Trump Admin Strips Federal Backing From Transgender School Policies, Opens LA Probe – RedState

The Trump administration opened a federal investigation into Los Angeles public schools and, within days, withdrew federal support for policies related to protecting transgender students, subjecting those policies to direct federal challenge.

The Justice Department is currently examining the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school system, over a policy that allows school officials to hide a student’s gender identity from parents. The investigation follows a lawsuit filed by parents who say they were never informed of their child’s school transition and were excluded from decisions regarding the student’s care and mental health.

District guidelines adopted in 2019 tell staff to consider a student’s safety and well-being before deciding whether to notify parents. It allows students to use their preferred pronouns, access facilities based on their gender identity, and receive academic support without automatic disclosure from parents. The Justice Department notified the district of the investigation in a March 25 letter related to those policies.

Federal officials have directly highlighted the parental rights concerns raised in the lawsuit.

“Parents have a fundamental right to the care, custody and control of their children, including the right to direct the upbringing and upbringing of their children,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement.

According to the complaint, the student at the center of the case, identified as Dylan, disclosed his transition plan at school, but staff did not notify parents and instead helped implement a support plan within the school. This included allowing different pronouns and connecting the student to school resources while keeping parents in the dark.

“The policy of secrecy isolated Dylan instead of helping him. It did not expand access to education or reduce stigma; instead, it cut him off from the people best equipped to deal with his distress and the risks to his mental health, depriving him of the stability that parental involvement provides,” the complaint states.

The administration also moved to reverse previous federal measures related to protections for transgender students, ending civil rights agreements with several school districts and a college that were required to meet those standards. These agreements were negotiated under previous administrations and tied to interpretations of Title IX that treated gender identity as a protected category.

Learn more: The “trans” movement is almost over now

The department said it would no longer enforce these regulations, affecting districts in Delaware, Washington, Pennsylvania and California, as well as Taft College. This is the first time the federal government has canceled civil rights agreements of this type that had already been negotiated.

Officials said the decision aligns with broader efforts to challenge policies that allow transgender (male) students to participate on women’s sports teams or access shared locker rooms and facilities based on their gender identity.

“Today, the Trump Administration is removing unnecessary and illegal burdens that previous administrations placed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a written statement.

The administration also filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over similar policies and opened additional investigations into civil rights in schools and universities, extending this review to several states.

With the rollback of federal civil rights agreements and new investigations underway, school districts across the country now find themselves facing these policies without federal coverage, and the legal battles are already underway.

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