Title IX of the United States Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination "on the basis of sex" in educational programs and activities that receive financial assistance from the federal government. The validity of each respective executive administration's interpretation is being tested in the federal courts, most recently in the 2025 instances of West Virginia v. B. P. J., Tennessee v. Cardona and United States v. California Interscholastic Federation.

The Obama administration interpreted Title IX to cover discrimination on the basis of assigned sex, gender identity, and transgender status; protections against sexual assault and harassment were strengthened and extended to transgender students, including rights to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. The first Trump administration determined that Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination did not apply to personal gender identity and that the question of access to sex-segregated facilities should be left to the states and local school districts to decide. During the Biden administration, the Department of Education reinstated and expanded protections for LGBTQ+ individuals to include discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics. This interpretation was based off of the 2024 Title IX Final Rule as well as Bostock v. Clayton County. Upon Donald Trump’s return to office, his administration expanded the power of the executive branch’s interpretation, reverting 2020 regulations on Title IX protections through executive orders such as Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government and Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports.

Congress kept the core provision of Title IX very brief, only one sentence long. The interpretation and implementation of Title IX was left to the executive, whom Congress expressly "authorized and directed to effectuate the [statute] by issuing rules, regulations, or orders of general applicability which shall be consistent with achievement of [its] objectives ..."

President Richard Nixon initially directed the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) to carry this out. In 1980, HEW was split into two separate agencies —the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Education (DOE). Primary responsibility for Title IX enforcement in educational institutions was delegated to DOE's Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

The Obama administration's efforts to apply Title IX to protect LGBT students go back to President Obama's first term in office. In an October 2010 "Dear Colleague" letter, the OCR issued guidance on clarifying that Title IX protects LGBT students from harassment on the basis of sex stereotypes. Specifically, the OCR stated that, although Title IX does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, "[t]he fact that the harassment [of a hypothetical gender non-conforming student] includes anti‐LGBT comments or is partly based on the target's actual or perceived sexual orientation does not relieve a school of its obligation under Title IX to investigate and remedy overlapping sexual harassment or gender‐based harassment." In a 2014 Q&A document, the OCR wrote unequivocally that "Title IX's sex discrimination prohibition extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity and OCR accepts such complaints for investigation."

Simultaneously with evolving subregulatory guidance, OCR started conducting enforcement actions under Title IX against school districts where discrimination against transgender students was alleged to have taken place. For example, in 2013, OCR reached a settlement with the Arcadia (Calif.) Unified School District, stemming from the complaint by a transgender boy, who was denied the use of boys' restrooms and locker rooms and was required to sleep alone in a separate cabin on an overnight school trip. In reaching the conclusion that Title IX applied to the facts of the Arcadia case, OCR took the position discriminating against a transgender student can be a form of sex discrimination, and that the scope of Title IX should be analyzed in light of parallel precedent under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of "sex" in an employment context. Title VII has also been interpreted to encompass discrimination based on sex stereotypes, gender identity, and transgender status by the EEOC and many federal courts.

On May 13, 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and DOE issued joint guidance to educational institutions on the scope of Title IX, in the form of a Dear Colleague letter and an accompanying compendium of actual policies and practices, which had previously been enacted by state agencies and school districts throughout the U.S. The guidance formalized the administration's previously stated view that Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity and clarified that transgender students should therefore be treated consistent with their gender identity at school.

In practical terms, the administration instructed schools that Title IX's prohibition on discrimination means that schools generally must: