LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – While the state of Michigan supports the idea of multiple genders, when it comes to its own data system, there are just “male” and “female.”

The state tracks information on all K-12 employees in the state from school districts and it sorts those employees into just two genders: male and female.

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For example, the state’s data said for 2024-25 the state’s K-12 schools had 381,571 employees, of which 281,133 were female and 100,438 were male.

MI School Data is the State of Michigan’s official source for data and it is operated by the Center for Educational Performance and Information, which is within the state budget office in the Department of Technology, Management and Budget.

The Michigan Department of Education passed a resolution in May 2023, affirming its views on gender. The MDE stated that it supported all laws that prohibited harassment “against all persons, whether student or district employee, on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, or the actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression of their associates.”

In 2016, the Michigan Department of Education issued a memo with guidance for school districts that stated, “The person best situated to determine a student’s gender identity is the individual student.”

LGBTQ advocates have stated there are as many as 72 different genders.