The Trump administration is creating a new Title IX Special Investigations Team focused on keeping transgender women and girls from sports teams and restrooms designated for females.
The team will “protect students, and especially female athletes, from the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities,” the Departments of Education and Justice said in a joint news release Friday.
The team, according to the release, will allow the two departments to streamline investigations into the “staggering volume of Title IX complaints” that have been filed. Title IX is a 1972 civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding.
Transgender women’s participation in women’s sports has been an increasingly divisive political issue over the past several years. More than half of U.S. states now have measures that restrict trans students’ sports participation, and President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February prohibiting trans women and girls from female sports.
Title IX Special Investigations Team will consist of DOE investigators and attorneys from both the DOE and DOJ.
“This collaborative effort with the Department of Education will enable our attorneys to take comprehensive action when women’s sports or spaces are threatened and use the full power of the law to remedy any violation of women’s civil rights,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in the news release.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who is co-founder and former CEO of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), said she had a message for entities that allowed trans women to “compete in women’s sports and use women’s intimate facilities: there’s a new sheriff in town.”
A spokesperson for LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD called the creation of the new team a "baseless plan with the potential to waste untold taxpayer resources to pursue an unhinged agenda of animus."
“Targeting a handful of athletes does nothing to protect women and girls," the spokesperson added. "In fact, these bans endanger all girls as they risk invasive genital exams and other expensive ‘verification.’”
While the exact number of transgender student athletes is unknown, during a December hearing before Congress, NCAA President Charlie Baker said he was aware of fewer than 10 active NCAA athletes who identified as transgender.
In March, the Trump administration paused $175 million in funding to the University of Pennsylvania over its transgender athlete policies, which the school said were compliant with the NCAA and Ivy League policies.
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