Dive Brief:
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Half of states now have policies in place banning transgender students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity, with Ohio last month becoming the 25th state to enact such a policy, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that tracks the issue.
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In early January, Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed a measure restricting transgender students' participation on sports teams aligning with their gender identities, but he was overturned by state legislators. The law goes into effect April 24.
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About 300,000 teens ages 13 to 17 are transgender, according to the Williams Institute, a research center on gender identity and sexual orientation policy. A little over a third, or 37%, of those youth live in states with laws preventing them from joining sports teams matching with their gender identity.
Dive Insight:
Schools in states banning transgender students' participation on teams aligning with their gender identities will likely have to grapple with both their state policies and a pending Title IX proposal that — if finalized into a rule — would prohibit blanket bans on this participation by transgender students.
The number of states with these bans increased, from 22 in July 2023 to 25 just some six months later. Across those bans, the portion of transgender youth impacted rose from 31% to 37% nationwide.
The Title IX regulation proposed by the U.S. Department of Education in April 2023 would require states and districts to take into account differences among students across grades, levels of competition, and types of sports before establishing criteria for athletic team eligibility.
The rule says that separating boys' and girls' sports teams while limiting participation of some transgender students may be permitted in some cases. In high school, for example, the criteria could allow exceptions to achieve fairness in competition.
Districts choosing to limit trangender student participation in these cases would still have to fulfill other requirements, however, like minimizing harms as much as possible for affected students.
A final version of the Title IX athletics rule was first expected as early as May 2023 but then postponed to October 2023. The Education Department missed that deadline as well, and it now says the rule will be released in March. However, it will likely also miss that deadline, considering the department hasn't yet sent the rule to the White House for review — a key procedural hurdle required before rules are finalized. That process can take up to 120 days.
The athletics rule is the second in a pair of Title IX proposals, the first of which was released much earlier, in June 2022, and more broadly includes protections for LGBTQ+ students.
“The Department is still reviewing a second rule related to athletics, which was first proposed nine months after the first rule, and which received 150,000 public comments, which by law must be carefully considered,” said a department spokesperson last week.
