Category: Youth

Bipartisan Bill Seeks to Restore LGBTQ Youth Crisis Hotline Services

If you or a loved one are in crisis, please call or text 988 or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a live volunteer crisis counselor.

Read more at OutSmart Magazine.

Sens. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, and Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, introduced a bipartisan bill on Wednesday to re-establish national emergency suicide prevention services for LGBTQ+ youth — which have been stripped by the Trump administration at a time when the vulnerable group needs it most. 

In July, the Trump administration terminated the 988 hotline’s LGBTQ+ services, which connected young people in crisis with counselors trained in supporting LGBTQ+ youth. This new bill, backed by the LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention organization Trevor Project as well as the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, would modify the Public Health Service Act to reinstate those services and require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to maintain them. The bill now moves to committee.

The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ+ young people seriously consider suicide each year in the United States, as they face high rates of bullying, assault and discrimination. And when the 2024 presidential race was called for Donald Trump, calls and texts to the Trevor Project’s own crisis hotlines spiked by 700 percent, as LGBTQ+ youth felt afraid about the outcome of the election. 

“Given that LGBTQ+ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers, the need for these services remains pressing,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, in a statement. “This is not about politics, or identity; this is about doing what is best to support our country’s highest risk populations — and save young people’s lives nationwide.”

During his first term in 2020, President Trump signed a bipartisan law to create 988 as a more accessible resource for mental health emergencies. The free hotline launched in July 2022. Since then, millions of people in crisis have turned to 988. And nearly 1.5 million of those calls, texts and chats were sent by young Americans seeking specialized LGBTQ+ services. 

“We are in the middle of a mental health crisis, and the 988 lifeline saves lives, plain and simple,” said Baldwin, who wrote the original legislation to create the 988 hotline. Cutting funds for specialized services within 988 puts the lifeline in jeopardy, she said in a statement. 

“There is absolutely no good reason that Donald Trump took away this specialized help for our LGBTQ youth. Mental health does not see partisan lines or geography,” the Wisconsin Democrat added.

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Texas drops lawsuit against doctor accused of providing gender-affirming care to youth

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton withdrew the state’s lawsuit against pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados on Thursday after finding no evidence that he violated the state’s ban on gender affirming care for trans youth.

Paxton sued Granados in October 2024, accusing him of providing puberty blockers and hormones to patients as young as 12 in treatment for gender dysphoria. Paxton accused Granados of falsifying medical and billing records to mislead pharmacies and insurance providers into covering the care.

Paxton initially called Granados a “scofflaw who is harming the health and safety of Texas children,” and Granados wasn’t notified before the lawsuit’s filing, in worries that he might try to destroy relevant records, The Hill reported.

However, Granados said he stopped providing gender-affirming care in May 2023, after the state’s legislature passed the law. Now that Paxton’s office has dropped its charges against him, Paxton’s office will now “focus on other ongoing cases against doctors who illegally provided harmful ‘transition’ treatments and drugs to children,” an attorney general spokesperson said, according to The Hill.

The state has also sued May Lau and M. Brett Cooper, two medical providers from the University of Texas’ Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. If found guilty, both could possibly lose their medical licenses and face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

Despite Paxton’s claim about gender-affirming care being “harmful,” the medications used in such care have been used safely in children for decades for the purposes of gender transition and to treat other medical issues in cisgender children as well. In fact, Texas’ law stands in opposition to the best care practices for treating gender dysphoria recommended by every major American medical association. These associations agree that such care is safe, effective, and essential for the overall well-being of trans people.

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Trans refugee speaks about fleeing brutal anti-LGBTQ+ persecution in Russia-occupied territories

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Six months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Lilia Khvylka had a decision to make.

The transgender Ukrainian, who grew up on the Crimean Peninsula, was already living under Russian occupation; Vladimir Putin invaded and annexed that Ukrainian territory in 2014.

Now Khvylka was under house arrest for posting pro-Ukrainian messages on social media, she told Mezha, an independent Ukrainian news outlet.

“They opened a case against me under Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. This is a very serious crime, which they classify as terrorism. They were going to set a preventive measure for me literally in the coming days.”

Khvylka had already been outfitted with an ankle bracelet to monitor her movements.

She recalled taking part in the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, which ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and restored the 2004 Constitution of Ukraine.

The same year, Putin invaded Crimea.

“When the Russian authorities arrived, freedom of speech completely disappeared. Ukrainian activists and journalists immediately began leaving or disappearing,” Khvylka said.

At the same time, Khvylka was navigating her transition.

“At 16, I already knew I would undertake a transgender transition, because I am a girl. But I was very afraid to go to doctors in Russia or talk to anyone about it.”

In Crimea, she was forced to hide her identity; there, she was known as Illya Gantsevskyi.

Facing the prospect of 15 years in prison for her posts and terrified her true identity would come to light, Khvylka fled. The so-called head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, had already declared war on LGBTQ+ people.

“I cut off my bracelet and ran away,” she said.

Khvylka left the peninsula through Russia and Belarus, holding only a Ukrainian birth certificate. Volunteers, whom she found online through an underground network of supporters, helped in her getaway.

With her flight to freedom, Khvylka avoided a fate that other LGBTQ+ Ukrainians have been unable to escape.

“This included torture, torment, public humiliation, bodily injuries, and sexual violence,” said human rights lawyer Karolina Palaychuk.

Documented testimonies from people in the Kherson region, occupied by Russia for nine months at the start of the war, confirm the terror inflicted on LGBTQ+ people in the Russian-occupied territory.

“One of the people who gave these testimonies said that he was stopped at a checkpoint, his phone was checked, they saw the relevant content, and they immediately threw him into a basement,” said Iryna Yuzyk, manager for the Center for Human Rights, ZMINA. “There, they beat him, forced him to wear a red dress, took him to interrogations in a red dress, naked, they tormented him. He was lucky to survive.”

Another captive was Diana, a 24-year-old lesbian.

“She used to work as a shop assistant. She had colorful hair; they drew attention to her. They came with searches to her home, found a rainbow flag, and also threw her into the basement, where there were another 15 people. Then they lined them up and shot them at random. Only four survived.”

Human rights advocates are advising all LGBTQ+ Ukrainians — in particular activists who have a history of advocacy in conflict with Russia’s 2023 Supreme Court ruling declaring the LGBTQ+ community a “terrorist organization” — to leave the occupied territories, where protection under Ukrainian law no longer applies.

According to NGO Prozhektor, at least 50 people who’ve left the occupied territories have endured torture and violence due to their LGBTQ+ identity.

Seven victims have filed statements; thirteen are witnesses to other crimes.

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Supreme Court allows trans kids in South Carolina to use the right bathrooms in school

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Wednesday that South Carolina cannot enforce its anti-trans bathroom ban against one transgender student while his challenge to the law moves through the courts.

The law, which went into effect in 2024, requires students in South Carolina public schools to use bathrooms that align with their “biological sex … as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth.”

Last year, a 13-year-old transgender boy identified in court documents as John Doe was suspended for using the boys’ restroom at his Berkeley County school. Despite none of his peers objecting to his use of the boys’ restroom, when Doe returned from suspension, school staff were instructed to police his bathroom use, and teachers began dividing students into “boys” and “girls” lines before restroom breaks to enforce the policy.

Faced with constant harassment by teachers and the threat of another suspension, Doe’s parents withdrew him from the school and enrolled him in an online program.

The following November, Doe’s family, along with LGBTQ+ advocacy group Alliance for Full Acceptance, filed a class action suit challenging the South Carolina law. As MSNBC notes, a district court judge in the state halted the case in July after the Supreme Court announced it would hear two cases related to transgender women’s participation in sports. Doe appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which issued an injunction in the boy’s favor in August, preventing the state, the school district, and other defendants from enforcing the law against him while the appeal proceeds through the courts.

According to MSNBC, the three-judge panel cited the court’s 2020 ruling in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board that trans students are entitled to use restrooms aligned with their gender identity. However, George W. Bush-appointee Steven Agee stipulated that the Grimm decision was the only reason he sided with Doe and expressed hope that the Supreme Court would overturn that case, which he described as having been decided wrongly.

That same month, South Carolina asked the Supreme Court to lift the Fourth Circuit’s injunction, arguing in its emergency relief application that Grimm was wrongly decided and that the Fourth Circuit should have considered the Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld Tennessee’s restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans youth. The state argued that it, the school district, and students were “suffering actual, ongoing, material harms” due to Doe being allowed to use the boys’ restroom at school.

On Wednesday, a six-justice majority denied South Carolina’s request, with Republican appointees Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch saying they would have sided with the state, according to HuffPost.

In its order, the Court wrote that its denial of South Carolina’s application was “not a ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the litigation.” Rather, the justices wrote, “it is based on the standards applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court.”

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House Republicans file bill to bar trans students from bathrooms, sports teams

Read more at The Hill.

House Republicans introduced legislation Tuesday to ban transgender girls from participating in girls’ school sports, moving to advance one of the Trump administration’s top priorities. 

The measure, titled the Safety and Opportunity for Girls Act, would define “male,” “female” and “sex” by reproductive function in Title IX, the federal civil rights law against sex discrimination in education. Schools receiving federal funds would be barred from allowing transgender students to use restrooms or locker rooms or play on sports teams that match their gender identity, according to the bill, sponsored by Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.). 

Miller introduced a similar measure to block locker room access for transgender students in March and spearheaded an earlier effort to reverse former President Biden’s expanded nondiscrimination protections for transgender students under the Congressional Review Act last summer. 

A news release from Miller’s office says the latest bill, which has 11 Republican co-sponsors, would preserve Title IX’s “original intent” and shield the decades-old law from reinterpretation “by radical leftists or activist judges.” 

President Trump’s administration has argued repeatedly that Title IX already prohibits transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams or using girls’ bathrooms and changing rooms at school. More than two dozen investigations into states, schools and athletic associations that accommodate transgender students have been opened since Trump’s return to office in January. 

School officials in states including California, Maine, Minnesota and Virginia assert their policies are compliant with state and federal law. 

A February executive order signed by Trump states that the U.S. opposes “male competitive participation in women’s sports” as a matter of “safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.” Trump warned schools at a signing ceremony that his administration was putting them “on notice.” 

“If you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding,” he said. 

The Supreme Court agreed in July to decide whether states can ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s school sports. Since 2020, more than half the nation has adopted laws barring trans students from participating on teams that match their gender identity. 

Laws in four states — Arizona, Idaho, Utah and West Virginia — are blocked by court orders, and New Hampshire’s ban on trans athletes is partially blocked. In February, the two New Hampshire high schoolers suing the state expanded their challenge to include the Trump administration. 

House Republicans, joined by two Democrats, passed legislation in January to ban transgender student-athletes from girls’ sports teams — an effort ultimately thwarted by Senate Democrats. 

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States must ax transgender references from sex ed or risk losing funds, Trump admin says

Read more at NBC News.

The Trump administration directed 40 states, five territories and Washington, D.C., to remove references to transgender people from their sex education programs or risk losing federal funding.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, sent letters Tuesday demanding that the health departments in these states and territories remove “all references to gender ideology” from their Personal Responsibility Education Program, or PREP. The program is a federally funded initiative created in 2010 to help prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

“Accountability is coming,” acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison said in a statement. “Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas. The Trump Administration will ensure that PREP reflects the intent of Congress, not the priorities of the left.”

The 40 states that received letters are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The five U.S. territories are: Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Links to all 46 letters were included in the administration’s press statement. The ACF’s four-page letter to New York, for example, includes a bulleted list of course content that was flagged during a “medical accuracy review” earlier this year and “must be removed from New York’s PREP curricula and program materials.”

The content flagged for removal includes definitions of gender identity and gender expression and directives that program facilitators allow students to share their pronouns and “demonstrate acceptance and respect for all participants, regardless of personal characteristics, including race, cultural background, religion, social class, sexual orientation or gender identity,” according to the letter.

If New York’s health department declines to comply, it could lose more than $6 million in federal funds, according to data provided by ACF. The other states and territories stand to lose $300,000 to $4.6 million each.

The letters come just days after the ACF terminated $12 million of California’s remaining PREP funding after the state’s health department declined to remove references to trans people from the curriculum, arguing that the references had already been approved by the agency, the materials were medically accurate and relevant to the statute, and ACF does not have the authority to take such an enforcement action, according to ACF’s termination letter to the state.

California’s health department has 30 days to appeal. A spokesperson for the department said in a statement that the state maintains its position that its PREP curriculum “is medically accurate, comprehensive, and age-appropriate.”

“CA PREP sexual health education curriculum promotes healthy relationships and reduces the rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancy, as well as leads to delayed sexual activity in youth — all outcomes that lead to a healthier state,” the spokesperson said.

In an emailed statement, Elana Ross, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said, “If it’s a day ending in y, President Trump is attacking kids’ safety, health, and access to education as part of his culture war.”

The action from ACF is part of the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to prohibit federal recognition of trans people and penalize the use of federal funds for any program that includes or mentions them.

In the first few weeks of his presidency, Trump issued executive orders declaring that there are only two unchangeable sexes; prohibiting trans people from enlisting and serving in the military; barring trans girls and women from competing on female sports teams in federally funded K-12 schools and colleges; and barring federal funding from going to hospitals that provide transition-related care to minors. The federal government has taken several actions against providers of transition care, resulting in more than 20 hospitals over the last few months rolling back or ending their gender-affirming care programs for minors and some young adults.

Federal officials have also removed mentions of trans or intersex people from agency websites, including from the website for the Stonewall National Monument commemorating the site of the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York, which is widely considered a turning point in the modern gay rights movement.

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Whitehall, Ohio passes LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination protections, bans conversion therapy on minors

Read more at the Buckeye Flame.

The Whitehall City Council voted unanimously to pass an LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance and a conversion therapy ban at their regular meeting on Tuesday. 

The Columbus suburb became the 37th location in Ohio to pass LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination protections and the 14th location to ban conversation on minors.

Joseph Soza, Equality Ohio’s Central Ohio organizer, lives right on the border of Columbus and Whitehall. 

“I was previously living with the awkward scenario of having legal protections at home, but not in many of the public spaces I frequent in Whitehall,” Soza said in a statement. “Until we achieve statewide nondiscrimination protections, I know that most Ohioans find themselves in a similar situation. While I’m grateful for the initiative taken by cities like Whitehall, it continues to be disappointing that we don’t have these protections statewide.”

Whitehall’s nondiscrimination ordinance covers a range of identities – including sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression – with protections extending to employment, housing and public accommodations. The ordinance contains an exception for religious institutions to give preference to those who share their religion, provided that such “offerings are not for commercial purposes or supported by public funds.”

Whitehall’s conversion therapy ban prohibits mental health professionals from engaging in “any practices or treatments that seek to change a [minor’s] sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.”

Both the nondiscrimination protections and the conversion therapy ban are housed under Whitehall’s prohibition on “unlawful discriminatory acts or practices.” Violations could result in a civil penalty of up to $2,500. 

Ohio does not have statewide LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination protections, despite decades of attempts by legislators. The Ohio Fairness Act, which would grant these protections, currently sits in the Ohio House (HB 136) and Senate (SB 70), but has not been scheduled for a hearing in either chamber. 

There also is no statewide ban on conversion therapy on minors, despite many years of attempts by legislators. A bill to ban conversion therapy on minors currently sits in the Ohio House (HB 300) and Senate (SB 71), but has not been scheduled for a hearing in either chamber. 

LGBTQ+ advocates point to Whitehall as an example of what can be achieved locally, despite the lack of movement in the Columbus Statehouse.

“Equality Ohio is embarking on a journey to flip the state back to equality through our bold new local advocacy strategy,” said Dwayne Steward, executive director of Equality Ohio. “We have won before. And we will win again. But only if we do so together.” 

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Illinois debuts legal hotline for LGBTQ+ support

Read more at Axios.

Illinois continues to buck the federal trend of stripping rights from LGBTQ+ people.

Why it matters: President Trump’s slew of executive orders and policies attacking LGBTQ+ people, including halting funding for HIV research and denying passports that adhere to a person’s gender, have forced LGBTQ+ people to seek legal help.

Driving the news: Launching Monday, IL Pride Connect is a hotline for LGBTQ+ people seeking help with questions about health care, including gender-affirming care, discrimination, identity documents, housing and other legal issues.

  • It was developed by Illinois Legal Council for Health Justice, with support from the Illinois Department of Human Services and private funding.

Context: Gov. Pritzker announced the hotline Thursday after declaring Illinois “one of the most comprehensive systems of legal protection and health equity in the entire nation.”

  • He continues to frame Illinois as a refuge for people under attack by Trump, a regular Pritzker foe.

How it works: Attorneys and legal advocates at the Council will field calls to the 855-805-9200 hotline from 9am–4pm Monday–Thursday. Services are available in English and Spanish.

  • Callers from out of state will be directed to pro-bono legal aid in their own states.

Case in point: Orr v. Trump involves the ACLU suing the Trump administration on behalf of a class of plaintiffs who were denied passports that did not adhere to the person’s sex designation assigned at birth.

  • A judge in April temporarily barred enforcement of the passport policy and this summer expanded who can be included in that lawsuit.
  • IL Pride Connect can tell callers whether they can be included in that class and direct them to the ACLU.

What they’re saying: “We’ve seen all these anti-trans laws percolating in the state houses, and as more of the problems have come to fruition under the new administration, I think the time is just essential,” Council executive director Julie Justicz tells Axios.

  • “We’ve been getting calls from folks saying, ‘What do I do? I’m scared,’ and the time was right, and the political will was there,” referring to Pritzker’s support.
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DOJ demands private info on trans youth patients from 20 gender-affirming medical providers

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued subpoenas to medical providers who offer gender-affirming care to transgender youth, demanding that they provide private information on their young patients. The subpoenas demand “billing documents, communication with drug manufacturers, patient’s Social Security numbers, addresses, emails, Zoom recordings, voicemails, encrypted text messages, as well as every writing or record of whatever type” doctors have made from January 2020 to the current day, The Washington Post reported.

While Attorney General Pam Bondi admitted last month to sending 20 subpoenas to hold “medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology” accountable, she didn’t specify which organizations and individuals received the subpoenas. Anonymous informants told the aforementioned publication that some of the subpoena recipients (who got the subpoenas in June) operate in states with laws protecting gender-affirming care for youth. One trans civil rights activist called the incident an “unprecedented and disgusting violation of medical privacy.”

“[The government] is using its investigative powers to target medical providers based on a disagreement about medical treatment rather than violations of the law,” Jacob T. Elberg, a former federal prosecutor specializing in health care fraud, told The Washington Post. He added that the DOJ must show that the information it demanded is “relevant to a legitimate law enforcement probe.”

The publication contacted numerous clinics and professionals offering gender-affirming care for youth, but none would say whether they had received a subpoena, citing fears of violent threats or government retaliation. Other hospitals have been closing their trans youth clinics and erasing any mention of gender-affirming care from their web pages to avoid federal threats to cut funding or pursue prosecutorial charges.

“The subpoena is a breathtakingly invasive government overreach,” said Jennifer L. Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at the LGBTQ+ legal advocacy group GLAD Law. “It’s specifically and strategically designed to intimidate health care providers and health care institutions into abandoning their patients.”

Fewer than 3,000 teens nationwide receive puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy, according to a 2025 JAMA analysis of private insurance data, The Post noted.

Responding to the news, transgender civil rights lawyer Alejandra Caraballo wrote via Bluesky, “This is an unprecedented and disgusting violation of medical privacy,” adding, “The fact that no lawsuit has been commenced challenging these subpoenas in court is ominous. My best guess is that many of the providers have complied and now DOJ is potentially sitting on the records of thousands of trans youth covering everything from therapy notes to pre- and post-op photos.”

Though there is no federal law banning gender-affirming care, the current presidential administration has sought to eradicate the practice through a January executive order (that has since been blocked by several courts). The order instructed the DOJ to extend the time that patients and parents can sue gender-affirming doctors and to use laws against false advertising to prosecute any entity that may be misleading the public about the long-term effects of gender-affirming care.

In April, Bondi issued a memo to DOJ employees, telling them to investigate and prosecute cases of minors accessing gender-affirming care as female genital mutilation (FGM); even though hospitals don’t conduct such female genital surgeries. The memo threatened to jail doctors for 10 years if they provide gender-affirming care to young people.

Gender-affirming care is supported by all major medical associations in the U.S., including the American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, as safe and life-saving for young people with gender dysphoria.

One doctor interviewed by The Washington Post called the federal government’s crusade against gender-affirming care a “toxic plan” that will force some patients to detransition, potentially forcing them into adverse psychological and physical effects, including increased anxiety, depression, and the development of unwanted physical changes.

“This goes way beyond any degree of moral or ethical dilemma that any of us have ever experienced,” the doctor said. “It is completely scientifically and medically unfounded.”

Republican attorneys general in Texas and Tennessee have demanded similar patient information from providers of youth-centered gender-affirming care outside of their states, but they dropped their demands after courts blocked their efforts.

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Virginia school board votes to refuse to follow administration’s anti-trans order

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

A public school district in northern Virginia voted yesterday to keep its current pro-trans policies despite the administration’s orders to ban trans students from using the restrooms and locker rooms associated with their gender.

The Loudoun County School Board voted to maintain its current policies regarding the facilities just days after the U.S. Education Department (ED) ordered the district – along with four nearby school districts – to ban trans students from using the facilities associated with their gender. The administration claimed that letting trans students use the appropriate facilities violated Title IX, the law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex in education.

The current administration reversed President Joe Biden’s interpretation of Title IX, which found the statute’s prohibition on discrimination “on the basis of sex” includes anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. The rules rely on the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that sex-based discrimination necessarily covers discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, because it’s impossible to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people without taking sex into account.

That is, denying trans students use of restroom facilities or making use of such facilities difficult solely because of their sex assigned at birth was, to the Biden administration, a form of illegal sex-based discrimination. And since many students can’t last an entire day of school without using the restroom, such discrimination could effectively deny trans students an education.

The ED investigated the Virginia school districts, saying it had gotten complaints alleging “that students in the Divisions avoid using school restrooms whenever possible because of the schools’ policies, and that female students have witnessed male students inappropriately touching other students and watching female students change in a female locker room.”

There is no evidence that trans people are a threat to cisgender girls and women in restrooms, but a 2021 study from UCLA’s Williams Institute found that trans people are four times more likely than cis people to be victims of violent crime.

The ED then ordered the schools to rescind their trans-inclusive policies within 10 days and to “adopt biology-based definition of the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ in all practices and policies relating to Title IX.”

But the school board in Loudoun County voted 6-3 to keep its current policy, explaining in a statement that they are following precedent set by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In 2020, that court affirmed a lower court decision in favor of trans student Gavin Grimm, who had sued his school district after he was told to use the bathroom in a bucket in a converted janitor’s closet and was called a “freak” at a school board meeting about his bathroom usage. The court found that Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution prohibited his school district from discriminating against him.

“Our priority remains the same: doing what is right for Loudoun County’s young people; focusing on educating our students and ensuring our schools are places where every child feels they belong,” the Loudoun County School Board said in a statement.

The other four school districts ordered to end trans equality have not yet said how they will proceed, but they have to respond by Friday, which will be the end of the 10-day period. Prince William County School Board members met with lawyers last week and issued a statement saying that it “continues to review and work through legal issues related” to the ED’s order and that the board “remains firmly committed to fostering a safe, inclusive, and respectful learning environment for all students and staff.”

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