President Donald Trump’s newly formed Title IX investigative team has been called upon in the state of Washington.
Department of Education (DOE) Secretary Linda McMahon announced Wednesday the team will be launching an investigation into Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal’s office.
The team, a joint initiative by the DOE and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), is taking action in response to Reykdal requiring schools to allow biologically male trans athletes on girls sports teams.
“Multiple Washington state school districts have reported that OSPI is requiring school boards to adopt policies that allow males to participate in female sports and occupy female-only intimate facilities, thereby raising substantial Title IX concerns,” the announcement said.
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McMahon issued a warning to Reykdal and the rest of the Democrat-controlled state.
“Washington state appears to use its position of authority to coerce its districts into hiding ‘gender identity’ information from students’ parents and to adopt policies to covertly smuggle gender ideology into the classroom, confusing students and letting boys into girls sports, bathrooms and locker rooms,” McMahon said.
“If true, these are clear violations of parental rights and female equality in athletics, which are protected by federal laws that will be enforced by the Trump administration.”
Reykdal provided a statement to Fox News Digital and did not indicate his office would cooperate with the federal investigation.
“My job as the leader of this constitutional office is to communicate, uphold and enforce the law,” Reykdal said. “My office will enforce our current laws as we are required to do until Congress changes the law and/or federal courts invalidate Washington state’s laws. Unless, and until that happens, we will be following Washington state’s laws, not a president’s political leanings expressed through unlawful orders.”
Reykdal spoke in defense of transgender athletes in girls sports in an address Feb. 20, claiming it was “inaccurate” to say there are only two genders.
“It is quite simply inaccurate to say, biologically, that there are only boys and there are only girls,” Reykdal said on camera. “There’s a continuum. There’s a science to this. There are children who are born intersex. There are children whose hormones and whose chromosomes are not consistent with their sex at birth.”
Washington’s high school athletes are allowed to compete based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex. Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) policy states that each athlete will participate in programs “consistent with their gender identity or the gender most consistently expressed,” and there are no medical or legal requirements.
Bills that would prohibit transgender girls from participating in girls and women’s sports have been introduced but not passed.
The Kennewick School Board filed a Title IX complaint with the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights against Reykdal’s office in late March over the issue.
Kennewick School Board President Gabe Galbraith previously told Fox News the district is seeking federal intervention to ensure the order will eventually be honored.
“There’s boys participating in girls sports. There’s boys in girls locker rooms. It’s unfair. It’s not safe, and we’re asking the federal government to just step in and put an end to this and ensure that the state is following President Trump’s statements,” he said.
Other school districts have taken a stand against Reykdal since President Trump signed his “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order Feb. 5.
The Tumwater School District’s board of directors voted later that month to ban trans girls from playing for girls sports teams. The resolution passed by a vote of 3-1 after a civil rights complaint was filed against the district over an incident involving a trans athlete in a girls basketball game.
The complaint alleged that the Tumwater School District in Washington is investigating 15-year-old Frances Staudt for “misgendering” the opponent and violating the district’s policies against bullying and harassment Feb. 7.
According to the document, Staudt asked the school’s principal and athletic director before the game 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.
However, the DOE OCR announced an investigation into Tumwater School District just days later.
Now, the Trump administration is going further up the chain of command in the state, and taking aim at the superintendent.
In addition to reports that Washington schools are allowing trans athletes in girls sports, the DOE cited in its announcement Wednesday that La Center School District in La Center, Washington, received a letter of finding indicating Reykdal was requiring districts to enact policies, such as mandating that districts not notify parents of a change in their child’s “gender identity,”
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