Prairie State Wire

The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) has informed state lawmakers that it will not enforce President Donald Trump's executive order that bans biological males from competing in female sports, according to a letter signed by Board President Dan Tully and IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson.  

Trump’s executive order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” directs the U.S. Department of Education to enforce Title IX in a sex-based manner, banning biological males from participating in female athletic categories.

According to a statement issued from the IHSA in its April 15 letter, Trump's executive order is contradicted by Illinois law. 

“The Illinois Attorney General and, more recently, the Illinois Department of Human Rights have asserted to the ISA that the Illinois Human Rights Act requires that transgender athletes be permitted to participate in events and programs aligning with the gender with which they identify,” the IHSA’s letter reads. “As a result of the foregoing, compliance with the Executive Order could place the ISA out of compliance with the Illinois Human Rights Act and vice versa.”

The executive order also threatens to rescind federal funding from non-compliant organizations, to which the IHSA also responded.

"The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) is a voluntary, private, not-for-profit unincorporated association, the membership of which is comprised of 809 high schools in Illinois," IHSA wrote. "The IHSA receives no state or federal funding."

The IHSA’s letter comes on the heels of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launching investigations into the Illinois Department of Education, Chicago Public Schools District 299 and Deerfield Public Schools District 109 over a locker room scandal at Deerfield Middle School, where female students allege they were forced to undress in front of a male student who identifies as female. 

The complaints allege that middle school administrators pressured girls to undress in front of the male student, despite their objections, raising concerns over the violation of Title IX. 

Awake Illinois reacted to the IHSA's letter on Facebook. 

“The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) has released a statement to state lawmakers declaring that they will ignore Trump’s EO and continue allowing boys to invade girls’ sports,” the group said in its post. 

The IHSA’s response came after a March 17 letter from 40 Republican state lawmakers asking whether the IHSA would revise its policies on transgender athletes to comply with the executive order. 

“Recently, the federal government adopted policies under President Trump that clearly prohibit permitting biological men to compete against biological women in sports,” the letter from the GOP contingent stated. “Further, executive orders require immediate action, including enforcement actions, against schools and athletic associations of schools that deny women single-sex sports and single-sex locker rooms.”

The lawmakers called out the IHSA’s current policy allowing transgender students to compete in sports in alignment with their gender identity. 

“It is our understanding that the IHSA has communicated, prior to these orders, a policy that establishes a process for ‘transgender students whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth’ to seek eligibility for the opposite sex’s sport,” the letter said. “Your communication went on further to state that the IHSA provides this process so that these individuals can ‘compete in alignment with their gender identity.’”

The IHSA noted its desire to continue working with lawmakers and stakeholders on both sides of the political aisle. 

“The IHSA appreciates the support it has received from members of the Republican caucuses of both houses and trusts we can continue to work together for the benefit of students in the State of Illinois,” the letter concluded.  

The IHSA is not the first organization to invoke the Illinois Human Rights Act. 

In 2023, Abbigail Wheeler, a 16-year-old swimmer in Springfield, was removed from her YMCA swim team after expressing discomfort about sharing a women’s locker room with a biological male. 

Wheeler said she was made to feel as though she was in the wrong for voicing concerns about privacy and safety, and was later accused of hate speech after helping post signs that read "men are not welcome here." 

YMCA officials reportedly deemed the signs inappropriate and cited state law supporting transgender inclusion under the Illinois Human Rights Act.  

Wheeler, who is now an ambassador for the Riley Gaines Center, has continued to speak out against what she views as unfair and unsafe conditions for female athletes.“I’m glad I can be a voice for other young girls who may feel like we should just shut-up and not say anything about our feelings. Or if we feel uncomfortable, we just have to deal with it,” Wheeler told WGN.