LA MESA — The U.S. Department of Education announced Monday it is dissolving Title IX agreements with five school districts and a college intended to protect the rights and privacy of transgender students, including one with the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights repealed provisions of resolution agreements that required districts to take specific actions to address noncompliance with federal civil rights law.
La Mesa-Spring Valley Superintendent David Feliciano said the initial complaint that led to the agreement stemmed from a gender-nonconforming elementary school student who was “uncomfortable using the restroom because of comments other students made about how they dressed.”
Feliciano said the district did not dispute the agreement after the student’s parent filed the complaint “because it involved training we were already providing to staff around cultural proficiency, especially as it relates to the LGBTQ+ community.”
California requires such training for K-12 educators.
“The remedy was already made and we anticipate no effect,” Feliciano told City News Service. “This letter has no effect on our district policies and procedures, and our understanding is that it has no effect on the training or policies required at the state level. We remain committed to ensuring a safe and supportive learning environment for all students.”
The district serves more than 10,000 students in La Mesa, El Cajon, Casa de Oro, Mount Helix and Spring Valley.
Department of Education officials said Title IX, which “prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance,” had been improperly applied to gender identity rather than biological sex.
“Today, the Trump administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said. “While previous administrations launched Title IX investigations based on ‘misgendering,’ the Trump administration is investigating allegations of girls and women being injured by men on their sports teams or feeling violated by men in their intimate spaces.
“Today is yet another demonstration of the Trump administration’s commitment to uphold the law, protect our students and restore common sense. No longer will the federal government force educational institutions to violate the law or punish them for upholding it.”
The department said it is operating under a binary definition of sex — male or female — reversing broader interpretations under the Obama and Biden administrations that included protections for transgender students.
Monday’s action is the latest move by the Trump administration to roll back legal protections and policies affecting transgender individuals.
Last month, four families sued Rady Children’s Health in San Diego over its decision to terminate gender-affirming treatments, at least in part due to threats from the White House to withhold funding.
In a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in San Diego Superior Court, the families allege the health care system’s decision to discontinue much of its gender-affirming care program is discriminatory toward their children, as well as roughly 1,900 other patients receiving such care within the system.
Rady was also sued by the California Attorney General’s Office over the decision, which led a judge last month to order the hospital to continue providing care — other than surgeries — for patients younger than 19. Another hearing in that case is scheduled this month.
Rady representatives declined to comment on pending litigation, but attorneys for the health care system said in court that escalating threats from the Trump administration to cut off Medicare and Medicaid funding played a major role in the decision.
Although the latest lawsuit acknowledges the court order requiring continued care, it states that the plaintiffs “live with profound uncertainty knowing that defendants plan to end their care as soon as possible.”
The families are represented by the Western Center on Law & Poverty, Impact Fund and the National Center for LGBTQ Rights. In a statement, National Center for LGBTQ Rights Senior Staff Attorney Amy Whelan said, “No hospital in California has the right to single out transgender youth and deny them critical health care. That is discrimination, plain and simple, and it violates California law.”
In a separate lawsuit filed by California and more than a dozen other states, U.S. District Court Judge Mustafa Kasubhai ruled in March that U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. overstepped his authority by issuing a December declaration stating gender-affirming care does not “meet professionally recognized standards of health care” and that providers could be excluded from federal programs.
That declaration was cited during a February hearing in San Diego, where an attorney for Rady said any perceived violation “is potential grounds for exclusion from Medicare or Medicaid coverage.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in response to the ruling, “This decision marks a major victory in our fight against the Trump administration’s cruel campaign against transgender Americans. The Kennedy declaration sought to unlawfully bully doctors and hospitals into halting crucial care for transgender individuals nationwide.”
UPDATE: This story has been updated from its original version.
