While previous Democratic administrations have included transgender people as a group protected under Title IX civil rights law, President Donald Trump’s new administration has taken a different approach.
This Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Education announced that its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) concluded Title IX investigations into the California Department of Education (CDE) and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) for allegations of discrimination against women and girls on the basis of sex. It said the OCR determined that both institutions “are in clear violation of Title IX.”
“Although Governor Gavin Newsom admitted months ago it was ‘deeply unfair’ to allow men to compete in women’s sports, both the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation continued as recently as a few weeks ago to allow men to steal female athletes’ well-deserved accolades and to subject them to the indignity of unfair and unsafe competitions,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
Morgan Polikoff, professor of education at USC Rossier joined Audacy for a deep dive into the situation.
“I don’t think it’s a surprise that the Trump administration reached this conclusion,” Polikoff told KCBS Radio in the Bay Area. “They’ve been... I mean, the campaign was run on an anti-trans message, including, you know, trans athletes in sports.”
Since taking office in January, Trump has made moves to declare there are only two genders recognized by the U.S. and to prevent transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. Polikoff said that California’s response is poised to be more of a surprise than the Trump administration move.
Newsom made his name as a pro-LGBTQ politician and just this month issued a proclamation for LGBTQ Pride Month in the state. However, he has said – as McMahon noted – that he thinks it is unfair for transgender athletes to compete against cisgender athletes. So far, the state has tried for a compromise on the issue.
“A.B. Hernandez, the trans athlete who is one of the ones who’s at the center of all this… when she competed, the state changed the rules so that even though she was awarded first place, there was a cisgender athlete who was also awarded first-place,” Polikoff explained. “And so… the state was already trying to reach a compromised position, which I think seemed to be working pretty well for both the affected athletes.”
He said that the issue of transgender athletes competing in sports is a genuinely difficult one.
“We want trans athletes to be able to compete – how they compete and against whom is complicated,” said Polikoff. “And there’s not one right answer here, and this is like taking an absolute chainsaw to the issue rather than trying to come up with a reasonable solution,” he added, referring to the Trump administration’s approach.
Trump has been threatening to withhold funds from California over transgender issues since at least late May.
“California, under the leadership of Radical Left Democrat Gavin Newscum, continues to ILLEGALLY allow ‘MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN’S SPORTS,’” Trump said in one social media post. “Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to,” he added later on in the post.
Now, the federal government is promising to terminate potentially hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in funding for the state. Yet, Polikoff doesn’t think the government will actually pull that funding.
“It’s possible… this administration has shown is that they’re willing to do just about anything and happy to be sued and see what happens in court,” he said. “It would be a huge, it would certainly be a big dent for California schools.”
Polikoff said he hopes California will stand its ground on transgender issues, in part because he thinks the Trump administration won’t stop targeting the state even if it gives in. There are rumors that Newsom is gearing up to run for president, and the two politicians have been trading barbs over the past month. For example, Newsom threatened to withhold California’s federal taxes over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and Trump later threatened to withhold wildfire relief funds.
“The governor of this state is clearly running for higher office and is triangulating,” said Polikoff. “And so, in that respect, you might expect that he would try and come up with some kind of compromise solution here. Will that happen? I don't know. Certainly, if California folds on this, then you don’t have much hope in other states because California is the vanguard on this issue.”
As politicians battle publicly over transgender rights, transgender teens are in a particularly vulnerable position, he said.
“Trans teenagers are already… at a lot of risk, subject to all kinds of civil rights violations all the time. It's a very difficult situation for them, especially in the current political moment,” Polikoff said.