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In the Trump administration\u2019s latest move to limit trans rights, the Department of Education has launched a Title IX investigation into Smith College, an all-women\u2019s college in western Massachusetts, for admitting trans women.<\/p>\n
Like most other women\u2019s colleges in the US, Smith, a small liberal arts college, admits trans women. The 155-year-old school says it \u201cis a women\u2019s college and considers for admission any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women are eligible to apply to Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a Monday statement, the Department of Education said it was investigating Smith for \u201cadmitting biological men and granting them access to women-only spaces, including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
The term \u201cbiological men,\u201d though often used by opponents of trans rights to describe trans women, is not commonly used by trans people.<\/p>\n
Smith College told CNN it \u201cis fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws\u201d and \u201cdoes not comment on pending government investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Education Department says it\u2019s investigating whether the college\u2019s policy violates Title IX, a landmark federal civil rights law that bans sex-based discrimination in any school or other education program that receives federal funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cTitle IX contains a single-sex exception that allows colleges to enroll all-male or all-female student bodies\u2014but the exception applies on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity,\u201d reads the statement. \u201cAn all-girls college that enrolls male students professing a female identity would cease to qualify as single sex under Title IX.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shannon Minter, an attorney with the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, called the investigation an \u201cominous\u201d example of government overreach into private institutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they (women\u2019s colleges) have chosen \u2013 as many of them have \u2013 to admit transgender students, that\u2019s something they should be able to do freely without being worried about persecution by the federal government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis administration seems hellbent on eliminating any inclusion of transgender people anywhere in our society,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has taken sweeping measures to limit trans people\u2019s rights and to deny trans identity exists in the first place. New policies under his second term include banning trans people from the military, suing states for allowing trans athletes to play on high school sports teams, restricting trans and nonbinary children\u2019s access to gender-affirming care, and a Day 1 executive order that redefined gender as \u201csex\u201d and said that humans are either male or female, determined by biology at conception.<\/p>\n
Trans people make up a tiny fragment of the country\u2019s population. Just 1% of the United States population ages 13 and older identify as trans, according to the Williams Institute, a public policy research center at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law focused on sexual orientation and gender identity.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear how many trans students are at Smith today. The college adapted its admissions policies in 2015 to clearly include trans students, after Smith denied admission to trans woman Calliope Wong in 2013, triggering a wave of on-campus activism at women\u2019s colleges. Although Smith\u2019s admissions policy doesn\u2019t explicitly include trans men, the college does provide support to trans male students.<\/p>\n
Smith College says it \u201cis actively working to expand support for transgender students\u201d and provides resources including \u201ctrans-affirming\u201d healthcare and peer support. The college also says that there are single-occupancy, all-gender restrooms and an all-gender locker room with private changing and showering areas on campus.<\/p>\n
The investigation was opened in response to a civil rights complaint filed by Defending Education, a conservative nonprofit with the stated mission of protecting schools from \u201cactivists imposing harmful agendas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicholas Hite, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization focused on LGBTQ rights, said it was notable the complaint didn\u2019t originate with anyone at Smith College.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe communities that these policies and that these institutions serve, they\u2019re really happy they chose to go to these places,\u201d Hite said. \u201cOftentimes, they chose to go to these places specifically because of their inclusive policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that he saw admitting trans women as a natural extension of women\u2019s colleges\u2019 missions. \u201cWomen\u2019s colleges came into existence because of oppression that was inflicted on the basis of gender,\u201d he said. \u201cIt seems very much to me that inclusion of trans women is a perfectly logical next step in keeping with the goal of creating an educational opportunity for people who are being oppressed on the basis of gender.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minter, who has worked on several lawsuits challenging the Trump administration\u2019s anti-transgender policies, said that the use of Title IX reflects the \u201cmisuse and weaponization of anti-discrimination laws to do the very opposite of the thing those laws were enacted for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Title IX, he said, was meant to \u201cprotect people against all forms of sex-based discrimination, including discrimination against transgender people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The text of Title IX itself is brief and doesn\u2019t attempt to define gender or sex. Under the Obama and Biden administrations, Title IX was taken to include protections for trans students. But Trump, in both his presidential terms, has reversed those protections.<\/p>\n
Minter said that the investigation into Smith College would likely cause fear and anxiety for trans students and youth.<\/p>\n
The administration is \u201cseeking to destroy every single safe place for transgender young people in this country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a vicious vendetta against a small vulnerable group of kids,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it is long past time for anyone who cares about how these young people and their families must be feeling to really stand up to this.\u201d<\/p>\n
CNN\u2019s Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
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