Faced with threats by the current administration to defund schools promoting “woke” ideology, school districts across the country are shedding protections for trans students.

The policy changes come as school boards are already under pressure from state legislatures and parents’ rights groups to turn the clock back on transgender protections.

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In February, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law in Iowa that removes gender identity as a protected class from the Iowa Civil Rights Act. That prompted the Linn-Mar School District outside Cedar Rapids to rescind policies adopted in 2022 to shield students from forced outings and allow them to use preferred pronouns.

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The policy referenced a portion of the Iowa Civil Rights Act, which was repealed by Reynolds.

“A policy that refers to laws that no longer exist doesn’t make sense,” school board member Melissa Walker said in March.

A parents’ rights group, Parents Defending Education, contended the Linn-Mar policy allowed children to make fundamentally important decisions about gender identity without parental involvement and to hide those decisions in school from their parents.

In Bellevue, Nebraska, the school board faced a stark choice: repeal protections for trans students adopted in 2015 or lose up to $10 million in federal funding.

Citing a letter sent by the White House to school administrators across the country on April 3 — which demanded compliance with executive orders banning DEI in schools and the administration’s claim that there are only two “immutable sexes,” male and female — Bellevue’s Superintendent Jeff Rippe said, “$10 million is what we get in federal funding. And that means a lot to this school district. Speaking personally, we cannot afford to lose $10 million.”

District policy was changed to allow teachers to disclose a student’s transgender status to others, including parents; bar transgender students from talking about their gender identity; and ban transgender students from using restrooms that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth.

Rippe also cited “concerned parents” among the reasons for the changes.

The same forces were at work this week in Mesa, Arizona, where a proposed “Gender Dysphoria Policy” was hotly debated at an overflow school board meeting.

Current district guidelines regarding trans students allow them to be addressed by their preferred name and pronouns, participate in school sports, and use restrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities in accordance with their gender identity. The guidelines also prohibit the disclosure of a student’s transgender or gender-nonconforming status to other employees, students, and parents.

All of those guidelines would be rolled back with the adoption of the new “Gender Dysphoria Policy.” 

More than 80 attendees spoke for and against the policy, which the board directed to an outside counsel for review before taking action.

One speaker called trans identity “a lie.”

“And if you are allowing your kid to believe this lie and condoning this lie, you are an agent of the devil,” said the speaker, Jared Hiegle.

“It’s not love to accept them as who they believe they are.”

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