LGBTQI+
CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION’S
FOUNDATIONAL APPROACH
Over decades, the Civil Rights Division has enforced protections for LGBTQI+ people in work, housing, education, and public life, recognizing that sex-discrimination laws protect sexual orientation and gender identity. The Division prosecuted hate crimes against transgender people, addressed harassment of LGBTQI+ students, protected transgender people from sexual assault in custody, and enforced equal dignity under federal civil rights laws.
CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION'S FOUNDATIONAL APPROACH
The legal landscape protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and non-binary people (LGBTQI+)—and the Civil Rights Division’s role in shaping and enforcing those protections—has evolved substantially over the last several decades. As courts and federal agencies have repeatedly confirmed that longstanding civil rights statutes prohibiting sex discrimination apply to sexual orientation and gender identity, the Division increasingly played a central role in advancing legal interpretations that protect LGBTQI+ people.
Supporting Privacy, Equality, and Family Recognition
For much of the late twentieth century, LGBTQI+ people faced criminalization, exclusion from basic legal protections, and denial of family recognition. In 1996, Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denied federal recognition to same-sex marriages and stripped same-sex couples of critical benefits, even in states that recognized their marriages.
After years of sustained advocacy and litigation challenging marriage bans across the country, a significant shift occurred within the Department of Justice in the early 2010s, when the Department concluded that DOMA was unconstitutional and notified Congress that it would no longer defend the statute. The Department subsequently supported marriage equality in United States v. Windsor, where the Supreme Court struck down DOMA’s core provisions as unconstitutional. Two years later, the Department filed a brief in Obergefell v. Hodges, arguing that state bans on same-sex marriage violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court upheld same-sex marriage nationwide, recognizing the constitutional right to marry consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of liberty and equality. The Civil Rights Division’s advocacy reflected a broader shift toward recognizing equal dignity and legal status for same-sex couples under federal law.
Addressing Hate Crimes
LGBTQI+ people have long been targets of violence. To strengthen the federal government’s ability to respond when states could not or would not act to protect LGBTQI+ communities from violence, the Department of Justice supported expanded federal hate crimes protections. Those efforts culminated in the enactment of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which was the first time the words “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” appeared in the U.S. Code. The statute was enacted in direct response to brutal acts of bias-motivated violence, including the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student in Wyoming whose killing exposed gaps in state and federal authority to address anti-LGBTQI+ violence. Despite the expansion of federal protections, hate crimes against LGBTQI+ people have persisted, underscoring the continued need for federal enforcement and coordination.
Since its passage, enforcement of the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act has been a core responsibility of the Civil Rights Division across administrations. The Division, under both the Biden Administration and the first Trump Administration, celebrated milestone anniversaries of the law and highlighted prosecutions as evidence of the federal government’s commitment to combating violence motivated by bias against LGBTQI+ people.
The Division secured its first successful prosecution for a hate crime based on gender identity in 2016. Following sentencing in that case, Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated: “Today’s sentencing reflects the importance of holding individuals accountable when they commit violent acts against transgender individuals.” The case marked a significant milestone in the federal enforcement of protections for transgender people.
In the years since, the Department has continued to bring prosecutions under the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act on behalf of LGBTQI+ victims, including in cases involving mass-casualty attacks, the murder of a transgender woman, firebombings and threats targeting LGBTQI+ events and advocates, and threats to a doctor providing gender affirming care. Through these prosecutions, and through coordination with the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices nationwide under initiatives such as United Against Hate, the Division reinforced the federal government’s role as a backstop against violence driven by bias and hatred.
Read more about the Division’s criminal civil rights prosecutions.
Recognizing Gender Dysphoria and Supporting Gender-Affirming Care
Beginning in the mid-2010s, the Civil Rights Division increasingly addressed discrimination against transgender people through constitutional and statutory frameworks governing medical care, disability rights, and equal protection. In correctional settings, it advanced the position that failing to provide treatment for gender dysphoria based on an individualized medical assessment can violate the Eighth Amendment. In parallel, the Department of Justice explored how gender dysphoria fits within federal disability law, asserting that it may qualify as a covered disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act notwithstanding statutory exclusions.
As courts began to recognize these arguments—including the first appellate decision holding that gender dysphoria may be protected under the ADA—the Division moved from theory to affirmative enforcement, filing statements of interest and initiating litigation. It also issued guidance to state officials summarizing constitutional and statutory obligations toward transgender youth, including in the context of access to medically necessary care. By 2024, the Department was defending these principles at the Supreme Court, arguing that categorical bans on gender-affirming care departed from ordinary medical regulation and violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Supporting Protections for LGBTQI+ People in Economic and Civic Life
Federal civil rights protections governing employment, housing, and access to government identification are central to economic security and full participation in civic life. Although these constitutional provisions and statutes were enacted long before contemporary understandings of sexual orientation and gender identity emerged, the Civil Rights Division increasingly played a role in applying sex-discrimination and equal-protection principles to protect LGBTQI+ people from workplace discrimination, sexual harassment in housing, and unequal treatment in everyday life.
In Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), the Supreme Court confirmed that discrimination against gay or transgender employees is discrimination because of sex under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Notably, however, the federal government did not speak with one voice while participating in the case: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission argued that Title VII prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, while the Department of Justice urged the opposite conclusion. Ultimately, the Court adopted the EEOC’s interpretation.
Following Bostock, the Division aligned its enforcement work with the Supreme Court’s holding and focused on ensuring that the decision was meaningfully implemented, particularly in public-sector employment where the Division has primary enforcement authority. The Division filed briefs supporting LGBTQI+ employees facing discrimination, including claims involving hostile work environments created through intentional misgendering and harassment and the exclusion of medically necessary treatment for gender dysphoria from employer-sponsored health plans. Read more about the Division’s employment work.
The Division applied similar principles in the housing context, invoking the Fair Housing Act’s prohibition on discrimination because of sex, language that parallels Title VII, to address harassment and sexual abuse targeting LGBTQI+ tenants. Read more about the Division’s housing work.
The Division also used constitutional principles in 2021 to challenge a state law that prevented transgender people from obtaining identity documents consistent with their gender identity, recognizing that accurate identification is often essential to employment, housing, travel, access to benefits, safety, dignity, and full participation in civic life.
Enforcing Protections for LGBTQI+ Students
The Civil Rights Division enforces federal laws designed to ensure that all students have access to educational opportunities free from discrimination, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. Over the past decade, the Division applied these laws to address discrimination and harassment affecting LGBTQI+ students.
The Division brought enforcement actions and supported litigation addressing the exclusion and mistreatment of LGBTQI+ students, including a challenge in 2016 to North Carolina’s policy restricting restroom access and a settlement with Vermont in 2023 involving harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It also filed amicus briefs supporting schools’ authority to require staff to respect transgender students’ names and pronouns and defending transgender students’ access to restrooms consistent with their gender identity.
In addition to litigation, the Division issued guidance to state officials summarizing the constitutional and statutory obligations that protect transgender youth, including in educational settings and in connection with access to gender-affirming care. Through these actions, the Division sought to ensure that federal education laws are applied in a manner that protects LGBTQI+ students’ safety, dignity, and equal access to schooling.
Read more about the Division’s education work.
Addressing Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System
The modern movement for LGBTQI+ rights gained national visibility in response to discriminatory policing, most notably during the Stonewall uprising in 1969. Since then, interactions with law enforcement and conditions of confinement have remained areas of heightened vulnerability for LGBTQI+ people, and a recurring focus of the Civil Rights Division’s criminal justice work.
Over the past two decades, the Division has addressed discriminatory policing practices affecting LGBTQI+ communities through investigations, consent decrees, and guidance. Several policing consent decrees incorporated explicit protections for LGBTQI+ people, requiring changes to policies, training, and supervision governing officers’ interactions with LGBTQI+ individuals. The Division also issued guidance recognizing that gender bias in law enforcement disproportionately affects LGBTQI+ survivors of violence. Read more about the Division’s policing work.
The Division’s work has extended into jails and prisons through enforcement of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act. In 1994, the Supreme Court’s decision in Farmer v. Brennan—its first case involving an openly transgender plaintiff—underscored constitutional obligations to protect incarcerated people from known risks of harm. Building on that foundation, the Division incorporated LGBTQI+-specific protections into correctional investigations and consent decrees, including requirements related to staff training, safety, and incident reporting.
Since the mid-2010s, the Division has also advanced constitutional and statutory protections for transgender people experiencing gender dysphoria in custody, arguing that the failure to provide appropriate treatment and safe conditions can violate the Eighth Amendment and, in some circumstances, federal disability law. Through this work, the Division sought to ensure that the criminal legal system—from policing through incarceration—operates in a manner consistent with constitutional guarantees and protects LGBTQI+ people from discrimination and abuse of power. Read more about the Division’s disability work.
WHAT’S CHANGED SINCE
JANUARY 20, 2025?
Civil Rights Division political leadership has shifted from protecting transgender people to using civil rights laws against them. The Division has filed litigation attacking transgender students’ participation in sports, opposed efforts to protect transgender students from harassment, sought to restrict access to gender-affirming care, and used federal civil rights laws as a tool to undermine transgender rights.
WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE JANUARY 20, 2025?
Transgender Rights: From Protection to Persecution
Since January 2025, one of the most striking developments within the Civil Rights Division has been a rapid and comprehensive reversal of its work protecting transgender people from discrimination. The Division has not only disavowed and dismantled years of enforcement and litigation positions developed across multiple administrations, but has increasingly used its authorities in ways that actively counter the legal rights of transgender people.
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14168, declaring: “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” Days later, Executive Order 14187 established federal policy opposing support for gender-affirming care for minors and directed rigorous enforcement of laws restricting such care. These directives set the framework within which the Department and the Division quickly altered their approach to transgender rights.
Within months, the Division abandoned major initiatives that reflected years of legal development. By late February 2025, the Division repudiated the government’s prior position before the Supreme Court in Skrmetti, and withdrew multiple appellate briefs, ending its participation as a party or amicus curiae in cases challenging bans on gender-affirming care. It similarly withdrew from litigation arguing that exclusions of gender-affirming care from insurance coverage violated Title VII and other civil rights statutes, later filing a statement of interest advancing the opposite view. The Division also withdrew a brief asserting that forcing transgender students to use restrooms inconsistent with their gender identity may constitute sex discrimination under Title IX.
At the same time, the Division began using its enforcement authorities to advance positions that roll back the rights of transgender students. It initiated litigation against California and Maine for permitting transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports in public K–12 schools. It also filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold state laws barring transgender women and girls from participation in women’s and girls’ sports, arguing that such exclusions are consistent with Title IX and the Constitution.
Taken together, these actions represent a sharp break from more than a decade of the Division’s prior work to protect LGBTQI+ people through our nation’s civil rights laws. These changes have occurred alongside the broader federal government’s attempts to erase the existence of transgender people. They have also occurred alongside Departmental efforts aimed at denying legal recognition of and threatening transgender people, including efforts to obtain access to medical records related to gender-affirming care.
The transformation of the Civil Rights Division from an enforcer of protections for transgender people to an instrument of their marginalization marks one of the most consequential institutional reversals in the Division’s history. This new posture sends a clear message: that the federal government’s civil rights apparatus can be turned against the very communities it was built to protect.
Federal Hate Crimes Enforcement: Decline and Degradation
The Civil Rights Division’s enforcement of federal hate crimes laws protecting LGBTQI+ people appears to have declined significantly. While some criminal civil rights prosecutions continue, decisions by Division leadership to push out, transfer, and sideline career attorneys have resulted in a substantial loss of personnel dedicated to this work. According to Department of Justice press releases, between January 20, 2025, and January 19, 2026, the Division publicly reported involvement in only one LGBTQI+ related hate crimes matter—the appeal described below. By contrast, the Department reported securing convictions or sentences in at least six such cases in 2024. This decline occurred despite the Department’s own hate-crime statistics showing that LGBTQI+ people are among the groups most frequently targeted for bias-motivated violence. This apparent decline prompted a congressional inquiry.
Against this backdrop, the Division filed disrespectful briefs in an appeal of a hate crimes prosecution arising from the murder of Dime Doe, a Black transgender woman—the Division’s first guilty verdict in a trial for hate crimes against a transgender person. The Division’s public filings in the case rejected the legitimacy of transgender people, disregarding Doe’s gender identity by referring to her as a “biological male,” using her former name, and placing her chosen name in quotation marks. Read more about the Dime Doe case.
Tracking the Changes
LGBTQI+ Cases Shut Down since January 20, 2025
Red Line does not include every Civil Rights Division case. Learn what Red Line tracks.
Doe v. Georgia Department of Corrections
23-cv-05578 (N.D. Ga.)
On January 8, 2024, the Civil Rights Division filed a statement of interest in this private litigation filed by a transgender woman seeking access to gender affirming surgery. The Division argued that gender dysphoria may qualify as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act and does not fall within the Act’s exclusion for “gender identity disorders.”
On April 25, 2025, the Division announced it withdrew that statement of interest, asserting that the “United States has since disavowed the scientific theories on which the Doe SOI was based” and characterizing research on gender dysphoria and World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) standards of care as “debunked science.”
Bridge v. Oklahoma State Department of Education
No. 24-6072 (10th Cir.)
On July 19, 2024, the Civil Rights Division filed an amicus brief arguing that forcing transgender students to use restrooms that do not align with their gender identity may violate Title IX’s prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex.
The Division withdrew the amicus brief on February 28, 2025.
Brandt v. Griffin (formerly Brandt v. Rutledge)
21-cv-00450 (E.D. Ark.), No. 21-2875, No. 23-2681 (8th Cir.)
On June 17, 2021, the Civil Rights Division filed a statement of interest in litigation brought by four families of transgender youth and two doctors to challenge an Arkansas law prohibiting gender affirming care for transgender minors. The Division argued that the law discriminated on the basis of sex and transgender status and violated the Equal Protection Clause. On January 21, 2022, after the state appealed a preliminary injunction issued in the case, the United States filed a brief with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing the law was unconstitutional. The Eighth Circuit upheld the district court’s preliminary injunction in August 2022. On December 14, 2023, after the state lost at the district court and appealed a permanent injunction, the Division filed another brief with the Eighth Circuit, again arguing the law was unconstitutional. The Division then participated in oral argument on April 11, 2024.
On February 28, 2025, the Division withdrew its December 14, 2023 brief.
Poe v. Labrador
No. 24-142 (9th Cir.)
On March 12, 2024, the Civil Rights Division filed an amicus brief arguing that an Idaho statute criminalizing the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender affirming care discriminated on the basis of sex and transgender status and violated the Equal Protection Clause.
On February 28, 2025, after the change in administration, the Division withdrew its brief with no explanation.
Poe v. Drummond
23-cv-00177 (N.D. Okla.), No. 23-5110 (10th Cir.)
On June 9, 2023, the Civil Rights Division filed a statement of interest arguing that an Oklahoma law criminalizing certain kinds of medical care for transgender minors but not other minors is discrimination based on sex and transgender status that violates the Equal Protection Clause. On November 16, 2023, when the case was on appeal at the Tenth Circuit, the Division filed an amicus brief, making the same argument.
On February 28, 2025, after the change in administration, the Division withdrew its amicus brief with no explanation.
Dekker v. Secretary, Florida Agency for Health Care Administration
No. 23-12155 (11th Cir.)
On December 4, 2023, the Civil Rights Division filed an amicus brief arguing that Florida’s 2022 administrative rule and state law withdrawing Medicaid coverage for puberty-delaying medications and hormone therapies for transgender adults and adolescents violates Medicaid’s requirements and the Affordable Care Act and discriminates based on sex.
On February 28, 2025, after the change in administration, the Division withdrew its brief with no explanation.
Zinner v. Tennessee
23-cv-00535 (M.D. Tenn.)
On January 10, 2024, the Civil Rights Division filed a Statement of Interest arguing that when employers “exclude health insurance coverage for medical treatment only when it is needed to provide gender-affirming care to individuals whose gender identity does not conform with the sex they were assigned at birth, they facially discriminate based on transgender status, which inherently discriminates based on sex under Title VII.”
On February 27, 2025, the Division withdrew the Statement of Interest with no explanation.
Wood v. Florida Department of Education
23-cv-00526 (N.D. Fla.)
On June 27, 2024, the Civil Rights Division filed a Statement of Interest arguing that Florida’s policies prohibiting school employees from sharing their personal pronouns or titles with students if it does not correspond to the employee’s sex at birth affects the “terms or conditions of employment” within the meaning of Title VII and that repeated misgendering can result in a hostile work environment.
On February 26, 2025, the Division withdrew the Statement of Interest with no explanation.
United States v. Marshall, Attorney General of Alabama (Eknes-Tucker v. Marshall)
22-cv-00184 (M.D. Ala.), No. 22-11707 (11th Cir.), No. 24-582 (S. Ct.)
In April 2022, the Civil Rights Division intervened in litigation brought by four transgender children, their parents, two medical professionals, and a reverend to challenge an Alabama law imposing a felony ban on the provision of gender-affirming care to minors. In May 2022, the Division obtained a preliminary injunction to halt enforcement of the law. Defendants appealed the preliminary injunction, which the Eleventh Circuit ultimately vacated in August 2023. The United States appealed to the Supreme Court on November 26, 2024, asking that the Court wait to decide on whether to grant the appeal until it reached a decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a case involving a similar Tennessee law that raised identical legal questions.
On February 12, 2025, before the Court issued an opinion in Skrmetti, the parties jointly stipulated to dismiss the appeal to the Supreme Court.
United States v. Skrmetti (L.W. v. Skrmetti)
23-cv-00376 (M.D. Tenn.), No. 23-05600 (6th Cir.), No. 23-477 (S. Ct.)
On April 20, 2023, three transgender youth, their families, and a physician filed suit to challenge Tennessee Senate Bill 1, a law banning gender-affirming medical procedures for transgender youth and establishing a private right of action against medical providers providing such care. The Civil Rights Division joined the litigation in April 2023 and the case eventually ended up in the Supreme Court, where the Division filed multiple briefs and replies and in December 2024, participated in oral argument, arguing that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause.
On February 7, 2025, following the change in administration, the Division reversed its position in the case in a letter to the Supreme Court, writing that in the Trump Administration’s view, the law does not violate the Constitution. In a significant setback to transgender rights, the Supreme Court held that the law does not violate the Equal Protection Clause.
LGBTQI+ Cases Pursued Since January 20, 2025
Red Line does not include every Civil Rights Division case. Learn what Red Line tracks.
Investigation of the Washington Corrections Center for Women
On May 19, 2026, the Civil Rights Division announced that it had notified Washington Governor Bob Ferguson that it would investigate whether the state fails to protect incarcerated women from harm by allowing transgender women to be placed at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW). The investigation is part of the Division’s “National Initiative Examining the Housing of Biological Men in Women’s Prisons,” which it launched in March 2026 when it announced two similar investigations in Maine and California.
In the press release announcing the investigation, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon suggests that housing transgender women at WCCW inherently violates the constitutional rights of women by “sacrific[ing them] at the altar of appeasing unsupported and dangerous ideologies.” That assertion ignores that federal law protects all people in government custody from sexual violence, regardless of sex or gender identity, and disregards the heightened risk of harm that transgender people face in correctional settings. It also lacks legal support under relevant constitutional standards and directly contradicts DOJ’s own regulations and decades of correctional practice grounded in individualized safety assessments rather than categorical determinations.
The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) authorizes DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to investigate whether “egregious or flagrant” conditions inside correctional facilities result in a “pattern or practice” of constitutional violations. Where it finds systemic failures in the operations of prisons and jails, the Division is authorized to seek remedies to eliminate those failures.
Under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, prisons have an obligation to take reasonable measures to protect the people within their custody from harm, including sexual assault by other incarcerated individuals. Prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment if they show “deliberate indifference” to a substantial risk of serious harm. As the Supreme Court explained in Farmer v. Brennan, a 1994 case involving a transgender woman who was severely beaten and raped after being placed in the general male prison population, officials violate that standard if they know of and disregard such a risk.
Sexual violence in American prisons is a persistent problem, and transgender people are particularly vulnerable. Recognizing the prevalance of sexual assault in correctional facilities, Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in 2003. To carry out this law, in 2012 the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued PREA regulations requiring that housing assignments for transgender people in correctional facilities receiving federal funding be made “on a case-by-case basis,” with officials weighing whether a placement would ensure the inmate’s health and safety, and whether it would present management or security problems.
Such individualized determinations—combined with risk screening and thorough investigation of and response to sexual assault allegation—are precisely the kinds of measures the Division has previously identified as necessary to remedy Eighth Amendment violations related to sexual assault, including of transgender individuals.
The Washington State Department of Corrections’ policy establishes procedures for the treatment, housing, and supervision of transgender, intersex, and non-binary individuals. The policy requires that housing decisions be made through a multidisciplinary review process that considers medical and mental health needs, security concerns, and the individual’s own views about safety, with periodic reassessments and appeal rights.
Housing assignments for transgender women in Washington’s prisons are already the subject of ongoing litigation, which has been filed both on behalf of an individual transgender woman seeking to be returned to a women’s facility, and on behalf of a woman who objects to being housed alongside a transgender woman. In 2024 the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington challenged the transfer of a transgender woman to a men’s facility, arguing the transfer violated the state’s constitution. Though the court initially denied her petition, Washington’s Supreme Court agreed to review the decision, and former corrections officials filed a brief on her behalf explaining that prisons—especially men’s prisons—are exceptionally dangerous for transgender women. A second lawsuit was filed in April 2026 on behalf of a woman incarcerated at WCCW, who was allegedly assaulted by a transgender woman, and on behalf of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, a non-profit founded in 2021 to oppose efforts to recognize gender identity and to challenge diversity and inclusion initiatives. The lawsuit seeks to categorically prohibit transgender women from living in women’s housing, and argues that housing a transgender woman in a women’s facility and providing gender affirming care denies non-transgender women equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. The lawsuit also categorically alleges that housing transgender women at WCCW “created a substantial risk of serious harm to female inmates” and therefore violates the Eighth Amendment. The plaintiffs in this case are represented by the America First Policy Institute.
In addition to the lawsuits about housing assignments, advocates in Washington have also sued over gender-affirming care. In 2023, Disability Rights Washington secured a consent decree requiring the state to provide gender-affirming healthcare and clothing, eliminate unnecessary cross-gender searches, and allow transgender people to shower and change separately from others.
It is against this developing legal landscape in Washington that the Department of Justice has initiated this investigation.
Nationally, the Trump administration’s attacks on the rights of transgender people, including those who are incarcerated—which have been a top priority for the administration—have faced significant legal challenges. In some instances, they have been blocked by federal courts who have found the administration’s actions are likely unlawful.
On Inauguration Day 2025, just hours after taking office, President Trump issued an executive order requiring that all transgender women in federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities be housed in men’s prisons, according to their biological sex. A federal court blocked this practice in March 2025, finding it likely violates the Eighth Amendment. Following an appeal and the consolidation of multiple cases involving transgender women in BOP facilities, in June 2026 a federal district court again blocked BOP from moving 14 transgender women plaintiffs to a men’s facility, finding that doing so would subject each individual plaintiff to a “heightened risk of sexual violence, as well as self-harm and suicide,” and would likely violate their constitutional rights.
The executive order also required BOP to revise its policies concerning medical care to ensure no federal funds go to gender-affirming care that would “conform[] an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” Three transgender individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria and incarcerated in BOP facilities brought a class action lawsuit to challenge policies implementing these changes, and secured a preliminary injunction in June 2025, which was renewed in May 2026 and requires BOP to continue providing gender-affirming care to those with gender dysphoria diagnoses.
In December 2025, DOJ directed PREA auditors to stop using over a dozen audit standards that could implicate gender identity, which human rights groups report will put people in danger. DOJ’s move came without first modifying the underlying regulations, which it promises to do in the future.
Not content to stop at the federal level, the Civil Rights Division has also supported state correctional facilities that seek to limit transgender individuals’ rights and access to gender-affirming care.
Investigation of the Maine Correctional Center
On March 26, 2026, the Civil Rights Division notified Governor Janet Mills that it would investigate whether Maine fails to protect incarcerated women from harm by allowing a transgender woman to live in women’s housing at the Maine Correctional Center (MCC) in Windham, Maine. The investigation stems from allegations, which are also likely the subject of a private lawsuit, that a single transgender woman housed in the facility assaulted and harassed other women there. It is part of the Division’s new “National Initiative Examining the Housing of Biological Men in Women’s Prisons,” and was announced on the same day as a similar investigation in California.
Sexual violence in prisons is a persistent problem, and transgender people are particularly vulnerable to violence in prison. Federal law protects the people within government custody from sexual violence.
The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) authorizes the Division to investigate whether “egregious or flagrant” conditions inside correctional facilities result in a “pattern or practice” of constitutional violations. Where it finds systemic failures in the operations of prisons and jails, the Division is authorized to seek remedies to eliminate those failures.
Under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, prisons have an obligation to take reasonable measures to protect the people within their custody from harm, including sexual assault by other incarcerated individuals. Prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment if they show “deliberate indifference” to a substantial risk of serious harm. As the Supreme Court explained in Farmer v. Brennan, a 1994 case involving a transgender woman who was severely beaten and raped after being placed in the general male prison population, officials violate that standard if they know of and disregard such a risk.
Recognizing the prevalance of sexual assault in correctional facilities, Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in 2003. To carry out this law, in 2012 the Department of Justice issued PREA regulations requiring that housing assignments for transgender people in correctional facilities receiving federal funding be made “on a case-by-case basis,” with officials weighing whether a placement would ensure the inmate’s health and safety, and whether it would present management or security problems. Such individualized determinations—combined with risk screening and thorough investigation of and response to sexual assault allegation—are precisely the kinds of measures the Division has previously identified as necessary to remedy Eighth Amendment violations related to sexual assault, including of transgender individuals.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi’s suggestion in the press release announcing this investigation that placing a transgender woman in a women’s prison inherently violates the Constitution contradicts the Department of Justice’s own PREA regulations and decades of correctional practice grounded in individualized safety assessments rather than categorical determinations.
Maine’s policy allows transgender or intersex people to be assigned housing consistent with their gender identity unless that placement would create a “risk to safety, security, or orderly management of the facility,” including by posing a risk to other residents or to the safety of the transgender or intersex resident. While not determinative of whether there is a constitutional violation, a 2023 audit found MCC met the relevant PREA standards, had appropriate policies in place to screen and house transgender individuals on a case-by-case basis, allowed transgender individuals the opportunity to shower separately from others, and “worked to support transgender residents to be housed in units consistent with their gender identity and expression while ensuring the safety of all.” Nevertheless, in April 2025, Attorney General Bondi cut $1.5 million in grant funding from the Maine Department of Corrections because the state housed a single transgender woman at MCC’s Women’s Center.
Attacking the rights of transgender people, including those who are incarcerated, has been a priority for the Trump administration.
On Inauguration Day 2025, just hours after taking office, President Trump ordered that incarcerated transgender individuals in federal Bureau of Prisons facilities be housed according to their biological sex. A court found this practice likely violates the Eighth Amendment. The case is on appeal.
The executive order also required the Bureau of Prisons to revise its policies concerning medical care to ensure no federal funds go to gender-affirming care that would “conform[] an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” Three transgender individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria and incarcerated in BOP facilities brought a class action lawsuit to challenge policies implementing these changes, and secured a preliminary injunction requiring BOP to continue providing gender-affirming care to those with gender dysphoria diagnoses. The case is ongoing.
The Civil Rights Division has supported state correctional facilities in seeking to limit transgender individuals’ rights and access to gender affirming care.
In December 2025, DOJ directed PREA auditors to stop using over a dozen audit standards that could implicate gender identity, which human rights groups report will put people in danger. DOJ’s move came without first modifying the underlying regulations, which it promises to do in the future.
Maine has been a particular target for the Trump administration’s anti-transgender agenda: in addition to its efforts around correctional facilities, in April 2025 the Division filed suit against Maine for allowing a transgender athlete to compete in girls’ sports.
Investigation into the California Institution for Women and the Central California Women’s Facility
On March 26, 2026, the Civil Rights Division notified California Governor Gavin Newsom that it would investigate whether the state’s practice of housing transgender women at the California Institution for Women (CIW) and the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF)—and providing them with allegedly “preferential treatment”—violates the rights of the other women incarcerated there.
The investigation was announced alongside a similar investigation in Maine as part of the Division’s “National Initiative Examining the Housing of Biological Men in Women’s Prisons.” Notably, the Civil Rights Division has not completed the investigation it opened in September 2024 into the same two women’s prisons, which followed “hundreds of private lawsuits” alleging sexual abuse by prison staff.
The separate new investigation will focus on “widely reported allegations” that the presence of transgender women at CIW and CCWF violates non-transgender women’s rights. The Division opened the investigation under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), and will review whether the state is violating the right to free speech and free exercise of religion under the First Amendment, the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, and the right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
In the press release announcing the investigation, senior Department of Justice (DOJ) officials disregarded the heightened risk of harm that transgender people face in correctional settings and ignored the fact that federal law protects all people in government custody from sexual violence, irrespective of gender identity. Bill Essayli, now the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, pointed to California’s Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act and said the state has “provided none of these qualities to the female inmates of state prisons who have been forced to share space with biological men who are violent felons,” adding that the “Constitution protects women from having their civil rights violated by harmful state legislation wrapped in the language of ‘equity’ and ‘progress.’” Then-Attorney General Pamela Bondi similarly suggested that housing transgender women at CIW or CCWF inherently violates the Constitution. These assertions lack legal support under relevant constitutional standards, echo failed claims from a similar lawsuit dismissed in federal court in California just three days before the investigation was announced, and directly contradict DOJ’s own regulations and decades of correctional practice.
CRIPA authorizes DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to investigate whether “egregious or flagrant” conditions inside prisons result in a “pattern or practice” of constitutional violations, and to seek remedies where it finds systemic failures.
Under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, prisons have an obligation to take reasonable measures to protect people in their custody from harm, including sexual assault by other incarcerated individuals. Prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment if they show “deliberate indifference” to a substantial risk of serious harm. As the Supreme Court explained in Farmer v. Brennan, a 1994 case involving a transgender woman who was severely beaten and raped after being placed in the general male prison population, officials violate that standard if they know of and disregard such a risk.
Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in 2003 in recognition of the prevalence of sexual assault in correctional facilities. DOJ’s 2012 PREA regulations require that housing assignments for transgender people in correctional facilities be made “on a case-by-case basis,” with officials weighing whether a placement would ensure the person’s health and safety and whether it would present management or security problems. Such individualized determinations—combined with risk screening and thorough investigation of and responses to allegations of sexual assault—are precisely the kind of measures the Division has previously identified as necessary to remedy Eighth Amendment violations related to sexual assault, including of transgender individuals.
RLUIPA, passed in 2000, protects individuals incarcerated in federally-funded institutions from arbitrary or unnecessary restrictions on religious exercise. Under the law, the government cannot impose a substantial burden on a person’s religious exercise unless it serves a “compelling governmental interest” and is the “least restrictive means” of furthering that interest. The Division has enforced this law to ensure access to religious diets and texts and exceptions to hair length restrictions.
While the Eighth Amendment supplies a well-established framework for assessing claims that prison officials have failed to protect incarcerated individuals from harm, the Division’s additional reliance on RLUIPA, the First Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clause rests on novel legal theories in this context. The Division has not publicly explained either the factual allegations or the legal reasoning that would support applying those provisions to the housing policies at issue.
DOJ’s press release announcing the investigation attempts to fault California law for allowing “men in state prisons, including violent felons charged with sex crimes and who have intact genitals, [to] request transfer to women’s prisons based on self-identification as transgender.” Setting aside the inaccurate and demeaning misidentification of transgender women as “men,” the statement omits a critical feature of California’s policy: transfer requests are not automatically granted. Rather, California’s housing decisions require an individualized, case-by-case assessment that considers safety, security, and management concerns, consistent with PREA and the process California policy requires for incarcerated people more broadly. As described in a special report by the California Inspector General in August 2023, incarcerated people who request a transfer to a women’s prison based on gender identity must complete an eight-week educational program, and submit to an interview and a review of their criminal and administrative disciplinary history, followed by a hearing at which a classification committee determines whether the person would raise management or safety concerns. PREA audits of CIW and CCWF conducted in 2024 found the facilities made housing decisions following individualized assessments.
DOJ’s investigation was opened just three days after a federal court dismissed all remaining claims in a challenge to California’s law protecting incarcerated transgender people. DOJ’s investigation appears to focus on many of the same allegations and legal theories that the court had just rejected. The Women’s Liberation Front, an anti-transgender organization based in Washington D.C., filed the lawsuit on behalf of six incarcerated women in 2021, challenging the law under the Eighth, Fourteenth, and First Amendments and California law. The complaint alleged the law gave violent men “carte blanche access to female facilities” with only a declaration of transgender identity, creating unsafe living conditions, and objecting more generally that cisgender women would be forced to share intimate spaces with transgender women, infringing their privacy.
Through a series of dismissals, the court found that the plaintiffs’ “allegations imply a transfer is a foregone conclusion once an inmate discloses a transgender identity. They imply as well that the safety and security of others are secondary, even irrelevant concerns under the terms of the statute itself. Fortunately, that is not so.” The court found the plaintiffs did not ask it to redress a specific harm already suffered or explain why declaring California’s transgender protection law unconstitutional would prevent future harm. The court also pointed out that the California law does not implicate the First Amendment rights of incarcerated individuals because it regulates prison officials, not incarcerated people, and therefore does not require plaintiffs to use specific pronouns or otherwise compel speech. Plaintiffs declined to further amend their complaint and appealed on May 21, 2026.
Meanwhile, fresh allegations of staff sexual abuse continue to surface at CIW and CCWF, even as the Civil Rights Division’s separate investigation into those allegations—opened in September 2024—remains unresolved. In December 2025, the state’s prison inspector general reviewed sexual abuse allegations after “at least 279” people accused “at least 83 correctional employees of sexual misconduct alleged to have occurred over several years,” finding nine-month delays on average in referring cases for investigation, and that the accused staff “ranging in classification from officer to lieutenant,” remained employed. New lawsuits continue to be filed. For example, in February 2025, six women filed suit alleging a prison gynecologist at CIW raped them. In October 2025, two women filed litigation alleging a staff cook at CIW raped them.
Nationally, the Trump administration and the Department of Justice’s attacks on the rights of transgender people, including those in prison, have faced significant legal challenges. In some instances, federal courts have blocked the actions after finding the administration’s actions are likely unlawful.
On Inauguration Day 2025, just hours after taking office, President Trump issued an executive order requiring that all transgender women in federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities be housed in men’s prisons, according to their biological sex. A federal court blocked this practice in March 2025, finding it likely violates the Eighth Amendment. Following an appeal and the consolidation of multiple cases involving transgender women in BOP facilities, in June 2026 a federal district court again blocked BOP from moving 14 transgender women plaintiffs to a men’s facility, finding that doing so would subject each individual plaintiff to a “heightened risk of sexual violence, as well as self-harm and suicide,” and would likely violate their constitutional rights.
The executive order also required BOP to revise its policies concerning medical care to ensure no federal funds go to gender-affirming care that would “conform[] an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” Three transgender individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria and incarcerated in BOP facilities brought a class action lawsuit to challenge policies implementing these changes, and secured a preliminary injunction in June 2025, which was renewed in May 2026 and requires BOP to continue providing gender-affirming care to those with gender dysphoria diagnoses.
In December 2025, DOJ directed PREA auditors to stop using over a dozen audit standards that could implicate gender identity, which human rights groups report will put people in danger. DOJ’s move came without first modifying the underlying regulations, which it promises to do in the future.
The Division has also moved to support state correctional facilities seeking to limit incarcerated transgender people’s rights and access to gender-affirming care.
Investigation into the Los Angeles Unified School District (LGBTQI+)
According to the New York Times, the Civil Rights Division notified the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on March 25, 2026, that it was under investigation over LAUSD’s gender identity policy, which requires school personnel to “take into consideration the safety, health and well-being of the student in deciding whether to disclose the student’s gender identity or expression to parents,” and to use pronouns and provide access to restrooms consistent with students’ gender identity. The investigation also reportedly includes a complaint from a student alleging that she was sexually assaulted after the district ignored her warnings about the alleged perpetrator.
The notice of the investigation followed a February 2026 lawsuit brought against LAUSD by parents who believe the district’s gender identity policy contributed to their child’s declining mental health and eventual death by suicide.
The Civil Rights Division did not publicly announce the investigation or identify its legal basis for investigating LAUSD’s gender identity policy. The Division may independently enforce only those laws for which Congress has granted it authority. No federal statute authorizes the Division to investigate or enforce the types of Fourteenth Amendment due process and parental-rights claims in the education context that reportedly prompted this investigation.
The notice marked the Division’s second action against LAUSD in less than two months. In February 2026, the Division intervened in 1776 Project Foundation v. Los Angeles Unified School District to challenge LAUSD’s student integration program as intentional race discrimination. The Division announced that investigation in a press release. The Division also previously sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department alleging that delays in processing concealed carry permits violates the Second Amendment.
The LAUSD investigation is the latest in a string of Division actions using federal civil rights authority to attempt to roll back protections for transgender students. The Division previously opened investigations of the Lansing, Detroit, and Godfrey-Lee school districts in Michigan over “sexual orientation or gender ideology content,” sued the Maine Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation over transgender athletes’ participation in girls’ sports, filed a Supreme Court amicus brief urging the Court to uphold state bans on transgender girls in school athletics, and moved to intervene in S.W. & J.S. v. Loudoun County School Board on behalf of students disciplined for harassing a transgender classmate.
United States v. Maine Department of Education
25-cv-00173 (D. Me.)
On April 16, 2025, the Civil Rights Division sued the Maine Department of Education, alleging that it violated Title IX by allowing transgender female athletes to participate in women and girls’ sports. The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services had previously opened investigations into the matter. The Department of Education found Maine violated Title IX and referred the case to the Department of Justice on April 11, 2025, simultaneously announcing it would initiate federal funding termination proceedings.
The lawsuit followed a highly publicized confrontation in the White House, in which President Trump told Governor Janet Mills of Maine that she had “better comply” with his executive order prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in women and girls’ sports. The Governor responded that she would “see [him] in court.”
In February 2026, the Department of Justice moved to recuse the judge and magistrate judge assigned to the case, citing a potential conflict of interest involving a court employee related to someone named in the federal government’s subpoena. On March 6, 2026, the court denied the motion to recuse. Motions to recuse a judge by DOJ are rare, and per DOJ policy, require additional internal authorization.
During this ongoing litigation, Maine has filed two lawsuits against the federal government, alleging that federal officials had illegally frozen school lunch funding and terminated a saltwater marsh restoration grant in retaliation for the state’s refusal to ban transgender athletes from girls’ sports. The Trump Administration ultimately agreed to lift the funding freeze on school lunch assistance.
S.W. & J.S. v. Loudoun County School Board
25-cv-01536 (E.D. Va.)
The Civil Rights Division has twice attempted to intervene in S.W. and J.S. v. Loudoun County School Board, a lawsuit brought on behalf of two Christian high school boys, who, according to the school district, were disciplined for harassing a transgender boy over the course of the school year on the basis of his gender identity, including when he used the boys’ locker room. The Division sought intervention to block a school policy that protects transgender students’ access to facilities consistent with their gender identity in accordance with binding Fourth Circuit precedent recognizing such rights. The Division’s attempted involvement in the suit aligns with the Trump Administration’s focus on allegations of anti-Christian bias and rolling back transgender rights.
In September 2025, the families of the students filed a complaint against the school, alleging the boys were disciplined because of their protected speech and Christian religious expression. They also alleged the school discriminated against them on the basis of sex.
On December 8, 2025, the Division announced it had filed a motion to intervene and a supporting memorandum in the case, alleging that the school board intentionally discriminated against the boys based on religion when it enforced a school policy requiring students and staff to affirm a student’s gender identity and allowing students to use facilities that correspond with that identity.
The Division’s first attempt to intervene followed two related investigations into Loudoun County by the Department of Education. In July 2025, the Department of Education found Loudoun County and four other school systems in Northern Virginia violated Title IX by maintaining policies permitting students to use facilities consistent with their gender identity. In September 2025, the Department of Education found Loudoun County violated Title IX in its handling of the incident underlying S.W. and J.S. v. Loudoun County School Board. After Loudoun County declined to implement the changes proposed following the July 2025 investigation, the Department of Education announced that it would seek to suspend or terminate the school district’s federal funding.
On January 16, 2026, the court denied the Civil Rights Division’s first motion to intervene because the Division’s proposed complaint included relief that was inconsistent with Fourth Circuit precedent supporting a student’s right to use facilities consistent with their gender identity. On January 20, the court directed the parties to schedule a settlement conference for February 13.
The Division filed a renewed motion to intervene and a second proposed complaint in intervention on January 30, 2026, arguing that because the plaintiffs asserted a claim under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and because the Attorney General certified that this is a case of “general public importance,” the United States has an unconditional right to intervene. The Division sought a hearing on its motion to intervene on February 6, ahead of the settlement discussions scheduled between the parties. The Court refused to grant expedited review, finding that “the United States’s involvement in settlement negotiations at this stage in the litigation would be counterproductive.”
In its filings, the Division seeks remedies the plaintiffs have not requested, including requiring the school to notify parents if a transgender or gender non-conforming student will be sharing a bathroom or locker room. This requested relief seeks to extend a First Amendment holding on parental notification of school curriculum in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a 2025 Supreme Court case, to access to bathrooms and locker rooms.
On February 13, 2026, the parties reached a private settlement, and on February 24, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the case.
On February 27, 2026, the court denied the Division’s motion to intervene, noting it would issue a memorandum opinion, and closed the case. Despite the case being closed, and the second motion to intervene denied, on March 2, the Division filed a notice of supplemental authority for its motion to intervene.
Investigation of the Lansing School District
On February 18, 2026, the Civil Rights Division announced identical Title IX investigations and sent notice letters to three Michigan K-12 school districts: the Lansing School District, the Detroit Public Schools Community District, and the Godfrey-Lee Public Schools. The Division’s expansive investigations seek to determine whether the districts have included any “sexual orientation or gender ideology content” in classrooms, curricula, school libraries, events, or student clubs, and whether the districts offered parents the ability to opt their children out of participation. According to the Division’s press release, the investigation will also assess whether access to school bathrooms and locker rooms is limited by “biological sex.” Local advocates worry these investigations will harm already vulnerable LGBTQI+ students.
According to the notice letters, these investigations were prompted by a November 2025 change in Michigan’s Health Education Standards Guidelines, which the Division asserts raised “serious concerns” because it “require[s] that local school districts add instruction on ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender diversity,’ and ‘gender expression’ to their health and sex education curriculum beginning as early as grade six.” The Division did not identify any complaints or factual allegations specific to the state guidelines or these three districts in particular. The Lansing School Board’s president has not heard complaints from any parents about not being able to opt students out of sex education.
As part of the investigation, the Division requested sweeping information from the school districts, including all class materials, slideshows, posters, signage, textbooks, story books, library books, homework assignments, field trips, assemblies, awards, certificates, ceremonies, student clubs, support groups, extracurricular activities, “awareness” events, and “visibility” events relating to “sex,” “sexual orientation,” “genitalia,” “gender identity,” “queer culture,” “LGBTQIA+,” “Pride Month,” “drag queen,” “puberty blockers,” or related topics for grades pre-K through 12 since 2023. The Division also requested any complaints the school districts received related to sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams.
The investigations raise significant questions about whether the Division has exceeded its statutory authority and whether the investigations rest on a viable legal theory. The Division may only enforce federal laws or the Constitution when Congress has granted it authority to do so. While the Division is authorized to enforce Title IX against entities receiving DOJ funding, there is no apparent basis for concluding that including sexual orientation or gender identity in school curricula constitutes discrimination “on the basis of sex” under Title IX. More to the point, Title IX regulations make clear that the statute does not prohibit or abridge in any way a school’s use of particular textbooks or curricular materials. What instructional materials a school uses to teach has always been a local decision. The Division does not attempt to explain how it now asserts that Title IX authorizes the scouring of a local school district’s curricula, libraries, and hallways for language that the Division finds objectionable.
Instead, the Division’s legal justification relies on the First Amendment, which the Division lacks the authority to enforce in this context. The Division cites Mahmoud v. Taylor, a 2025 case in which the Supreme Court granted a preliminary injunction to elementary school parents who challenged a school board’s decision to introduce “LGBTQ+-inclusive” books into the curriculum while rescinding a policy that allowed parents to opt out. The Court found that the school board’s refusal to grant opt-outs for these books created an “objective danger to the free exercise of religion,” especially because the school board allowed opt outs for sex education classes. Mahmoud did not involve a Title IX claim or any discrimination claim. By framing what is fundamentally a free exercise claim as “sex discrimination” under Title IX in its notice letter to the school districts, the Division appears to be trying to bootstrap First Amendment enforcement authority it does not possess onto a statute that does not provide it.
Using Title IX enforcement to influence local school districts’ curricula and student discourse on LGBTQI+ topics represents a significant departure from the Division’s historical sex-discrimination work, which has relied on Title IX to combat sexual harassment and assault and to challenge discriminatory school policies, including codes of appearance.
The Michigan State Superintendent of Education has also pointed out that the Division’s letters misrepresent state law: local school boards, not the state, set health and sex education curriculum, and under state law parents receive notice ahead of sex education classes and can opt their children out without penalty.
Investigation of the Godfrey-Lee Public Schools
On February 18, 2026, the Civil Rights Division announced identical Title IX investigations and sent notice letters to three Michigan K-12 school districts: the Godfrey-Lee Public Schools, the Detroit Public Schools Community District, and the Lansing School District. The Division’s expansive investigations seek to determine whether the districts have included any “sexual orientation or gender ideology content” in classrooms, curricula, school libraries, events, or student clubs, and whether the districts offered parents the ability to opt their children out of participation. According to the Division’s press release, the investigation will also assess whether access to school bathrooms and locker rooms is limited by “biological sex.” Local advocates worry these investigations will harm already vulnerable LGBTQI+ students.
According to the notice letters, these investigations were prompted by a November 2025 change in Michigan’s Health Education Standards Guidelines, which the Division asserts raised “serious concerns” because it “require[s] that local school districts add instruction on ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender diversity,’ and ‘gender expression’ to their health and sex education curriculum beginning as early as grade six.” The Division did not identify any complaints or factual allegations specific to the state guidelines or these three districts in particular.
As part of the investigation, the Division requested sweeping information from the school districts, including all class materials, slideshows, posters, signage, textbooks, story books, library books, homework assignments, field trips, assemblies, awards, certificates, ceremonies, student clubs, support groups, extracurricular activities, “awareness” events, and “visibility” events relating to “sex,” “sexual orientation,” “genitalia,” “gender identity,” “queer culture,” “LGBTQIA+,” “Pride Month,” “drag queen,” “puberty blockers,” or related topics for grades pre-K through 12 since 2023. The Division also requested any complaints the school districts received related to sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams.
The investigations raise significant questions about whether the Division has exceeded its statutory authority and whether the investigations rest on a viable legal theory. The Division may only enforce federal laws or the Constitution when Congress has granted it authority to do so. While the Division is authorized to enforce Title IX against entities receiving DOJ funding, there is no apparent basis for concluding that including sexual orientation or gender identity in school curricula constitutes discrimination “on the basis of sex” under Title IX. More to the point, Title IX regulations make clear that the statute does not prohibit or abridge in any way a school’s use of particular textbooks or curricular materials. What instructional materials a school uses to teach has always been a local decision. The Division does not attempt to explain how it now asserts that Title IX authorizes the scouring of a local school district’s curricula, libraries, and hallways for language that the Division finds objectionable.
Instead, the Division’s legal justification relies on the First Amendment, which the Division lacks the authority to enforce in this context. The Division cites Mahmoud v. Taylor, a 2025 case in which the Supreme Court granted a preliminary injunction to elementary school parents who challenged a school board’s decision to introduce “LGBTQ+-inclusive” books into the curriculum while rescinding a policy that allowed parents to opt out. The Court found that the school board’s refusal to grant opt-outs for these books created an “objective danger to the free exercise of religion,” especially because the school board allowed opt outs for sex education classes. Mahmoud did not involve a Title IX claim or any discrimination claim. By framing what is fundamentally a free exercise claim as “sex discrimination” under Title IX in its notice letter to the school districts, the Division appears to be trying to bootstrap First Amendment enforcement authority it does not possess onto a statute that does not provide it.
Using Title IX enforcement to influence local school districts’ curricula and student discourse on LGBTQI+ topics represents a significant departure from the Division’s historical sex-discrimination work, which has relied on Title IX to combat sexual harassment and assault and to challenge discriminatory school policies, including codes of appearance.
The Michigan State Superintendent of Education has also pointed out that the Division’s letters misrepresent state law: local school boards, not the state, set health and sex education curriculum, and under state law parents receive notice ahead of sex education classes and can opt their children out without penalty.
Investigation of the Detroit Public Schools Community District
On February 18, 2026, the Civil Rights Division announced identical Title IX investigations and sent notice letters to three Michigan school districts: the Detroit Public Schools Community District, the Godfrey-Lee Public Schools, and the Lansing School District. The Division’s expansive investigations seek to determine whether the districts have included any “sexual orientation or gender ideology content” in classrooms, curricula, school libraries, events, or student clubs, and whether the districts offered parents the ability to opt their children out of participation. According to the Division’s press release, the investigation will also assess whether access to school bathrooms and locker rooms is limited by “biological sex.” Local advocates worry these investigations will harm already vulnerable LGBTQI+ students.
According to the notice letters, these investigations were prompted by a November 2025 change in Michigan’s Health Education Standards Guidelines, which the Division asserts raised “serious concerns” because it “require[s] that local school districts add instruction on ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender diversity,’ and ‘gender expression’ to their health and sex education curriculum beginning as early as grade six.” The Division did not identify any complaints or factual allegations specific to the state guidelines or these three districts in particular.
As part of the investigation, the Division requested sweeping information from the school districts, including all class materials, slideshows, posters, signage, textbooks, story books, library books, homework assignments, field trips, assemblies, awards, certificates, ceremonies, student clubs, support groups, extracurricular activities, “awareness” events, and “visibility” events relating to “sex,” “sexual orientation,” “genitalia,” “gender identity,” “queer culture,” “LGBTQIA+,” “Pride Month,” “drag queen,” “puberty blockers,” or related topics for grades pre-K through 12 since 2023. The Division also requested any complaints the school districts received related to sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams.
The investigations raise significant questions about whether the Division has exceeded its statutory authority and whether the investigations rest on a viable legal theory. The Division may only enforce federal laws or the Constitution when Congress has granted it authority to do so. While the Division is authorized to enforce Title IX against entities receiving DOJ funding, there is no apparent basis for concluding that including sexual orientation or gender identity in school curricula constitutes discrimination “on the basis of sex” under Title IX. More to the point, Title IX regulations make clear that the statute does not prohibit or abridge in any way a school’s use of particular textbooks or curricular materials. What instructional materials a school uses to teach has always been a local decision. The Division does not attempt to explain how it now asserts that Title IX authorizes the scouring of a local school district’s curricula, libraries, and hallways for language that the Division finds objectionable.
Instead, the Division’s legal justification relies on the First Amendment, which the Division lacks the authority to enforce in this context. The Division cites Mahmoud v. Taylor, a 2025 case in which the Supreme Court granted a preliminary injunction to elementary school parents who challenged a school board’s decision to introduce “LGBTQ+-inclusive” books into the curriculum while rescinding a policy that allowed parents to opt out. The Court found that the school board’s refusal to grant opt-outs for these books created an “objective danger to the free exercise of religion,” especially because the school board allowed opt outs for sex education classes. Mahmoud did not involve a Title IX claim or any discrimination claim. By framing what is fundamentally a free exercise claim as “sex discrimination” under Title IX in its notice letter to the school districts, the Division appears to be trying to bootstrap First Amendment enforcement authority it does not possess onto a statute that does not provide it.
Using Title IX enforcement to influence local school districts’ curricula and student discourse on LGBTQI+ topics represents a significant departure from the Division’s historical sex-discrimination work, which has relied on Title IX to combat sexual harassment and assault and to challenge discriminatory school policies, including codes of appearance.
The Michigan State Superintendent of Education has also pointed out that the Division’s letters misrepresent state law: local school boards, not the state, set health and sex education curriculum, and under state law parents receive notice ahead of sex education classes and can opt their children out without penalty.
Investigation of the Colorado Department of Corrections & Department of Youth Services
On December 8, 2025, the Civil Rights Division announced it had opened an investigation into 21 facilities operated by the Colorado Department of Corrections and 12 residential youth centers operated by the Colorado Department of Human Services’ Department of Youth Services, an unusually broad investigation.
Among other issues, the Division plans to assess whether Colorado violates prisoners’ and detainees’ right to free exercise of religion by “housing biological males in units designated for females.” The investigation was opened under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), as well as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc, and 34 U.S.C. § 12601, the statute Congress enacted following the beating of Rodney King.
The framing of the investigation contrasts with the Division’s prior work to protect LGBTQI+ individuals from known risks of harm. It also contrasts with the 2012 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Standards, legally binding regulations implementing a 2003 law that are designed to protect people from sexual violence in correctional facilities. The PREA Standards require states that receive federal funding to make housing assignments for transgender people in correctional facilities on a case-by-case basis. On December 2, 2025, the Department of Justice directed PREA auditors to stop enforcing PREA Standards related to transgender people without first modifying the underlying regulation.
The investigation comes in the midst of President Trump’s efforts to gain the release of Tina Peters, a former local election official imprisoned in Colorado. Justice Department officials connected the investigation to Peters.
CRIMINAL ENFORCEMENT
Born in Reconstruction. Federal civil rights accountability at its core.
EMPLOYMENT
Equal opportunity at work is essential to economic security, dignity, and full civic participation.
POLICING
The Constitution and federal law exist to protect people from abuses of power—including by those sworn to uphold it.
DISABILITY
Federal civil rights laws guarantee people with disabilities equal participation in community life.
VOTING
The right to vote is foundational to democracy and equal participation in civic life.
HOUSING & GOVERNMENT SERVICES
Where people live and access services shapes opportunity.
EDUCATION
Rooted in Brown v. Board of Education, federal civil rights laws guarantee equal access to education.
LGBTQI+
Protections for LGBTQI+ people in work, education, healthcare, and public life grounded in equality and dignity.
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTHCARE
Protecting access to reproductive healthcare by safeguarding patients, providers, and facilities.