President Barack Obama’s order for the nation’s public schools to allow students to use restrooms based on their gender preference is a “solution in search of a problem”, and it creates safety issues for the nation’s children, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Thursday.
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The other states that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs are Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Utah, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Georgia, Maine, Arizona and Maine.
Conservative states had vowed defiance since the Justice Department handed down the guidance. Several states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration for its guidelines on accommodating transgender students in schools.
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. In the joint filing in US District Court in Wichita Falls, Texas, the states accused the federal government of trying to rewrite laws by “executive fiat”.
And it’s that aspect that led eleven states and state representatives to file a lawsuit against the federal government on Wednesday accusing it of overreach and – in the words of Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick – “blackmail”.
In the letter, the two departments cited Title IX, which says that sexual discrimination at educational facilities receiving federal funding should be prohibited. While it doesn’t impost new legal requirements, it is meant to clarify expectations to school districts that receive federal funding.
‘ … Protecting transgender students’ right to be who they are does not harm other students, ‘ the US Department of Education said in a statement on 13 May.
Abbot said that Paxton’s lawsuit “challenging the way that the Obama administration is trampling the United States Constitution” during a stop on a book tour, according to The Texas Tribune.
Transgender rights advocates criticized the suit as a malicious attack, saying there have never been public safety incidents or invasions of privacy related to protections for transgender people.
The federal government says students should be able to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.
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Education officials in Arizona said campuses already had policies to protect students from bullying and discrimination “regardless of their gender identity”. Mississippi’s governor said earlier this week that going along with this guidance would be “harmful to school children and damaging to the process of educating them”.
