Trump admin probing school district for trans athlete scandal even after changing policy to follow exec order
The U.S. Department of Education on Monday opened a Title IX investigation into the Tumwater School District (TSD) in Washington state over a widely publicized incident involving a girl being allegedly punished for refusing to play a basketball game against a trans athlete.
A civil rights complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights on behalf of female TSD student Frances Staudt. The incident became so widely publicized and controversial that the school district voted 3-1 last Thursday to ban trans athletes from girls' sports, defying the current state law that orders schools to enable trans inclusion.
It is one of the first incidents of a school district banning trans athletes from girls' sports, complying with President Donald Trump's "No Men in Women's Sports" executive order, while the state as a whole chooses to defy it.
"A lot of us may disagree with the executive order, but us as school board members are caught between a rock and a hard place," TSD board member Jill Adams said. "I support different viewpoints, I support different ways of living, but it's tough. I'm caught between, not a rock, but a boulder and a hard surface."
The board members cited the recent incident involving Staudt, and the national backlash, in its decision to ban trans athletes and comply with Trump's order.
Still, Trump's administration is still doing its due diligence in investigating the incident anyway after the civil rights complaint was filed.
"OCR's directed investigations of educational institutions, state boards of education, interscholastic associations, and school districts demonstrates that the Trump Education Department will vigorously enforce Title IX to ensure men stop competing in women's sports," said Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights. "If Washington wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Department, it has to follow federal law."
The complaint alleged that the district investigated the 15-year-old Staudt for "misgendering" an opponent and violating the district's policies against bullying and harassment on Feb. 7.
According to the document, prior to the game, Staudt asked the school's principal and athletic director whether the player was a biological male. The administrators then allegedly confirmed that they had been notified that the player was transgender, but denied her pleas to have the player removed.
Staudt removed herself from the game. Then, according to the document, a TSD employee allegedly confronted Staudt's younger brother for taking a video of the game, saying, "You better think twice about what you're doing right now."
Staudt and her mother, Aimee, discussed how her refusal to play against a biological male ignited a firestorm with the Tumwater School District during a "Fox & Friends" interview last week.
"They [the school district] could have avoided this happening," Aimee told Steve Doocy on Thursday. "They knew, admittedly, that there was going to be this situation, and they had a meeting, the principal, the superintendent, and the athletic director to discuss the fact that this was a potential situation that was coming up."
Aimee believes that if the families had been notified of the situation beforehand and given players the option to sit out of the game, it could have yielded a different outcome.
"But they didn't do that," she said. "They put the kids on the spot, and my daughter was the one that actually stood up in this situation, and… she was exposed… It was awful the way they handled it."
Meanwhile, the trans athlete, Andi Rooks, appeared alongside the athlete's father on the YouTube series "[un]Divided with Brandie Kruse" to address the issue.
"I've never had an issue until this game, and my goal was never to make anybody uncomfortable in any way, and I didn't even realize Frances had an issue until I got yelled at at the game," Rooks said. "If she had had a conversation with me before the game, I would have sat out. My last thing I want to do is make anybody uncomfortable."
Washington is one of the many blue states that has refused to comply with Trump's executive order, as WIAA policy states that each athlete will participate in programs "consistent with their gender identity or the gender most consistently expressed," and there are not even any medical or legal requirements. Bills that would prohibit transgender girls from participating in girls' and women's sports have been introduced but not passed.
Washington state Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal spoke in defense of transgender athletes in girls' sports in an address last week, claiming it was "inaccurate" to say there are only two genders. Reykdal insisted that Trump does not have the authority as president to issue a ban on trans athletes in girls' sports but conceded the U.S. Congress does.
"Until Congress changes the law or our state legislature changes the law, we're going to follow the current law and the current civil rights framework of this state, and that's what it tells us to do," Reykdal said.
The Department of Education is also currently investigating the high school athletic associations in California, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Maine for defying Trump's order.
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