As many as 11 US states, nine of which run by Republican governors, sued the Obama administration on Wendesday to stop a new federal guidance requiring all public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and other facilities that align with their gender identities, media here reported.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said, “President Obama has no business setting locker room and restroom policies for our schools”.
The states and school districts that filed the suit in federal court in Wichita Falls, Texas, have asked that a temporary injunction be issued blocking the administration from taking any action to punish schools or employers that don’t comply with the guidance on transgender accommodations.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a news conference on Wednesday that President Barack Obama is “creating new law outside of the Constitution and Congress”.
The state of Texas is the lead plaintiff and was joined by Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia, plus the Arizona Department of Education and the governor of Maine.
The federal guidelines recommend that public schools let students use the bathrooms of the gender with which they identify, instead of what is on their birth certificates. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has said “there is no room in our schools for discrimination”.
The White House had no comment on the lawsuit.
“Patrick’s condemnation was a little more enthusiastic: “[Obama] says he’s going to withhold funding if schools do not follow the policy”, he said earlier this month.
Officials from 11 states have filed a lawsuit against the Obama Administration in response to its position in favor of civil rights for transgender individuals.
The lawsuits are part of a national transgender bathroom usage controversy, which erupted following the passage of a bill in North Carolina that required that people use the bathroom corresponding to their biological gender.
They said they feared that men could pose as transgender people and use legal protections as a cover. He then criticized the Obama administration for the directive.
The law applied to all public facilities in schools. North Carolina and the Justice Department then sued each other over the law, opening the door for the directive.
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Supporters say such measures are needed to protect women and children from sexual predators, while the Justice Department and others argue the threat is practically nonexistent and the law discriminatory.
