California is leading a multistate coalition in opposition to proposed federal changes that would halt the collection of data on bullying and harassment of transgender and nonbinary students.
Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the multistate coalition this week in partnership with Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
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The proposal by the Department of Education would halt data collection on nonbinary students, remove “gender identity” and “sex characteristics” from the Office of Civil Rights’ definitions of harassment and bullying on the basis of sex and cease collection of data on harassment and bullying on the basis of gender identity.
“This will almost certainly result in more hostile school environments for these young people,” said Shannon Minter, the legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights. “Just because we stop collecting data on the harassment of these kids doesn’t mean the harassment is stopping. It just means we’re not going to be able to track it or address it effectively.”
Since he returned to office in January, President Donald Trump has made anti-transgender policies one of his administration’s top priorities. He’s signed executive orders recognizing only two sexes and prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in high school sports and has targeted California schools and leaders over policies protecting transgender students and athletes — opening several investigations and threatening school funding.
The proposed changes by the Department of Education also come as the Trump administration said it will no longer provide national suicide and crisis hotline services to LGBTQ+ youth and closed down the San Francisco regional branch of the Office for Civil Rights, which is responsible for protecting California students protection from discrimination.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and the Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor, Bonta and the other attorneys general said OCR’s Civil Rights Data Collection is the largest and often only source of nationwide publicly available civil rights education data, making it critical for analysis on student equity and opportunities in education.
“Students deserve an educational environment that acknowledges and respects their gender identity. To do that, educators need to understand how students experience bullying and harassment due to that identity,” said Attorney General Bonta. “The Civil Rights Data Collection is a critical component of identifying and protecting vulnerable students from harm. My fellow attorneys general and I strongly oppose the Department of Education’s attempt to erase these students’ existence and experiences from the record.”
Leaders said the data that OCR proposes to stop collecting related to nonbinary students and harassment and bullying based on gender identity and sex characteristics is critical, as nonbinary and transgender students are especially vulnerable to harassment and bullying at school.
According to The Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ+ advocacy and suicide prevention nonprofit, in 2021 75% of transgender students reported feeling unsafe at school because of their gender identity compared to 32% of cisgender male and 23% of cisgender female students.
Last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that approximately 25% of transgender students missed school because they felt unsafe in the previous 30 days, compared to only 8.5% of cisgender male and 14.9% of cisgender female students.
And the 2021 GLSEN National School Climate Survey on the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in U.S. schools found that nearly 60% of LGBTQ+ students were verbally harassed on the basis of their gender expression, more than 20% were physically harassed — pushed or shoved — and approximately 8% were physically assaulted — punched, kicked or injured with a weapon.
Bonta and other attorneys general urged the Trump administration to continue to collect data on nonbinary students, arguing that the proposed changes will effectively erase the gender identities of students who do not identify as male or female and increase the burden on states and schools to monitor and address incidents of harassment and bullying based on gender identity.
Minter, at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said the Trump administration’s actions imply only some students deserve anti-bullying protections.
“It appears that there’s just no limit to the hostile policies they’re trying to enact. They do seem like they really want to create a society in which people feel like it’s okay to target and bully transgender young people,” Minter said. “I did hope that they would preserve the most basic protections for young people against bullying in schools.”
Minter said he hopes schools in California and across the country will strongly reinforce policies preventing the bullying of any student, as well as model and teach behavior that everyone deserves to be respected and feel safe.
“Schools play such a critical role in socializing young people,” Minter said. “So even with this negative policy, schools have a lot of power to do good in this area.”