Title IX Archives

The Loudoun County School Board voted to defy a U.S. Department of Education order to stop violating Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funds.

As a result, the school district could lose almost $46 million in federal funding, LoudounNow reported.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found that five Northern Virginia school districts violated Title IX by allowing “students to access intimate, sex-segregated facilities based on the students’ wholly subjective ‘gender identity,’” as the Daily Citizen reported just two weeks ago.

But the Loudoun County School Board chose to pursue woke ideology and violate students’ rights rather than comply with the federal law and the OCR’s demands.

The districts’ Title IX violations began in 2021 when the board, over the objections of many parents, voted 7-2 to pass Policy 8040, “Rights of Transgender and Gender-Expansive Students.”

The policy was implemented after the state’s education department published “Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Virginia’s Public Schools,” which required that schools allow students to participate in sports and access locker rooms and restrooms “in a manner consistent with their gender identity.”

Schools were also mandated to “incorporate regular education about transgender students into staff professional development and training.” It was considered “verbal harassment” for teachers and other students to intentionally use names and pronouns not consistent with a student’s “gender identity.”

The state guidelines trampled on parental rights, stating, “If a student is not ready or able to safely share with their family about their gender identity, this should be respected. There are no regulations requiring school staff to notify a parent or guardian of a student’s request to affirm their gender identity.”

Loudoun’s Policy 8040 followed those guidelines. They’ve been a disaster for the district, teachers, parents and students.

Shortly after the policy was implemented, the district lost a lawsuit to Tanner Cross, a teacher who was suspended for opposing it at a school board meeting. Cross had said,

“I love all of my students, but I will never lie to them regardless of the consequences. I’m a teacher, but I serve God first and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it’s against my religion. It’s lying to a child, it’s abuse to a child, and it’s sinning against our God.”

Even worse, the policy opened girls restrooms to boys who claimed to be female. A skirt-wearing “gender fluid” boy then sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl in the girls restroom at Loudoun’s Stone Bridge High School.

Loudoun County Schools Superintendent and Board dragged the girl’s father out of a board meeting, tried to cover up the incident and transferred the boy to another school – where he assaulted a second girl.

Also at Stone Bridge, a female student, identifying as transgender, recorded boys in a male locker room questioning her presence, with “one student expressing that he felt ‘uncomfortable’ about the situation,” Fox News reported.

Even though it is against the law to record in a locker room, the boys were investigated “for allegedly violating Policy 8040.”

The district’s transgender policy also violates new guidance from the Virginia Department of Education, which rescinded the 2021 transgender guidance and replaced it with “Model Policies on Ensuring Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students and Parents in Virginia’s Public Schools.”

The new guidelines call for schools to respect parental rights and the safety and privacy of all students.

Despite a free-speech lawsuit, parental opposition, sexual assaults, invasion of students’ privacy by members of the opposite sex, violating state guidance, and now the threat of losing federal funding, the Loudoun County School Board stubbornly clings to Policy 8040.

At some point, you would think common sense and concern for the welfare of all students would prevail.

As the Department of Education’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said when charges were brought against the district,

“It’s time for Northern Virginia’s experiment with radical gender ideology and unlawful discrimination to come to an end. OCR’s investigation definitively shows that these five Virginia school districts have been trampling on the rights of students in the service of an extreme political ideology.”

Related Articles and Resources

Department of Education Launches Multiple Investigations Into Title IX Violations

Department of Education: Schools Embracing DEI Will Lose Funding

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

DoEd Finds Northern Virginia School Districts Violated Title IX

‘Equipping Parents For Back-To-School’ – Updated Resource Empowers Parents

Irate Parents Excoriate Loudoun County Schools Superintendent and Board Over Sexual Abuse Coverup

New Education Secretary Linda McMahon: ‘Send Education to the States’

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

Virginia School District Ignores Parents’ Opposition, Implements ‘Gender Identity’ Lessons

What’s Your School District’s ‘Transgender’ Policy?

The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) allows boys nearly unrestricted freedom to play girls sports and change in girls’ locker rooms, a “gender diversity toolkit” for coaches reveals.

The only criteria? The male student must “most consistently express himself” as a girl (whatever that means).

It’s no secret CIF and the California Department of Education allow students to participate in sports consistent with their subjective “gender identity,” rather than their biological sex. The Department of Justice sued them for it last week, alleging the policy violates Title IX protections against sex discrimination in federally funded educational institutions and activities.

But the true extent of CIF’s “gender inclusion” policy is hidden in the “Gender Diverse Youth Sport Inclusivity Toolkit,” an online guide helping coaches integrate “transgender” and “nonbinary” players.

Thus far, the rules primarily apply to boys interested in joining girls teams.

Here’s what the Daily Citizen uncovered.

Male students can participate in girls sports with no objective criteria.

CIF does not require male athletes submit any proof of gender confusion to play in girls sports. The toolkit claims asking for such evidence not only violates “transgender” students’ privacy but levies “arbitrary and discriminatory” requirements against them.

The document references a policy brief from the California School Board Association (CSBA), which prohibits school officials from soliciting documentation of a student’s “gender-related identity” unless they have “credible information” indicating the identity is false.

The brief does not clarify what constitutes such information. In Lucia Mar Unified School District, two girls publicly alleged a male teammate acted inappropriately in the girls’ locker room.

He remains on the girls team.

Students can switch “identities” and teams at will.

The toolkit says students that switch “gender identities” may be allowed to participate on a girls team one semester and a boys team the next.

CIF’s “Philosophy of Gender Identity Participation,” as articulated in the toolkit, allows athletes to play on teams consistent with their gender identity or “the gender most consistently expressed.”

This addition, which is not included in CIF’s bylaws, allows students significant room to change their “gender identity.” The toolkit normalizes such changes, telling coaches:

A student’s understanding of their gender identity may take some time to fully discern. They may understand the gender they are not but still need to discover the gender that they are.

Students can change their “gender identities” based on factors like their “confidence.”

One of the Frequently Asked Questions included in the toolkit asks how coaches should determine what sports league a “nonbinary” student should join.

In this case, CIF instructs coaches to allow the student to “select the gendered team on which they feel most comfortable participating.” The policy allows the student to consider factors like “established camaraderie with fellow athletes, personal safety and privacy concerns.”

CIF allows the student to change their “selected gender,” so long as the change “is a result of a deeper understanding of their gender identity.”

It’s unclear how coaches can make this determination without asking for documentation but, regardless, it’s not a hard and fast requirement. The toolkit reads:

A student may have other reasons for changing their gender identification and those can be considered with an emphasis on optimizing the athlete’s confidence, safety and privacy.

While any student may ask for a private space to change, coaches are not allowed to preemptively move a boy to a separate changing area.

The toolkit instructs coaches to accommodate students that ask for a private space to change. However, it stops coaches from assigning “transgender” students a separate changing area unless they ask for it.

“No student should be forced to use an all-gender facility such as a staff bathroom simply because they are trans or gender diverse,” it reads, calling such actions discriminatory.

CIF encourages coaches to prepare girls for a boy to join their team.

The toolkit encourages coaches to mentally prepare girls to accept a male on their team and in their locker room in the name of sportsmanship.

“There is no need to wait for the arrival of a trans athlete to begin conversations with team members about the value of inclusion,” the toolkit reads, continuing:

Any team would benefit from the articulation of, and expectations surrounding, good sportsmanship values.

In another section articulating CIF’s expectations of students, it associates accepting “transgender” athletes with “being gracious winners and losers,” “being a team player,” and “having a supportive and encouraging attitude towards yourself and others.”

“Communication of these expected practices are what builds the foundation for any unexpected situation, including the welcoming of a new trans teammate,” the toolkit concludes.

In this way, CIF enlists coaches in rewiring girls’ perceptions of their own physical boundaries. The University of Pennsylvania tried the same trick in 2022, when Lia — formerly Will —Thomas joined the women’s swim team.

When athletes like Paula Scanlon expressed discomfort changing in front of Thomas, UPenn officials allegedly offered them therapy to “become more comfortable sharing previously sex-segregated spaces with members of the opposite sex.”

CIF will not tell parents when a “transgender” athlete joins their child’s team.

Perhaps most alarmingly, CIF will not, as a rule, inform athletes and their parents when a boy joins a girls team unless he gives officials explicit permission.

This is consistent with the way CSBA instructs schools to “balance” a “transgender” student’s “right” to conceal their “gender identity” and other students’ right to privacy — just issue a blanket disclosure about the state’s “gender inclusion” policies at the beginning of each year.

CIF’s “Gender Diverse Youth Sport Inclusivity Toolkit” offers boys every incentive to assume a female or “nonbinary” “gender identity.” Meanwhile, female athletes have no guarantee of privacy or equal athletic opportunity, and no recourse in the event of sexual assault and harassment.

Unfortunately, CIF isn’t alone. Public school systems across the country are adopting similar policies, to the unmitigated detriment of students and families.

To learn more about problematic school policies in other states, click on the links below.

Additional Articles and Resources

DOJ Lawsuit Describes California Department of Education’s Infuriating Treatment of Girls

Feds Sue California Department of Education, Interscholastic Federation for ‘Illegal Sex Discrimination’

UPenn Will Strip ‘Lia’ Thomas of Medals, Apologize to Female Athletes

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

California Sues DOJ Over ‘Transgender’ Athlete Ban

Feds Pressure California After Boy Wins in Girls Track and Field Championship

Girls Sports Coaches are Incentivized to Recruit Men — Parents Shouldn’t Let Them

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

Girls Shouldn’t Apologize for Protesting Boys in Girls Sports

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces