YOUTH
Trans Athlete Flaps Imperils School Integration Funds
Trump keeps up campaign to block students competing consistent with their gender identity
BY MATT TRACY
The US Department of
Education is threatening
to withhold federal
funds earmarked for
racial desegregation initiatives at
certain schools in Connecticut in
retaliation for their compliance
with a policy in that state allowing
transgender athletes to participate
in accordance with their gender
identity.
The threats represent another
chapter in the administration’s
years-long fi xation on sidelining
student-athletes who have played
under the Connecticut Interscholastic
Athletic Conference (CIAC),
an athletic governing body that
has maintained that its rules allowing
trans athletes to participate
are in compliance with state law.
The right-wing backlash against
the policy exploded following the
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and President Donald Trump are blending a hateful stew of racism
and transphobia in their latest attack on transgender student-athletes.
emergence of Andraya Yearwood
and Terry Miller, two Black transgender
track and fi eld student-athletes
who became the target of a
federal civil rights lawsuit championed
by cisgender opponents who
REUTERS/ JONATHAN ERNST
competed against them in races. At
least six cisgender student-athletes
and their families have fi led lawsuits
against the policy.
In February, three of those students,
backed by the anti-LGBTQ
Alliance Defending Freedom, fi led
a lawsuit aimed at the policy in
US District Court in Connecticut
in which they argued that their
“dreams and goals” were foiled because
they had to compete against
trans athletes.
The Trump administration proceeded
to use those complaints as
a springboard to issue the funding
threats. In June, the DOE declared
that the CIAC policy allowing
trans athletes to participate in
sports violates Title IX, the 1972
law banning sex discrimination
in federally-funded academic and
athletic programs. That misleading
claim by the administration
made false and transphobic assertions
that the transgender female
students are male and that their
presence on the playing fi eld created
a gender imbalance in athletic
programs.
The administration ultimately
used a 45-page letter to threaten to
“either initiate administrative proceedings
to suspend, terminate, or
refuse to grant or continue and defer
fi nancial assistance” for schools
that follow the policy.
The DOE then directed schools
that receive funds from the Magnet
Schools Assistance Program
(MSAP) — which diversifi es schools
by bringing students from different
neighborhoods together to attend a
given school — to sign a form indicating
that they would not adhere
to the Connecticut policy.
Three months later, the administration
is vowing to follow through
on its threats with plans to defund
the MSAP-associated school districts
in southeast Connecticut,
Hartford, and New Haven, which
are now in danger of losing a total
of $18 million, according to The
New York Times.
When reached by phone on the
morning of September 18, a spokesperson
with the DOE directed Gay
City News to send questions about
the reported threats in an email.
When asked specifi cally about the
legal justifi cation behind the move,
a DOE spokesperson made the legally
dubious assertion in an email
that those who follow the policy are
violating Title IX.
“Congress requires the department
to withhold funds from
schools that aren’t in compliance
with the law,” DOE press secretary
Angela Morabito said in a written
statement provided to Gay City
News. “Connecticut applicants declined
— on multiple occasions—
to assure the Offi ce for Civil Rights
that they are in compliance with
Title IX.”
A DOE spokesperson told Gay
City News on background that the
Offi ce for Civil Rights is now evaluating
whether the Groton Pubic
Schools in southeast Connecticut
has met the criteria set forth in
the form provided to MSAP schools
earlier this year.
The American Civil Liberties
Union, which has represented
the transgender student-athletes
in Connecticut, did not provide a
comment by press time on September
18. A spokesperson for the
CIAC declined comment for this
story due to ongoing litigation in
the case, though a spokesperson
offered a strong defense of the policy
in a written statement issued in
late May.
➤ TRANS ATHLETES, continued on p.17
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