Judges weigh Title IX funding fight over Virginia schools’ pro-transgender bathroom policies

A federal appeals court on Thursday weighed the Trump administration’s use of federal education funding to pressure two major Northern Virginia school systems to abandon policies allowing students who identify as transgender to use bathrooms and locker rooms of their choosing.

The case before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stems from a move by the Department of Education last summer to designate Fairfax County and Arlington County public schools as “high risk” recipients of federal funds. The designation followed the department’s determination that the districts’ policies allowing transgender students to access sex-segregated facilities based on gender identity likely violate Title IX, which conditions federal funding on compliance with sex discrimination rules.

Fairfax County Public School buses idle at a middle school in Falls Church,