Trans athletes can continue to participate in high school sports competitions, the Illinois High School Association said this week as it affirmed its current policy in the face of demands to exclude trans athletes by the Trump administration and Illinois Republican lawmakers.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February aimed at “keeping men out of women’s sports” and threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that didn’t do as he wanted. His administration this week sued Maine for not complying.
The IHSA’s announcement came in a letter issued to Republican lawmakers. It said that Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the Illinois Department of Human Rights had informed the agency that it was required to maintain a policy in lockstep with state law. It also clarified that its trans athletes policy only applied to the state series competition it sponsors, and that individual schools could determine whether transgender students participated during the regular season.
“Compliance with the Executive Order could place the IHSA out of compliance with the Illinois Human Rights Act and vice versa,” IHSA Board President Dan Tulley and Executive Director Craig Anderson wrote in a statement. “The IHSA simply desires to comply with the law and takes no position on which of the foregoing is correct. Given the conflict described above, however, we are left in an untenable position.”
Illinois law prohibits discrimination based on gender identity, requiring schools to protect transgender students’ right to use facilities and participate in events and programs that match their gender identity.
The state sports organization estimates there are about 25 trans athletes out of 133,000 statewide, about three or four of which are trans girls. While the IHSA initially grants trans athletes eligibility, it doesn’t keep track if the athlete continues playing.
IHSA’s statement was a response to a letter from 40 Republican state representatives asking IHSA to explain how it planned to amend policy to adhere to Trump’s executive order. The letter argues that compliance with the order requires immediate action, regarding transgender students’ use of bathrooms and locker rooms, as well as sports participation. But an executive order does not have the force of law.
“If state law contradicts federal law, then the path forward is to work in good faith to resolve that conflict — not hide from it and risk losing federal dollars,” wrote Rep. Tony McCombie, who represents the far northwest part of the state, including Byron and Genoa.
It comes after an announcement from the U.S. Department of Education last month that it was opening a civil rights investigation into Chicago Public Schools and Deerfield School District 109 after politically conservative groups filed a complaint about transgender students being allowed to change in the locker room that lines up with their gender identities. The federal agency also says it’s investigating the Illinois State Board of Education.
Deerfield District 109 reiterated that it was keeping its policy last week at a meeting where hundreds showed up to support the trans student targeted by the initial complaints.
Federal officials have launched at least 18 other investigations into school districts, state education agencies and state athletics associations over policies involving transgender students, according to a tracker compiled by the publication Education Week.