Colorado Christian University is among 233 religious-based schools that have requested exemptions to a federal law prohibiting discrimination of transgender students.

The U.S. Department of Education clarified in 2014 that Title IX protects transgender students from discrimination at school, including in bathrooms and sports teams, admissions and housing. Private, religious-based schools have always been able to seek exemptions of Title IX regulation.

Colorado Christian, in Lakewood, requested the transgender discrimination exemption in November 2014, but the federal Education Department did not make the exemption requests public until last week. Now its website has a search function so the public can see which schools have sought exemptions.

A Colorado Christian spokesman said President William Armstrong was out of town and unavailable for comment Wednesday.

In the school’s request, Armstrong argued the university is exempt from Title IX when its regulations “curtail the university’s freedom to respond to transgender individuals in accordance with its religious convictions.”

In 2010, the university’s board adopted policy to adhere “to the Biblical admonitions against both transvestitism and transvestite behavior.” The policy prohibits the university’s employees and students from “engaging in” or “supporting” transgender behavior.

The university will not allow a student to dress or act like a gender other “than the biological one that God created them to be,” according to the school’s handbook.

“When a student decides to identify as a gender other than their biological one, it is in their, and the university’s, best interest for them to leave the university community,” the handbook says.

One Colorado, an LGBT advocacy group, called Colorado Christian’s language “offensive” and said the school should not receive federal education funding if it is allowed to discriminate against transgender students and staff.

“If Colorado Christian University wants to treat transgender students differently than all their other students, they should do so on their own dime,” said Dave Montez, executive director. “Requesting an exemption from the law threatens to undermine the protections included in Colorado’s non-discrimination law by sending the message that it is acceptable to discriminate against transgender people.”

The exemption letter was first reported by Fox31 in Denver.

Jennifer Brown: 303-954-1593, jenbrown@denverpost.com or @jbrowndpost