President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that there are two sexes, male and female, and the federal government will operate by that truth. Yet the Department of Education is still hosting the Free Application for Federal Student Aid with options for students to select a “nonbinary” gender identity.
A source sent The Daily Signal a screenshot of the FAFSA form with the question, “What is the student’s gender?” The options included male, female, nonbinary, and prefer not to answer.
The Department of Education did not deny that the form offered a nonbinary option, but a spokeswoman promised that the next round of FAFSA forms will honor biology over gender ideology.
“The department has already taken steps to ensure that the forthcoming FAFSA for 2026-2027 reflects the biological reality that there are only two sexes: male and female,” Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the department, told The Daily Signal in a statement Monday.
Biedermann explained that it would be impractical for the department to alter the application for the 2025-2026 FAFSA.
“The 2025-2026 FAFSA was created and launched under the Biden-Harris administration, and over 5 million students have already submitted applications,” she said. “Changing the 2025-2026 FAFSA midstream would require a new notice and comment period that would take months to finalize, which could have adverse consequences for students, especially in light of the tremendous disruption caused by the disastrous FAFSA rollout by the Biden admin last year.”
Numerous delays and tech issues plagued the FAFSA rollout in 2024, according to the Government Accountability Office.
While a recent poll suggests many Washington, D.C.-based federal employees will likely oppose the Trump administration from within the federal government, the Department of Education has implemented key aspects of Trump’s early agenda. The department removed diversity, equity, and inclusion materials from public-facing documents, dissolved the department’s DEI council, canceled more than $2.6 million in DEI training and service contracts, and withdrew its “Equity Action Plan,” among other moves against DEI.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights also dismissed complaints against “book bans.” Under then-President Joe Biden, the office had targeted schools that removed age-inappropriate, sexually explicit, or obscene materials from school libraries, claiming that the removals created a hostile environment for students.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
