The Department of Education Told Employees to End Support for Transgender Students

The broad language in the email did not specify which programs or policies would be impacted, or how many schools or students might be affected. But the order appears designed to target programs that in recent years supported transgender students — school-based mental health services and support for homeless students, for example.

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A spokesperson for the Education Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The email, which was unsigned and sent from “ED Internal Communications,” also takes aim at employee programs at the Education Department. Employees across the federal government already have been instructed to remove preferred pronouns from their email signatures.

“Employee resource groups that promote gender ideology and do not affirm the reality of biological sex cannot meet on government property or take place during official work hours,” the email said.

It’s not clear what resource groups the email is referencing or whether they exist.

The Trump administration has curbed transgender rights in other federal agencies; it has barred transgender people from serving in the military, reinstating a policy from Trump’s first term, and in federal prisons it has tried to move transgender women to male facilities, an effort a judge has blocked.

The sweeping directive outlined in Friday’s Education Department email follows two recent executive orders targeting “gender ideology.” The first, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” ordered federal agencies to scrub references to transgender people from documents, rules and policies. The department appears to have complied with the order by, for example, removing resources like tips for schools on how to support homeless LGBTQ+ youth.

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The email sent to employees Friday afternoon stated: “The deliberate subjugation of women and girls by means of gender ideology — whether in intimate spaces, weaponized language, or American classrooms — negated the civil rights of biological females and fostered distrust of our federal institutions.”

Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, is still awaiting confirmation.

She is co-founder with her husband of World Wrestling Entertainment and chair of the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit that has campaigned against transgender rights in schools.

Even without McMahon, like-minded colleagues already are working in the department, including several staff members from her conservative think tank. The bio of newly appointed Deputy General Counsel Candice Jackson, for instance, touts her experience “challenging the harmful effects of the concept of ‘gender identity’ in laws and policies in schools.”

Schools have experienced whiplash in recent years as presidents imposed — and then removed — protections for transgender youth.

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Schools “must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity,” the letter said.

Trump rescinded that guidance after he came into office in 2017, though the letter remained on the Education Department’s website. The Biden administration took the position in 2021 that transgender students deserved protection from discrimination under Title IX and publicized resources for schools and the LGBTQ+ students they serve.

Now that Trump is back in office again, many of those resource documents appear to have been wiped off the department’s website.

“President Trump is being the bully-in-chief. This administration wants to outlaw kindness and common decency in schools and make it illegal for teachers to call their students by the name they want to be called,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the executive director of Advocates for Trans Equality, in a statement about the administration’s “Defending Women” executive order.

Trump’s vision in his second administration includes dismantling the Education Department altogether. It’s unclear if there’s a legal pathway to do so, but already the administration has placed more than 50 department employees on administrative leave who appear to be associated with diversity, equity or inclusion efforts.

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We are continuing to report on the U.S. Department of Education. Are you a former or current Education Department employee? Are you a student or school employee impacted by changes at the department? You can reach our tip line on Signal at 917-512-0201. Please be as specific, detailed and clear as you can.