problem, Guidry said, but “providing lip service to a discussion about women in sports that really should be focused on funding and equality with men’s sports and not on exclusionary policies.”

When asked if he would veto the legislation like he did last year, Gov. John Bel Edwards said last week “I would hope it doesn’t reach my desk. If it does, I’ll see what it says and you’ll hear from me later on that one.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jarvis DeBerry for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on and .

Julia wouldn’t describe herself as the “biggest sports person” in the world. She’s not into basketball or football. She played soccer when she was little, but it didn’t stick as she got older.

What she’s really into are sports like cross country and track, which she feels are smaller in scale and more intimate. She trained with her dad, who used to run track in high school, and soon discovered she had a knack for it.

“He taught me the form and how to run, and I just fell in love with running hurdles because I was good at it, but also, it just gave me a feeling that you don’t really feel in a lot of other situations,” she said. It feels like putting life on pause for 20 seconds or so, she added, and “you only focus on what you’re doing and how to do it right.”

It’s this feeling Julia chases when she practices — but as a transgender athlete, she hasn’t been able to pursue it in competition. Because of statewide rules, she’s essentially barred from competing against other girls.

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“The government and think that I’m good because of how I was born, but really, I’m good because I know how to do the form, and I’m good because I practice my ass off,” said Julia, a transgender girl who attends high school in Central Texas and has requested to use a pseudonym and remain anonymous to protect her privacy. “Honestly, with the leadership that we have right now and who all is in charge and making the rules, I don’t think that I’m going to be able to run.”

Last year, the Texas Legislature passed , which requires that student athletes play on sports teams that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificate, and the certificate athletes present must have been issued near the time of birth. The law went into effect Tuesday, making to enact similar legislation.

Supporters of the law argue it is necessary to State Rep. , R-Spring, said one of her main reasons for authoring the bill was to “protect girls’ safety.” She did not respond to requests for comment for this story, but , she hinted at introducing future legislation that would expand sports team restrictions to the college level.

“We have got to come back and protect our college girls in the next session,” she said.

HB 25 targets transgender youth, a rather small slice of the state’s population. , and it’s predicted the number of transgender youth is even smaller.

Nevertheless, legislation targeting trans people has been in recent years. Lt. Gov. said Tuesday that he was “especially proud” of the law.

“In Texas, we refuse to deny any woman or girl athlete the right to compete on a level playing field, and to be the best in their sport,” Patrick .

LGBTQ advocates say there’s been little evidence in the state of Texas to support the argument that transgender girls would displace cisgender girls on sports teams.

The transgender sports bill was part of a litany of anti-trans legislation introduced last year during Texas’ four legislative sessions that pushed and has led to on LGBTQ youth, said Ricardo Martinez, executive director of Equality Texas, a statewide advocacy organization for LGBTQ Texans.

“Lawmakers have willingly ignored the overwhelming harm that this bill and bills like it has already caused in favor of exploiting our differences and the lack of familiarity that some people may have about transgender people,” Martinez said. “This we know stokes fear, and it divides us.”

Advocates for transgender youth say they are bracing for the impact of the law’s implementation and the heightened scrutiny of transgender youth and their bodies. School districts have said they will abide by the law, but it’s still unclear how that will look in practice and how schools will determine whether a student’s birth certificate was issued near the time of birth.

Julia, 16, said she’s been able to practice with the girls team at her school during track season, but she doesn’t compete in meets. For her, the law means she has to face a “harsh truth” — competing in a sport she loves is something she just won’t be able to do.

“I wish I had that sort of idea in my head that this practice would all lead to something,” she said. “Now after actually realizing that this law is being put into place … all the practice that I’m going to be doing is going to lead up to nothing because I don’t have anywhere to show it off or anywhere to compete.”

Staying in compliance

Although some Republican lawmakers have said the new law codifies existing rules from the University Interscholastic League, the athletic governing body for public schools in Texas, the law goes further than previous UIL rules. UIL used to allow students to submit legally modified birth certificates, which students may have changed to align with their gender identity.

establishing that an athlete’s gender would be officially determined by their birth certificate. Under the new law, a modified birth certificate would only be accepted if it was changed to correct a clerical error.

Julia, who’s in the process of getting her gender marker changed on her birth certificate, said she had been optimistic that a new birth certificate would allow her to compete with other girls.

Jamey Harrison, deputy director of UIL, said school districts will be responsible for ensuring they are in compliance with the law, but it’s not completely clear whether they will be able to determine if a birth certificate is original.

“It’s new ground, so some of it will be learning as we go,” Harrison said in an interview with The Texas Tribune. “But UIL does not have an investigative arm outside of its member school committees. We don’t have a bunch of black Suburbans and earpieces and guys going around checking birth certificates, that’s not the way it works. At the end of the day, the schools are going to have to do the best they can to make sure they’re in compliance with the law.”

Harrison said if districts don’t comply with the law, they will be subject to certain sanctions and will have to forfeit competition at a minimum.

The Tribune contacted some of the state’s largest school districts in major metro and surrounding areas to ask them about their plans to comply with the law. Several school districts did not respond to requests for comment, and a handful declined to be interviewed.

Deanne Hullender, a spokesperson with the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District, said it “will definitely be following all UIL guidelines and policies provided within this new legislation.” Meghan Cone, a spokesperson for Frisco ISD, said operations in her district are not expected to change because the bill “primarily codifies existing UIL regulation.”

Enforcement of laws similar to HB 25 have been halted in states like and as litigation battles over the statutes play out in court. A lawsuit in is also challenging that state’s version of the law.

Shelly Skeen, a senior attorney with Lambda Legal, a national legal organization in support of civil rights for LGBTQ individuals, said the Texas law “certainly brings up questions about equal protection and civil rights.”

“If you’re going to treat one set of students differently than another, then you’re looking, at least in this case, [at] a violation of equal protection, but it’s also sex discrimination,” Skeen said.

According to the , current interpretation of Title IX — a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on the basis of sex in education — also encompasses gender identity and sexual orientation protections.

Andrea Segovia, senior policy and field strategist with the Transgender Education Network of Texas, said her organization is focusing on supporting transgender students as the law takes effect by making sure they are connected to mental health resources and helping educators find the best ways to be allies to LGBTQ youth.

“Unfortunately, we are at a point where it’s like a little bit of wait and see,” Segovia said about the law’s enforcement. “Because we know that UIL affects all public schools, but just like any other law in this state, it really depends on how they enforce it.”

Small group, big impact

Transgender people represent a small fraction of the state’s population, and the population of transgender youth ages 13 to 17 is estimated to be about 13,800, or about 0.7% of teens within that age range, . However, Texas is one of the states with the most transgender youths aside from California, Florida and New York.

Harrison said UIL doesn’t keep data on the number of K-12 transgender athletes that participate in school sports.

According to the Trevor Project, a national suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth, about . Transgender youth are less likely to compete compared with their lesbian, gay and bisexual peers, said Casey Pick, Trevor Project’s senior fellow for advocacy and government affairs.

“Many of these youth tell us that they didn’t participate in sports because of fear of harassment discrimination, so that is a reality,” Pick said. “But some of the youth who do participate tell us that it is their one source of relaxation, their place to find camaraderie and teamwork, that they have a lot of fun and sometimes it’s the place they feel best about their bodies and who they are.”

Another worry among opponents of the Texas law is the effect it could have on cisgender women who don’t subscribe to traditional interpretations of what a young girl or woman should look like.

Lis Riley, whose child is a cisgender girl who plays basketball in Austin ISD, said her daughter used to present herself as masculine before but has started to lean back into a feminine identity so she’s not targeted while participating in sports.

“‘I need to kind of look like a girl so people don’t look at me weird when I’m trying out for the girls basketball team,’ essentially is kind of what she’s telling me, which is kind of sad to feel like that’s the world of high school sports in a public school,” Riley said.

Meanwhile, student athletes like Julia are left with virtually no choices if they want to compete.

During the offseason, Julia said she’s been practicing by running around her neighborhood and sometimes going to her school’s track. Her coaches have applauded her talent, she said, but she’s made it clear to them that the only team she feels comfortable being a part of and competing with is the girls track team.

“I don’t see it as a ‘me’ problem. I see it as other people’s problem,” she said of the Texas law. “I kind of accepted that I’m not gonna be able to [compete]. I kind of just deal with it. I mean, it sucks, but that’s kind of the harsh reality.”

“” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

For LGBTQ mental health support, call the Trevor Project’s 24/7 at 866-488-7386. You can also reach a trained crisis counselor through the by calling 800-273-8255 or texting 741741.

Disclosure: Equality Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete .

Catherine Lhamon is one step closer to being confirmed for the second time as the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights. In a 50-49 vote along party lines, the Senate voted Oct. 7 to discharge her nomination from the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The move gives the full Senate an opportunity to weigh her nomination after the HELP committee deadlocked with an 11-11 vote along party lines in August. A date for the full Senate vote on Lhamon’s nomination has not been set.Ěý

From racial discrimination to transgender students in sports, some of the country’s most politically fraught education debates coalesced in a single Senate hearing Tuesday as lawmakers weighed Catherine Lhamon’s nomination to become the Education Department’s top civil rights boss.

Democratic lawmakers portrayed Lhamon, who previously served as the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights during the Obama administration, as a staunch champion of students. Republicans, meanwhile, grilled her with tough questions and accused her of being an overzealous bureaucrat with a habit of exceeding her legal authority. An ongoing debate over how schools should respond to campus sexual misconduct complaints became the leading point of conflict during Lhamon’s hearing.

The Senate education committee hearing, held to consider Lhamon’s likely return to her old job, was divisive from the onset. In his opening remarks, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the committee’s ranking Republican, said he’s not convinced that Lhamon “understands, or at least appreciates, the limits of her authority” and lamented that she would unravel a Trump-era regulation that bolstered the due-process rights of students accused of sexual misconduct.

Though Lhamon maintained a measured posture that leaned heavily on existing law, Burr pressed her on the due process question, including whether students should have the right to see the evidence used against them in misconduct allegations and whether she believes in the “presumption of innocence.” Ultimately, Barr argued that Lhamon’s record on holding schools accountable for students’ sexual misconduct “is deeply troubling if not outright disqualifying.”

In response to question from Sen. Burr, Lhamon again won’t say that she endorses the presumption of innocence; will only say that in “civil rights investigations,” TIX adjudicators “should be open to the possibility” that acc’d students aren’t guilty.

— KC Johnson (@kcjohnson9)

After accusing former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos of rolling back civil rights enforcement for years, Lhamon said on Tuesday that it’s critical for the Office for Civil Rights to return “to even-handed enforcement that is consistent with the law.” In 2011, before Lhamon became assistant secretary, the Obama administration released a that instructed educators to investigate sexual misconduct allegations “regardless of where the conduct occurred,” and to use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard when determining guilt. Eight months into her tenure, DeVos rescinded the guidance and replaced it with new Title IX regulations in 2020. The Biden administration the Obama-era guidance.

Lhamon avoided a direct response to Burr’s questioning, arguing instead that she ultimately “won’t be in control of what change does or does not happen with respect to the Title IX regulation,” as the Biden administration’s work on that issue has already begun. But she did hold that Title IX has long failed to protect students from campus sexual misconduct, and that the Trump-era regulations weakened enforcement.

That acknowledgement came after Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, in which she argued the Trump-era regulations would move the country “back to the bad old days,” when it was “permissible to rape and sexually harass students with impunity.” In defending the tweet, Lhamon noted that the Trump-era regulations narrowed which school officials are required to respond to sexual misconduct allegations. That group includes Title IX coordinators, school officials with “authority to institute corrective measures,” and K-12 teachers in cases of student-on-student misconduct.

“Among the resolutions that I oversaw when I led the Office for Civil Rights included resolutions where, for example, at Michigan State, a student reported that she’d been sexually harassed by a counselor in the counseling office when she went for counseling about sexual harassment,” Lhamon said. “She reported it to the counseling office. Under the current regulation, there would be no responsibility for the school to investigate.”

Lhamon’s nomination hearing also highlighted another Title IX issue that’s been central to recent partisan feuds: The rights of transgender students to participate in school athletics. Under Lhamon’s lead in 2016, the Education Department released a “Dear Colleague” letter notifying schools that transgender students must be permitted to use restroom facilities that align with their gender identities. The Trump administration in 2017.

In a series of questions, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, asked Lhamon whether transgender girls should be permitted to compete in women’s athletics or if such a policy discriminates against cisgender females. Tuberville, who was the head football coach at Auburn University before joining the Senate, suggested that transgender students could instead be relegated to their own athletic teams.

In response, Lhamon said that Title IX aims to ensure that nobody faces sex-based discrimination in public schools, including any student who wishes to participate in school athletics.

As Republicans probed Lhamon on her policy record, Democrats consistently rallied to support her. In defending the Obama-era guidance on transgender student rights, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, accused Republicans of waging a “public relations campaign” that isn’t about protecting female athletes but is rather “unfortunately about trying to marginalize these kids and make people fear them and make people see them as a threat.”

“Nothing could be, frankly, further from the truth,” he said. “These are kids who, just like all of our kids, want to participate in athletics, an experience that is central to coming of age for millions of kids all across this country. An idea that we would deny that to anyone in this nation simply because of their [gender identity], I think, is deeply unAmerican.”

Along with the guidance on transgender students’ rights, Lhamon’s tenure with the Obama administration included a “Dear Colleague” letter from 2014 which warned schools that racial disparities in school discipline could violate federal civil rights laws. The Trump administration did away with that guidance, too, but Lhamon said on Tuesday that it’s “crucial” for the Biden administration to reinstate it. In fact, she noted that when the civil rights office was created in 1979 partly to enforce federal school desegregation orders, racially disparate school discipline rates were among the first issues that investigators confronted.

That racial disparities in school discipline persist to this day “means that we have not gotten our arms around it as a country and we are not doing enough right by our kids,” she said, adding that racial disparities are not always a form of discrimination. “I think it’s crucial to reinstate guidance on the topic and I think it’s crucial to be clear with school communities about what the civil rights obligations are and how best to do the work in their classrooms.”

Though Tuesday’s hearing centered primarily on Lhamon, lawmakers also considered the nominations of Lisa Brown as the Education Department’s general counsel and Roberto Rodriguez as its assistant secretary for planning, evaluation and policy development. Brown is currently the general counsel of Georgetown University and Rodriguez is the president and CEO of the nonprofit Teach Plus. On average, takes 68 days between their nomination and a final Senate vote, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.