Today the U.S. Department of Education released a proposed Title IX rule concerning participation by transgender youth in school sports programs. Lambda Legal Senior Attorney and Director of Lambda Legal’s Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project Sasha Buchert released the following statement:
“This proposed rule includes critical recognition of the importance of participating in sports for transgender youth and shows why 100% of the state bans are invalid. We are concerned about whether the proposed rule can properly eliminate the discrimination that transgender students experience due to the pervasive bias and ignorance about who they are. These students must have full and equal chances to participate because participation in athletics provides many long-term benefits for young people, including important health benefits, and chances to develop leadership skills, discipline, and self-confidence. Given the importance of the opportunity to participate in athletics to students’ educational experience, we look forward to submitting comments and working with the administration to further remove those remaining bigotry-based barriers to full and equal participation by transgender youth.”