Department of Education will no longer track the bullying of trans & non-binary kidshttps://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/08/department-of-education-will-no-longer-track-the-of-trans-non-binary-kids/ 🔗Faefyx Collington (3 Aug 2026)
A new policy from the Department of Education (ED) says the department will stop tracking numbers of transgender and non-binary students, which means it will also no longer track how often they are targeted for bullying, harassment, and assault. The change affects the already-ended 2025-2026 school year, though it's unclear how this new policy will affect future years.
"[The Office of Civil Rights (OCR)] determined that its costs outweighed its benefits," the ED claimed, according to K-12 Dive, in response to comments concerned about the new policy. However, the department's other comments suggest that the reason may be more closely tied to President Trump's "two sexes" executive order, a January 25 order directing the federal government to end all legal recognition of non-cisgender individuals.
The new policy will cut certain questions and alter the language of others in the Civil Rights Data Collection survey, a mandatory survey for all public school districts, which has been in place for over 50 years.
In the survey, schools must identify how many of their students are male or female, but they previously could also select non-binary if a student identified as such. The data could also include how often non-binary students were the focus of bullying and other harassment, and whether or not the district had a policy in place to prevent such incidents.
The ED also altered notes intended to highlight that anyone can be the victim of rape or sexual assault. While it previously read "all students, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation, or gender identity can be victims of rape," the new survey cuts the term "gender identity" while leaving the rest unchanged.
