Trump
Revokes Obama Guidelines on Transgender Bathrooms, by Daniel
Trotta,
2/22/17
(Reuters) - President
Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday revoked landmark guidance to public
schools letting transgender students use the bathrooms of their choice,
reversing a signature initiative of former Democratic President Barack Obama.
Reversing the Obama
guidelines stands to inflame passions in the latest conflict in America between
believers in traditional values and social progressives, and is likely to
prompt more of the street protests that followed Trump's Nov. 8 election.
Obama had instructed
public schools last May to let transgender students use the bathrooms matching
their chosen gender identity, threatening to withhold funding for schools that
did not comply. Transgender people hailed the step as victory for their civil
rights.
Trump, a Republican who
took office last month, rescinded those guidelines, even though they had been
put on hold by a federal judge, arguing that states and public schools should
have the authority to make their own decisions without federal interference.
The Justice and Education
departments will continue to study the legal issues involved, according to the
new, superseding guidance that will be sent to public schools.
About 200 people gathered
in front of the White House to protest against Trump's action, waving rainbow
flags and chanting: "No hate, no fear, trans students are welcome
here."
The rainbow flag is the
symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, people. "We all
know that Donald Trump is a bully, but his attack on transgender children today
is a new low," said Rachel Tiven, chief executive of Lambda Legal, which
advocates for LGBT people.
Conservatives such as
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who spearheaded the lawsuit challenging the
Obama guidance, hailed the Trump administration action.
"Our fight over the
bathroom directive has always been about former President Obama's attempt to
bypass Congress and rewrite the laws to fit his political agenda for radical
social change," said Paxton, a Republican.
Transgender legal
advocates have criticized the "states' rights" argument, saying
federal law and civil rights are matters for the federal government to enforce,
not the states.
White House spokesman Sean
Spicer said the administration was pressed to act now because of the pending
U.S. Supreme Court case, G.G. versus Gloucester County School Board.
That case pits a Virginia
transgender boy, Gavin Grimm, against officials who want to deny him use of the
boys' room at his high school.
Although the Justice
Department is not a party in the case, it typically would want to make its
views heard. The Trump administration action on Wednesday also withdrew an
Education Department letter in support of Grimm's case.
"I've faced my share
of adversaries in rural Virginia. I never imagined that my government would be
one of them. We will not be beaten down by this administration," Grimm,
17, told the protest outside the White House.
COURTS MAY HAVE FINAL SAY
The federal law in
question, known as Title IX, bans sex discrimination in education. But it
remains unsettled whether Title IX protections extend to a person's gender
identity.
Attorney General Jeff
Sessions said in a statement that the Obama guidelines "did not contain
sufficient legal analysis or explain how the interpretation was consistent with
the language of Title IX."
New York Attorney General
Eric Schneiderman vowed to ensure Title IX and his state's civil rights protections
are enforced.
"President Trump's
decision to rescind anti-discrimination protections for transgender students is
yet another cruel move by an administration committed to divisive policies that
roll back the clock on civil rights," he said in a statement.
The courts are likely to
have the final say over whether Title IX covers transgender students. The
Supreme Court could pass on that question in the Virginia case and allow lower
courts to weigh in, or go ahead and decide what the law means.
Obama's Education
Department issued the guidance in response to queries from school districts
across the country about how to accommodate transgender students in
gender-segregated bathrooms.
It also covered a host of
other issues, such as the importance of addressing transgender students by
their preferred names and pronouns and schools' responsibility to prevent
harassment and bullying of transgender children.
Thirteen states led by
Texas sued to stop the Obama guidelines, and a U.S. district judge in Texas
temporarily halted their full implementation.
The White House previously
boasted of Trump's support for LGBT rights, noting in a Jan. 31 statement that
he was the first Republican presidential nominee to mention the community in
his nomination acceptance speech.
"Revoking the
guidance shows that the president's promise to protect LGBT rights was just
empty rhetoric," James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties
Union's LGBT project, said in a statement.
(Reporting and writing by
Daniel Trotta in New York; Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley, Jeff Mason,
Julia Edwards Ainsley, Mana Rabiee and Emily Stephenson in Washington; Editing
by Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney)
Copyright
2017 Thomson Reuters.
Comments
The
transgender fad has been referred to the States and the Schools. This gives schools some time to figure out
how to accommodate this handicap without getting sued. I prefer the single private bathroom option
or home-based internet schooling.
State
legislatures will be able to pass whatever laws they want to pass, but schools
will get the lawsuits from the activists. It’s hard to determine whether or not
this malady is the invention of liberal activists or not. I suspect it is political.
Another
issue is refusal of health insurance coverage for sex change treatment,
.because it is “elective”. That should slow things down enough to keep it from
becoming an epidemic.
The gay
marriage issue should be solved by referring them to gay churches and gay
bakeries. Gays actually prefer their own company; liberal activists prefer
confrontation and law suits. The Supreme Court opinion on gay marriage does not
alter the Civil Rights Act; it only supports the “pursuit of happiness” or the
right to exercise your free will. It doesn’t include the right to sue for
damages or government’s right to issue fines.
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