The administration of President Donald Trump continues to target transgender individuals through a string of executive orders, with a more recent order likely to not just affect individuals but educational and athletic institutions in Massachusetts.

On Wednesday, Trump issued an executive order that seeks to bar male-to-female transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, calling their participation “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous” toward women and saying it would become U.S. policy to “rescind all funds from educational programs” that allow trans athletes to participate in women’s sports.

On Thursday, Trump’s Department of Education announced it was launching an investigation into the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, the organization that oversees high school athletics in the commonwealth, citing a girl’s basketball game in Lowell where a transgender player allegedly injured two opposing teammates, leaving one team with not enough players to continue.

The NCAA, under the presidency of former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, has already acquiesced to Trump’s executive order, barring trans athletes identified as male at birth from competing in women’s sports.

In addition to the order barring transgender athletes, Trump has also issued executive orders seeking to bar transgender people from the military, restrict gender-affirming care to anyone under the age of 19, and recognizing only male and female sexes as valid gender identities.

The orders could have a substantial effect on Northampton, which has a large LGBTQ population, and surrounding communities.

Northampton Public Schools Superintendent Portia Bonner said the district would follow the lead of state officials from the attorney general’s office and the Department of Education and Secondary Education when it came to dealing with the executive orders.

“Right now we are taking guidance from the AG’s office and from DESE,” Bonner said. “They are moving as swiftly as possible to unpack what these orders mean.”

Northampton School Committee Vice Chair Gwen Agna emphasized that the school district does not collect any data that could identify a student as transgender.

“This is a matter of civil rights, and this is what having protected classes is about,” Agna said in an interview. “For me it’s about protecting the students. They have a right to be who they are.”

Tanya Nesulsan, executive director of MassEquality, a Worcester advocacy group for LGBTQ rights in the state, said that a ban on participating in athletics can negatively affect transgender youth.

“For some kids, sports are a place of safety, it’s their place of feeling like they fit in,” Neslusan said. “There are a lot of concerns, not just because of anyone being afraid bills will get traction, more so because of the detrimental impact it has when these kids are hearing people in their communities speak out against them.”

Neslusan added that while municipalities in Northampton have shown strong support for the protection of trans rights, not everywhere in the state is as progressive, with book ban challenges relating to gender identity topics occurring in some towns.

“We’re getting emails from transgender people and parents of transgender youth who are very scared about what this all means,” Neslusan said. “Within the state, we have talked to some [legislative] members about what protections we have in place and what protections we need to put into place.”

At Transhealth, a Northampton clinic that provides gender-affirming care, CEO Jo Erwin said there are no plans to change the support provided for transgender youth.

“Trans people are 1% of the population. That focus, and the entire cruelty directed at a very small percentage of the population, is really breathtaking,” Erwin said. “All of the care that is provided to trans youth is essential health care. There’s data that shows that it improves outcomes and prevents self-harm.”

Erwin also noted that executive orders issued by the president do not in themselves create laws, and that Transhealth is working to educate those concerned about how those orders might affect them.

“We’re trying to calm the waters a little bit,” Erwin said. “We don’t really have a lot to respond to from a process standpoint, until we really see the rule-making side of it.”

In response to the executive orders, 14 state attorneys general, including Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell, released a statement on Wednesday also reaffirming their commitment to protecting access to gender-affirming care.

“Health care decisions should be made by patients, families and doctors, not by a politician trying to use his power to restrict your freedoms,” they said in a statement. “We will challenge any unlawful effort by the Trump administration to restrict access to it in our jurisdictions.”

In October, the city of Northampton passed a resolution declaring itself a “trans sanctuary city,” committing to never using city resources for detaining persons for seeking or providing gender-affirming care, including surgery or hormone therapy. The city also committed to never cooperating with or providing information to out-of-state agencies regarding any lawful gender-affirming care in Massachusetts.

“The timing of this is not lost on us,” said Ward 7 Councilor Rachel Maiore, one of the resolution’s sponsors, during discussions of the resolution in September. “We need to really speak very proactively to our community and let them know that we hear you know, we see you and we will do everything we can to protect your basic rights and to be a welcoming place for you and your family.”

Though some hospitals across the country have rolled back some of their gender-affirming care programs out of fear of losing federal funds, Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton said that the hospital would continue operations as normal for the time being.

“Cooley Dickinson Hospital is reviewing to see what, if any, actual impact the executive orders might have,” the hospital’s director of internal communications Christina Trinchero said in a statement. “In the meantime, the care we provide to our community continues as normal at this time.”

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.