Schools that use a student's requested pronouns could lose federal funds under new Trump order

Andrew Sheeler, The Sacramento Bee on Jan 29, 2025

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday waded into the contentious “parental rights” debate, with an executive order to target the federal funding of schools that affirm transgender children.

The order is the latest anti-transgender action from Trump, who also has moved to ban trans Americans from serving in the military and also prohibiting federal funds from being used for gender-affirming care for minors or institutions that “promote gender ideology.”

The order runs contrary to California law and state Department of Education policy, which explicitly protects transgender students’ right to access the bathroom or school activities (such as sports) that correspond with their gender identity.

California law also protects student confidentiality by prohibiting school employees from notifying parents that their child uses a different name or pronouns at school without that student’s express consent. That law is the subject of ongoing litigation.

The California Department of Education did not respond to The Bee’s request for comment by deadline.

According to the order, the secretaries of education, defense and health and human services have 90 days to “provide an Ending Indoctrination Strategy to the President.”

The order calls for the elimination of federal funds “for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology,” and specifies that teachers addressing students by their requested pronouns or acknowledging that they are nonbinary counts as said “indoctrination.”

The order further calls for the reestablishment of a “1776 Commission” to promote a vision of America that ignores its history of racial injustice and “promotes patriotic education.”

Trump’s executive order will likely be challenged in court.

Nationally, 1.4% of children between the ages of 13-17 identify as transgender, according to recent data from the UCLA Williams Institute.

Wednesday’s order claimed that laws protecting transgender students’ privacy or allowing them to access the bathroom matching their gender identity “may contravene federal law.”

“My administration will enforce the law to ensure that recipients of federal funds providing K-12 education comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination in various contexts and protecting parental rights,” the order read in part.

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