The Trump administration opened investigations into 15 school districts and three colleges for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports, escalating a campaign that the administration has pursued for nearly a year.
The investigations target the nation’s largest public school system — New York City — as well as districts in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington state and another in New York state.
Many states and the NCAA fell in line after the Trump administration began its drive to force transgender girls and women out of girls’ and women’s athletics, but some more liberal states have stuck with their policies, saying all students deserve the chance to participate.
The Education Department announced the investigations on Wednesday, a day after the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether two states can ban transgender athletes from competition. These new probes address the opposite situation, enforcing the administration’s view that states and school districts may not permit it.
President Donald Trump and his administration argue that allowing transgender athletes to compete violates Title IX, the decades-old statute that bars federal funding for schools that discriminate on the basis of sex. Athletes who were assigned male at birth have physical advantages and therefore pose unfair competition and safety risks to other athletes in girls’ and women’s sports, the administration says.
Last February, Trump signed an executive order that directed the Education Department to inform school systems and colleges that forcing girls and women to compete with trans girls and women amounts to a Title IX violation. School districts and universities that are found in violation risk losing federal funding. New York City will receive some $2 billion in federal funding this year; smaller districts get less.
Kimberly Richey, assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, said in a statement that the department was “aggressively pursuing allegations of discrimination against women and girls” by schools that reportedly “allow males to compete in women’s sports.”
“Time and again, the Trump Administration has made its position clear: violations of women’s rights, dignity, and fairness are unacceptable,” she said.
Advocates for transgender rights say that Title IX compels the opposite policies, arguing that the law bars discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
“Every student, transgender or not, deserves the same respect, safety, and access to opportunities as their peers,” Mariah Moore, director of policy and programs at Transgender Law Center, said in a statement. “These investigations represent another attempt by the Department of Education to exploit Title IX against the students it is supposed to protect.”
After Trump’s executive order, the NCAA revised its policy and limited participation in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth — setting the policy for colleges throughout the country. During a congressional hearing in late 2024, the organization’s president had said he believed there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes — out of the more than 500,000 college athletes — competing across the NCAA’s three divisions.
Responses from state and local officials in K-12 sports have been mixed. State associations that oversee high school athletics in some states, including Wisconsin and Virginia, said they would comply with Trump’s order, but others stuck with their existing policies.
Last year, Congress considered legislation to ban transgender girls and women from competing in female sports from elementary school through college. It passed the House but was blocked in the Senate. Even without a new law, though, the administration contends that allowing these athletes to compete violates federal law.
Some schools have already settled similar investigations, including the University of Pennsylvania, where Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer, was allowed to compete on the school’s women’s team during the 2021-2022 season. She became the first known transgender woman to win an NCAA Division I title and graduated in 2022. In compliance with the new NCAA rules, Penn no longer had any transgender athletes competing on women’s teams as of March. But in March, the Trump administration froze $175 million in federal funding for Penn over this issue, and Penn later said it would comply with the administration’s interpretation of the law.
The Education Department said Wednesday that, in addition to New York City, it had opened investigations in Jurupa Unified School District and Placentia-Yorba Unified School District in California; Waterbury School District in Connecticut; the Hawaii State Department of Education, which runs the state’s single school district; Regional School units 19 and 57 in Maine; Foxborough Public Schools in Massachusetts; Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District in New York; Great Valley School District in Pennsylvania; Champlain Valley School District in Vermont; and Cheney Public Schools, Sultan School District No. 311, Tacoma Public Schools and Vancouver Public Schools in Washington state.
The department said it also had opened investigations into Santa Monica College and Santa Rosa Junior College in California and the University of Nevada at Reno.
A spokesperson for the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District said officials had been notified of the investigation.
“Our priority has always been to provide safe, respectful, and inclusive learning environments for all students while meeting our obligations under state and federal law,” spokesperson Lorely Meza said. “The district’s policies were adopted in good faith and are aligned with applicable law, and we will fully cooperate with all requests related to this matter.”
And Robert M. Myers, campus counsel for Santa Monica College, said that the school “will continue to follow the guidance of the California Attorney General on the legal rights of transgender athletes to participate in sports.”
Most other schools targeted for investigation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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