Education Department calls for school sports organizations to strip trans athletes of titles, awards

The Department of Education is calling for organizations that govern high school and college athletics to revoke records, titles and awards won by transgender female athletes, part of an ongoing effort by President Trump to permanently ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports and institute policies that largely deny the existence of trans people.

The NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) should move to immediately “restore to female athletes the records, titles, awards, and recognitions misappropriated by biological males competing in female categories,” the Education Department said Tuesday in a news release.

Doing so, the department wrote in a letter to NCAA President Charlie Baker and NFHS President Bob Lombardi, would recognize the harms done by “misguided policies” and restore “a genuine commitment to girls’ and women’s equality of opportunity.”

“The Trump Education Department will do everything in our power to right this wrong and champion the hard-earned accomplishments of past, current, and future female collegiate athletes,” Candice Jackson, the department’s deputy general counsel, said in a statement.

NFHS CEO Karissa Niehoff told The Hill in a phone call on Wednesday that the organization only keeps track of national high school sports records and does not have mandate authority or accountability over state associations and the awarding of athletic achievements like trophies and medals. To the NFHS’s knowledge, a transgender athlete has never set a national record, she said.

When the organization received the Education Department’s letter, “We met as a staff team to look at the national records that we hold for high school athletics, and after reviewing our records, it’s our belief that no transgender student-athlete is recorded in the national records for the NFHS,” Niehoff said.

The NCAA did not immediately return a request for comment.

The Education Department’s request comes after Trump signed an executive order to prevent transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, and the NCAA trans student-athletes to participate in women’s athletic events.

Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, told a Senate panel in mid-December that fewer than 10 transgender athletes are competing in college sports at NCAA member schools, accounting for roughly 0.002 percent of NCAA athletes nationwide.

In September, the NFHS — which comprises 51 state athletic associations, including Washington D.C. — said more than 8 million students competed in high school sports last year. The organization does not report how many student-athletes are transgender.

Some high school athletic associations already restrict or prevent transgender athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. On Tuesday, the Virginia High School Sports League said it would bar transgender student-athletes from girls’ sports in compliance with Trump’s executive order.

Twenty-five states have adopted laws banning trans athletes from participating in school sports in accordance with their gender identity, though several are blocked by court orders, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit organization that tracks LGBTQ laws.

Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has signed a bevy of executive orders aimed at rolling back transgender rights, including one declaring gender identity a “false concept” and stating the federal government will recognize only two sexes, male and female.

The administration has also sought to cut federal support for gender-affirming care for transgender children and teenagers up to 19 years old and prevent transgender people from serving openly in the military.

Updated at 12:14 p.m. EST

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