Education Department Rescinds Title IX Protections for LGBTQ+ Students

Behind the policy language, civil rights groups say the rollback reaches kids who already report being bullied, disciplined and harassed at school; the Trump administration says it is restoring the law’s original intent 

By: Chris Gilmore/TRT Reporter—

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2026 — For a generation of LGBTQ+ students, Title IX had quietly become something more than federal statute — it was, for two years, a promise that being harassed for who you are could count as illegal discrimination at school. On Monday, that promise was withdrawn.

The U.S. Department of Education formally rescinded the Biden-era rule that had extended Title IX’s ban — the 1972 federal law barring sex discrimination in federally funded schools — on sex discrimination to to explicitly include LGBTQ students under its protection (cover sexual orientation and gender identity), according to a department announcement reported by EdWeek and The Hill. The reversal returns federal policy to the narrower, sex-assigned-at-birth definition used under 2020 regulations, EdSource reported.

For the students the rule was written to protect, the change is abstract only until it isn’t. Separate research from the Trevor Project, leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people, has found that LGBTQ+ students report high rates of verbal harassment and mistreatment at school tied to their identity — the backdrop against which today’s decision landed, even though the announcement itself made no mention of that research.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon framed the rollback as a return to legal footing, not a retreat from student safety. The published regulations now “faithfully reflect court orders and Congressional intent,” she said, according to a department statement cited by EdSource. The department’s accompanying fact sheet went further, insisting that “nothing changes in practice for individual students, parents, and teachers,” as reported by EdWeek.

Civil rights advocates hear something different in that language. Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, said the administration is “weaponizing Title IX to attack trans students,” according to The Hill and EdSource — not, in her view, protecting the sexual-assault survivors Title IX was written to serve. The Washington Blade, via the National LGBT Media Association, reported that other advocates echoed the concern that transgender students specifically would lose ground.

The rollback “has weakened protections for all students, especially trans students,” said Cathy Renna, communications director at the National LGBTQ Task Force, in an interview with PinkNews.

Others deemed it atrocious.

Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group, called the decision “a monstrous injustice,” according to the Washington Blade.

Caught between those two accounts is the ordinary machinery of a school day — who gets disciplined for a bathroom dispute, whose complaint a principal takes seriously, whose harassment gets called by its name.

The decision follows a string of court challenges to the 2024 rule, at least eight of which were pending before Monday’s announcement, according to EdWeek. Courts in several Republican-led states had already blocked the Biden-era interpretation before it could take effect nationwide.