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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. Let me give you the short answer first.
Massachusetts law did not change. Your kid is still protected at school.
Now the longer version.
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. It took effect the next day.
To be fair about it, the 2024 rule was already dead in practice. Federal courts struck it down more than once, and the department has been enforcing the 2020 rule since January 2025. This week just made it official.
Put it next to everything else and you can see where this is 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. Now Title IX. And Education Week reports the department is working on a broader rule on sports and gender identity.
Every one of those moves points at the same kids.
Massachusetts doesn’t take its cues on this from Washington. State law has banned discrimination in public schools based on gender identity since 2012, and it covers sexual orientation too. That’s M.G.L. c. 76, § 5, and a federal rule change doesn’t touch it.
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. They can play sports and join activities the same way. Their school has to respect their name and pronouns, and their records should match who they are. The state’s anti-bullying law covers bullying over sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.
State leaders keep saying it out loud. Governor Maura Healey and Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell told schools in February 2025 that federal directives don’t override Massachusetts law. After the June ruling, Campbell said it again: “Massachusetts law continues to protect transgender students.” And on April 28, Education Commissioner Pedro Martinez wrote to every superintendent and principal in the state to reaffirm these protections.
This isn’t happening somewhere else.
In Rochester this spring, 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!” It went national after it got shared online. The principal kept it up. We said it then and I’ll say it again:
One bulletin board that says you belong here is not grooming. It’s lifesaving.
Those are our towns. Those are our kids.
Write down what happened, when, and who was there. Ask the school who its Title IX coordinator is. Call GLAD Answers for free, confidential legal information.
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. Email 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. We’re going to keep writing these posts. And the law here is going to keep holding, because people in New Bedford, Fall River, Taunton, and Dartmouth keep showing up for it.
That has always been the arrangement.
Sources: Education Week, Washington Blade, the U.S. Supreme Court, Massachusetts DESE, GLAD Law, WBUR, and Fall River Reporter.