Even before he took the oath of office, President Donald Trump made it very clear that it would be the policy of his administration to target transgender people.
On Jan. 9, Judge Danny Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky blocked the implementation of a 2024 Biden administration Title IX rule that barred discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, which Trump and his lackeys celebrated. Five days later, House Republicans passed H.R.28, or the so-called “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025,” a cornerstone of the Trump education agenda, which seeks to codify sex as “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth” in Title IX. At the end of January, the Department of Education released guidance telling schools to enforce Donald Trump’s Title IX rules from 2020 in accordance with the Kentucky ruling.
Just today, the President released an executive order ordering the Department of Justice to update its interpretation of Title IX such that it bars transgender women from competing in sports — a ban that is likely difficult to enforce, and one that steps on the toes of Republican congressional leaders.
Trump’s 2020 Title IX rules limit protections to peoples’ sex assigned at birth, essentially barring trans people who face discrimination based on gender identity from receiving any sort of protection under the law.
The Trump administration has used its power to marginalize transgender people to the point of rejecting the fact of their existence. If the Senate passes the language of H.R.28, legal protections against discrimination for trans students across the country could be in jeopardy, and the situation for trans students — including those on our own campus — could become far more dire than it already is. That is why Princeton must take action to bolster resources and current protections for transgender students outside of Title IX as well as release a statement clearly condemning the legislation.
This should be an issue of particular concern for Princeton — changes to Title IX law intimately concern the inner workings of the University and how it handles conflicts with students and staff. And a framework already exists to fight back: Princeton filed suit in 2017 after the federal government attempted to end DACA, which the University said violated the constitution.
In accordance with the guidance released by the Department of Education last week, Princeton quietly updated its Title IX page, noting that it “will be prepared to modify its policies as required once the status of the [2024 Biden Title IX regulations] issued in April is further clarified.” Thankfully, the University will continue to enforce its current standards on sexual harassment and discrimination. But this statement also hints at the fact that the University is at the whim of the federal government and may indeed change its policy. This is unequivocally bad for transgender Princetonians.
While the statement reaffirmed a commitment to the University’s current policy, it also did not commit to maintaining that policy should it be jeopardized by the passage of H.R.28. The rapidly changing environment surrounding anti-discrimination and sexual harassment policy creates severe uncertainty that Princeton must reckon with. To combat this, Princeton must lean into the current guardrails — its policies on discrimination and sexual misconduct — and strengthen routes for accountability. Princeton's current discrimination policy is stronger than Trump's Title IX policy because it includes gender identity as a protected class. Princeton must keep this as is, even if directives on Title IX change.
Even before Trump’s 2020 Title IX policy are re-implemented across the country, LGBTQ+ students at Princeton feel like they belonged less and were less satisfied with their time at Princeton compared to their cisgender and heterosexual peers. While the University took a welcome first step in the reaffirmation of its stance on discrimination and harassment based on “sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy or related conditions,” the University should take things a step further and legally challenge the Trump Title IX rule, using its respected status to stand up for its most vulnerable students.
As my colleague Isaac Barsoum ’28 writes, the University already has a target on its back. Federal funding cuts threaten research at Princeton while Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency take aim at dismantling the Department of Education, the primary regulatory agency for higher education. Instead of cowering and reacting to these changes as they happen, Princeton must proactively challenge them and shore up the protections it already has in place, like its current policies on sexual harassment and discrimination.
If Republicans in Congress pass H.R.28 and it is signed by President Trump, the definition of sex will overtly exclude transgender students, meaning that the on-and-off coverage under Title IX that transgender students have received over the past decade will permanently disappear. This would allow for a slippery slope of executive orders, federal agency rules, and legislation that attack transgender students at Princeton and beyond.
Trump's changes to Title IX, including the Executive Order he signed today banning trans women from playing sports, signal more dire attacks on education are to come in the future. Princeton has a responsibility to do everything it can to prevent them.
Assistant Opinion Editor Charlie Yale is a first-year from Omaha, Neb., and can be reached at cyale@princeton.edu.
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