Department of Education investigates Massachusetts school district over transgender bathroom policy

FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Education has launched an investigation into a Massachusetts public school district for allegedly allowing students at K-12 schools to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their self-defined gender identity, rather than biological sex, while forcing students to integrate and preventing parents from changing the policy.

Westford County Public Schools’ (WPS) policy surrounding “Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students” allows students to use restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex while forcing other students who object to leave, according to America First Legal (AFL), which originally filed the complaint that prompted the investigation. 

“America First Legal is committed to ensuring that children are protected from leftist Indoctrination,” AFL President Gene Hamilton told Fox News Digital in a statement. “We will not allow our girls to be silenced or harmed by WPS’s ‘gender identity’ policy. The Department of Education’s investigation rightfully sends a clear message to schools across the country: Title IX will not be sacrificed on the altar of gender ideology.”

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The same policy allegedly allows girls to enter boys’ facilities as well, forcing students who disagree with the policy or may be of the opposite sex to leave the bathroom or locker room. 

“Prior Administrations regularly misinterpreted Title IX to pander to political ideology and police ‘misgendering’ despite not having sound legal grounds,” Department of Education spokesperson Amelia Joy told Fox News Digital in a statement. “With today’s actions, the Trump Administration is upholding the law and righting years of wrongs.”

The policy, which appears to have been removed from the WPS website, also included policies surrounding gender identities, pronoun usage, and defines terms like “gender nonconforming.”

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When the policy was being debated prior to its implementation in March 2025, WestfordCAT reported that one school board committee member said that staff could also be affected by not allowing the use of opposite-sex facilities based on gender identity. 

“I know that we have students, possibly staff, that this impacts,” WPS committee member Tom Laflamme said. “They are real people who are harmed by taking no action. The policy may not be perfect because we are humans, but it makes a statement that they matter to us.”

The policy was implemented after President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled: “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government” on his first day in office, Jan. 20, 2025.

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The executive order threatens the stripping of federal funds from institutions which do not recognize a two-gender standard and instead rely on self-defined gender identity.

“Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers,” the executive order reads. “This is wrong.”

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“Federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology. Each agency shall assess grant conditions and grantee preferences and ensure grant funds do not promote gender ideology.”

Fox News Digital reached out to WPS and Laflamme, but did not receive responses in time for publication.