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If you have an LGBTQ+ kid in school on the South Coast, you probably saw another headline this week and felt that same drop in your stomach, so I’ll give you the short answer first: Massachusetts law didn’t change, and your kid is still protected at school.
The longer version is below, along with what to do if something happens at your kid’s school and who you can call about it.
On Monday, September 28, the U.S. Department of Education formally threw out the 2024 Title IX rule that protected students based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In its place, it brought back the 2020 rule from Trump’s first term, which doesn’t include those protections and took effect the next day.
To be fair about it, the 2024 rule was already dead in practice, since federal courts struck it down more than once and the department has been enforcing the 2020 rule since January 2025, so what this week really did was put it in writing.
Put this week next to everything else that’s happened and you can see where it’s going. In February 2025, the day after an executive order on transgender athletes, the Education Department opened an investigation into the MIAA, the association that runs high school sports here. On June 30 of this year, the Supreme Court ruled that states are allowed to keep trans girls off girls’ teams, and now it’s Title IX’s turn. Education Week also reports that the department is working on a broader rule on sports and gender identity, and every one of those moves points at the same kids.
Massachusetts doesn’t take its cues on this from Washington, because state law has banned discrimination in public schools based on gender identity since 2012 and covers sexual orientation too. That law is Chapter 76, Section 5 of the Massachusetts General Laws, which a federal rule change doesn’t touch.
In plain terms, according to GLAD Law, students in Massachusetts public schools have the right to use the restroom and locker room that matches their gender identity and to play sports and join activities the same way. Their school has to respect their name and pronouns, their records should match who they are, and the state’s anti-bullying law covers bullying over sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.
State leaders have kept saying this out loud, starting in February 2025, when Governor Maura Healey and Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell told schools that federal directives don’t override Massachusetts law. On April 28 of this year, Education Commissioner Pedro Martinez wrote to every superintendent and principal in the state to reaffirm these protections, and after the June ruling Campbell said it again: “Massachusetts law continues to protect transgender students.”
In Rochester this spring, which is about as close to home as it gets, a restroom complaint at an elementary school turned into a federal Title IX complaint and national news. The state’s Commission on LGBTQ Youth had to put out a statement reminding everyone what Massachusetts law says about transgender and nonbinary students.
In June, the GSA at Dartmouth High School put up a bulletin board that said “Have a Gay Summer!” and it went national once it got shared online, but the principal kept it up. We said it then and I’ll say it again: a bulletin board that tells a kid they belong here is the kind of thing that keeps kids alive. Rochester and Dartmouth are our towns, and the kids in those schools are our kids.
Write down what happened, when it happened, and who was there, then ask the school who its Title IX coordinator is. You can also call GLAD Answers for free, confidential legal information, using the number at the bottom of this post.
If you’re a teacher or an administrator and you want to get this right, the state’s Safe Schools Program for LGBTQ Students does free training for schools, and you can reach them at safeschoolsprogram@mass.gov. And if you just want to talk it through with somebody who gets it, call us.
The feds are going to keep doing this, which means we’re going to keep writing these posts about it. The law here is going to keep holding too, because people in New Bedford, Fall River, Taunton, and Dartmouth keep showing up for it, the same as they always have.
Sources: Education Week, Washington Blade, the U.S. Supreme Court, Massachusetts DESE, GLAD Law, WBUR, and Fall River Reporter.