(The Lion) — The Trump administration is promising to continue fighting “gender ideology extremism” as it opens an investigation into the Oregon Department of Education for allegedly allowing males to compete in female sports.
The U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights said it launched the investigation after receiving a complaint from America First Policy Institute, a non-profit policy group. The Trump administration said allowing men in women’s sports is in violation of Title IX, a federal law enacted in 1972 prohibiting sex discrimination in any education program that receives federal funding.
“In the last six months, the Trump Administration has made historic strides in cleaning up the countless failures of the Biden Administration, including the prior Administration’s dedication to gender ideology extremism,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement. “Oregon appears to have missed the message: The Trump Administration will not allow educational institutions that receive federal funds to continue trampling upon women’s rights.”
If Oregon is allowing biological males to compete against female athletes, “it is allowing these males to steal the accolades and opportunities that female competitors have rightfully earned through hard work and grit, while callously disregarding women’s and girls’ safety, dignity, and privacy,” he added. “Title IX does not permit that shameful arrangement, and we will not tolerate it.”
The AFPI complaint alleges that the Oregon Department of Education, citing state law, prohibits schools from “excluding gender expansive students from participating in school athletics and activities that align with their … gender identity.” The Trump administration noted that “state laws do not override federal antidiscrimination laws,” and Oregon’s education department and member schools are subject to federal anti-discrimation law.
Multiple high school female athletes in Oregon have lost awards and “competitive opportunities” to males and have endured “heightened stress, intimidation, and emotional distress” from competing against them, the complaint alleges. It also states that the Oregon department “chilled speech and coerced silence” from female athletes, who were told by the school to not “question or complain” about having to compete against biological males.
Oregon’s Department of Education did not return a request from The Lion for comment.
The investigation is a “vital step toward restoring equal opportunity in women’s athletics,” AFPI executive general counsel Jessica Hart Steinmann said in a statement. “Title IX was meant to protect girls – not to undermine them – and we’re hopeful this signals a return to that original purpose.”
The investigation follows executive orders and guidance from President Donald Trump earlier this year aiming to block biological men from women-designated spaces and sports. On his first day back in office, Trump issued an executive order declaring “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female” and that the sexes are “not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
