The US Department of Education is investigating the Newport School District in Maine because a transgender athlete is competing on a “girls” cheerleading team. Reports the Portland Press Herald, “the superintendent of the school district at the center of the investigation said the team at issue is open to both boys and girls,” so if gender is the question … what’s the question?

Diving deeper into the story, LGBTQ Nation reports:

[The Schools’] superintendent Michael Hammer told the paper that the cheerleading squad in question is a co-ed team.

“Boys can join, girls can join. No one lost a place on the team because a transgender student joined,” Hammer said. (Hammer did not address allegations that the district “allowed a male student to use female facilities.”)

Hammer told the Press Herald that a letter the district received from the Education Department notifying him of the federal civil rights investigation was the first time he’d ever heard of anyone having a problem with an alleged trans student’s participation on the school’s cheerleading squad.

Hammer said the letter alleged that a trans girl joined a district middle school’s cheerleading team in February, but it neglected to acknowledge that the team is co-ed. In the letter, the Education Department said that its investigation would “examine whether the district has a policy or practice of allowing male students to participate in athletic programs designated for female students and whether the district has a policy or practice of allowing male students to use intimate facilities designated for use by female students in violation of Title IX.”

Upon returning to office last January, [President Trump] signed an executive order rescinding the Biden administration’s interpretation of Title IX as protecting students against discrimination based on gender identity. The following month, OCR notified U.S. schools that it would not enforce the Biden administration’s trans-inclusive interpretation of the law.

As the Press Herald notes, only six school districts in Maine have complied with the administration’s interpretation of Title IX, deferring instead to the Maine Human Rights Act, which protects trans athletes’ right to compete on sports teams and in athletics divisions that align with their gender identity.

Read the complete LGBTQ Nation story here.

Not a subscriber?  Sign up today for a free subscription to Boston Spirit magazine, New England’s premier LGBT magazine.  We will send you a copy of Boston Spirit 6 times per year and we never sell/rent our subscriber information.  Click HERE to sign up!