The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into the high school sports governing bodies of California and Minnesota following President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
Last week, President Trump fulfilled a campaign promise by signing the executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” The order, which advocacy group GLAAD has criticized as having “zero credibility protecting women and girls,” prohibits transgender women from competing in female sports categories.
As a result of the executive order, the Department of Education now has the authority to investigate schools and governing bodies that do not comply. Federal Title IX investigations have been initiated against the California Interscholastic Federation and the Minnesota State High School League after both organizations affirmed their commitment to allowing transgender students to compete based on their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
Both organizations stated that they would adhere to state anti-discrimination laws, but a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance administration countered that the executive order supersedes state legislation.
In a statement on Wednesday, February 12, Craig Trainor, the Department of Education’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said, “The Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation are free to engage in all the meaningless virtue-signaling they want, but at the end of the day, they must abide by federal law.”
The executive order cites Title IX, a landmark civil rights law, asserting that “educational institutions receiving federal funds cannot deny women an equal opportunity to participate in sports.”
Title IX, established in 1972, is known for protecting individuals from sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs and is widely credited with expanding opportunities for women in sports.
The interpretation of Title IX has become a contentious issue in recent years, especially concerning transgender athletes. The Biden administration had sought to expand Title IX protections to explicitly cover LGBTQ+ students, prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. However, multiple Republican-led states challenged these changes, with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in August 2024 that the new definitions could not be enforced in 26 states where legal challenges remain ongoing.
At the beginning of 2025, Republican lawmakers further sought to define Title IX protections strictly by biological sex in their legislative package for the 119th Congress, reinforcing their stance against transgender inclusion in women’s sports.