As a recent case in Virginia shows, not all sports-related transgender issues arise from men pretending to be women. The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Jaryn Crouson reported on an investigation involving several male students who “expressed discomfort with a female student using the boys’ locker room.” The girl had allegedly used the boys’ locker room several times previously, and had reportedly filmed the boys’ reaction on her cell phone.

But instead of looking into what were valid concerns of the boys, the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) opened a “Title IX investigation into the three boys attending Stone Bridge High School, questioning whether they perpetrated sexual harassment by complaining about the girl’s presence.”

In a May 6 press release, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares announced that the A.G.’s office will “investigate the school division’s conduct.” Youngkin expressed outrage over reports that LCPS is investigating the male students. “It’s deeply concerning to read reports of yet another incident in Loudoun County schools where members of the opposite sex are violating the privacy of students in locker rooms. Even more alarming, the victims of this violation are the ones being investigated—this is beyond belief,” he wrote.

Youngkin asked Miyares to “investigate this situation immediately so that every student’s privacy, dignity and safety are upheld. Students who express legitimate concerns about sharing locker rooms with individuals of the opposite biological sex should not be subjected to harassment or discrimination claims.”

The Youngkin administration has policies in place that require students to use the locker rooms that correspond to their biological sex, and that “require parental notification if a student is permitted to use a locker room that differs from their biological sex” so that parents can opt their child out and be permitted to use alternative facilities. “Parental rights are not negotiable,” Youngkin said.

Miyares said this latest incident is “what happens when school boards disregard common sense.... This is about safety and privacy, not political correctness — and it’s time Loudoun County recognized that.” LCPS’s school board policy allows students “to use the facility that corresponds to their consistently asserted gender identity.” Staff must “allow gender-expansive or transgender students to use their chosen name and gender pronouns that reflect their consistently asserted gender identity without any substantiating evidence, regardless of the name and gender recorded in the student’s permanent educational record.”

Obviously, publicly funded schools are doing whatever they want despite state requirements and policies, at least in Loudoun County, Virginia, which has been a hotbed of controversy for years. Education Reporter has chronicled numerous issues occurring in the LCPS. (See October 2021, November 2021, January 2022, and more.) Despite ongoing parental complaints and outcry, the district appears to be continuing its flawed policies.

One bright spot in Virginia was the February announcement that the Virginia High School League (VHSL) had placed a ban “on student athletes assigned male at birth from participating in girls’ sports” in response to President Trump’s Executive Order. This was a departure from VHSL’s 2014 policy that implemented a waiver process “for trans students who had undergone sex reassignment before puberty or met other requirements like hormone therapy.”

How long the ban will be in place remains to be seen, but for now VHSL’s governing body believes its policies “need to be in compliance with [the president’s] executive order so that our member schools and school divisions wouldn’t have to choose between the league and the executive order.”

Washington state school district pushes back

On the other side of the country, the Kennewick School District has filed “a formal Title IX Civil Rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR)” against Washington state officials. Named in the suit are Washington State Superintendent Chris Reykdal, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), and the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) “for policies and practices leading to sex-based discrimination in Washington state schools and student athletics.”

The parents’ rights group, Parents Defending Education (PDE), reported on the action in a March 27 “incidents” update. PDE explained that the Kennewick school district’s board requested “URGENT federal intervention due to open and egregious Title IX violations currently occurring within the state’s student athletics as well as requisite school district policies mandated by the state which are [in] direct violation of Title IX.” [Emphasis in original.]

PDE President, Nicole Neily, applauded the school board’s action. “It’s exciting to witness the growth of a movement that’s empowering school districts to finally speak up and protect our children when state education officials violate their rights — and federal law,” she wrote in an email to supporters.

At issue is the state’s and the WIAA’s approval of biological males participating in girls’ sports. The district pointed out that “at least one male [is] competing against females” in girls track. In 2024, the male student won the girls’ “state 400m title which led directly to his team winning the girls’ state 2A track title.”

The board further complained that the Kennewick School District is between a rock and a hard place because it risks losing state funds for refusing to revise its transgender policy “to conform to a state-wide model policy (3211/3211P) that directly violates Title IX” by allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports. Conversely, changing the policy to conform with the state puts the district “in violation of President Trump’s executive orders” thus risking the loss of federal funding, which accounts for 10 percent of Kennewick’s annual budget.

The district explained that the state is further trying to force Kennewick to exclude parents from transgender identity changes involving their children by mandating that the district modify its policy to allow the gender identity of students to be hidden from parents.

In concluding its formal complaint, the district wrote:

• The Kennewick School Board is committed to fostering a school environment that respects both the rule of law and the fundamental role of parents in their children’s education. The [board] is committed to ensuring the protection of biological female athletics, maintaining “all female” locker rooms separate from male locker rooms, and prioritizing the privacy rights of our students. However, we find ourselves caught between conflicting directives that threaten not only our federal funding but also the rights and values of the families we serve. We urge your department’s immediate attention to this matter....

Is the tide turning?

Some believe the tide may be turning on the unprecedented and potentially dangerous practice of permitting biological males to participate in girls’ and women’s sports.

In a recent interview with the New Hampshire (NH) Journal, co-founder of Moms for Liberty and a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation, Tiffany Justice, said “we’re winning and the science, obviously, is with us.” NH journalist Michael Graham agreed that [biological] facts haven’t changed and “aren’t going away.” Most people aren’t going to continue to believe what they’re being told if their eyes tell them something different.

Justice says common sense is prevailing over far-left ideology. “I believe, through different litigation and lawfare as well as different policies that are being passed and major reforms in our medical institutions, this craziness, this madness, the idea of gender ideology will be stopped,” Justice said. “I do believe that the tide is turning.”

Female fencer Stephanie Turner, who took a knee in March rather than compete against a male athlete, was named “Courage Wins Champion” by XX-XY Athletics’ founder Jennifer Sey. The Daily Caller reported that footage of Turner’s action tallied “more than one million views in only hours.” She received a “DNF” (Did Not Finish) and her male competitor, Redmond Sullivan, moved on in the competition.

XX-XY Athletics states on its website that it is “unapologetic” about its goal. “We are here to protect women’s sports and spaces ... Sex matters. It is the single biggest determinant of athletic performance. It is unfair and dangerous to allow males (XY) to compete in girls and women’s (XX) sports.”

Attorney, former judge, and legal writer, Patricia Barnes, posted on X that Turner was the real winner. “It appears she didn’t want to fence a male claiming to be a female,” Barnes wrote. “Bravo! And shame on @usfencing and the @NCAA for putting her in that position.”

Perhaps author, evolutionary biologist, Manhattan Institute Fellow, and publisher of Reality’s Last Stand.com, Colin Wright, Ph.D., summed it up best in his recent City Journal article:

• The presence of male athletes in women’s sports has become an unexpected political flashpoint—not because the issue is complicated, but because it is so straightforward. If politicians are willing to lie about something this absurd, we wonder, what else are they lying about? Some consider the issue trivial, but its absurdity draws a political dividing line: Are you on the side of common sense, or of a fanatical ideology?

A majority of Americans appear to agree with Wright. In addition to the Pew findings cited in Education Reporter’s lead article, the New York Times reported similar results of an Ipsos poll in January 2025 — that 79 percent of Americans oppose biological males competing in women’s sports, with just 18 percent supporting it.

Wright duly pointed out that the controversy “isn’t just about sports. It’s about whether we live in a society governed by truth or one dominated by ideological fantasies,” and that institutions embracing such irrationality must face consequences. This is precisely the core of why so many Americans believe the transgender madness must be defeated once and for all.

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