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How Trump might try to ban trans athletes from school sports — and why it won’t be easy • Ohio Capital Journal

How Trump might try to ban trans athletes from school sports — and why it won’t be easy • Ohio Capital Journal

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said repeatedly during the campaign that, if re-elected to the White House, he would continue to ban transgender youth from participating in school sports that match their gender identity.

As he prepares to take office in January, LGBTQ+ experts and advocates told States Newsroom that his efforts will face significant delays and challenges as legal pushback from the from LGBTQ+ advocacy groups every step of the way.

Trump’s repeated wish “keeping men out of women’s sports” reflects its broader anti-trans agenda. The administration’s efforts would come as a growing number of states have passed laws banning trans students from participating in sports that match their gender identity.

The Trump-Vance transition team did not provide any concrete details when asked about specifics, but shared a statement from spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.

“The American people re-elected President Trump with a resounding majority, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail,” Leavitt wrote. “He will deliver.”

Reversing Title IX Final Rule

The U.S. Department of Education, under the leadership of President Joe Biden, published updated regulations to Title IX in April which strengthens federal protections for LGBTQ+ students. The final rule does not explicitly refer sports participation of trans athletes – a separate decision that the administration has put on hold.

The Ministry of Education said Friday evening that it withdraw a proposed rule that would have allowed schools to block certain transgender athletes from competing on sports teams matching their gender identity, while also preventing blanket bans.

Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits schools that receive federal funding from discrimination on the basis of sex.

The president-elect pledged, while speaking out about trans student athletic participation, to rescind the Biden administration’s final rule for Title IX on his first day back in office.

The Biden administration’s final rule has been respected strong reaction from GOP attorneys general. A series of legal challenges in states across the country have created a political patchwork of the final rule and weakened the Biden administration’s vision for enforcement.

But if Trump tried to overturn the final rule, experts say that effort would take an extended period of time and require adherence to the rulemaking process outlined in the Administrative Procedure Act, or APA.

The APA governs how federal agencies propose and implement regulations. This process can take months, creating an obstacle for a president seeking to undo the power of a previous administration.

Cathryn Oakley, senior director of legal policy at the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ rights group, said that while a subsequent administration could roll back current Title IX regulations, it would require “an enormous amount of work because a regulation has the force of law. …as long as the administration has complied with the APA.

For the Trump administration to roll back these regulations, it would have to start at the beginning, come up with its own rules, and work through the entire process.

“I think it seems pretty likely that this is something that they’re going to pursue, but it’s not something that the president has the capacity to do on day one,” she said.

Oakley noted that the updated regulations also have the force of law because they interpret a law that already exists – Title IX.

The Trump administration is “bound by Title IX, which actually provides these gender identity protections,” she said.

Prepare to push back

But any action by the Trump administration regarding the sports participation of trans athletes will certainly face legal challenges from LGBTQ+ advocacy groups.

Oakley said that while “we have many real reasons to be concerned” about what the Trump administration would do regarding Title IX protections and generally for LGBTQ+ people, “we also need to be careful not to concede nothing either.”

“We have to try to ground ourselves in the actual legal reality that the president-elect will face when he takes office and be able to fight with the tools we have and not concede anything in advance. »

The Biden rule is not about athletics

The U.S. Department of Education under Biden never decided on a separate rule establishing new criteria regarding trans athletes.

Shiwali Patel, Title IX attorney and senior director of safe and inclusive schools at the National Women’s Law Center, said that “we could see some sort of announcement regarding changing the Title IX rule to address athletics” under the Trump administration.

“Given the rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration and this continued focus on trans athletes, I think we very well should and could expect to see something from the Trump administration on this, that which is very damaging,” Patel told the States Newsroom.

The Trump administration could also try to secure a nationwide ban through legislation in Congress.

The American house approved a bill last year it would ban trans athletes from competing in sports that match their gender identity. And in July, the room adopted a measure this would overturn Biden’s final rule for Title IX.

But Patel said she didn’t see how any congressional measure could get past the U.S. Senate’s filibuster, which requires at least 60 votes to pass most legislation. There will be 45 Democratic senators in the next Congress, but independent senators Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont caucuses with the Democrats.

Although Washington will soon enter a GOP trifecta in the House, Senate and White House, narrow margins could hamper any potential anti-trans legislation from the Trump administration.

Broader anti-trans legislation

Nationwide, 25 states have enacted legislation banning trans students from participating in sports that match their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Projector MAP, an independent think tank.

Logan Casey, director of policy research at MAP, said supporters of these sports bans are using them as a starting point to implement a broader anti-trans agenda.

“In many cases, these sports bans were some of the first anti-trans laws enacted in many states in recent years, but states that enact one of these sports bans then enact anti-trans or anti -Additional LGBTQ. “Casey told States Newsroom.

Casey described any controversy surrounding trans people playing sports as “entirely manufactured.”

“In just five years, we went from zero states to more than half the country having one of these bans in effect, and that’s really fast in the political world,” he said.

In March 2020, Idaho became the first state to enact this type of ban.

Last updated at 11:49 a.m., December 21, 2024