The Obama administration told public schools that transgender students must be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice, upsetting many and raising the likelihood of fights over federal funding and legal authority.
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Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant issued a statement Friday afternoon calling the directive “outrageous” and directed his state’s education department to disregard the order.
“We’re going to look into it, study it and seek counsel from the school board attorney”, Jackson-Madison County School Board Member Dave Bratcher said.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City: “The Obama Department of Education’s guidance letter on the use of public school bathrooms is another example of how they have continued to create law out of thin air with Dear Colleague letters, threats and intimidation”.
Some school systems around the country already accommodate transgender students when it comes to bathroom use.
The federal government issued guidance Friday about schools’ obligations to transgender students when it comes to not discriminating against them on the basis of sex.
A gender neutral sign is posted outside a bathrooms at a restaurant in Durham, North Carolina.
Justice and Education Department officials have repeatedly made clear that under their interpretation of Title IX, the federal anti-discrimination law in education, schools receiving federal funds may not discriminate based on a student’s sex, including a student’s transgender status. Both the state and the administration have filed duelling lawsuits.
In 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled, as the Sixth Circuit did, that discrimination against transgender people violated the Civil Rights Act’s ban on sex discrimination, a decision hailed by advocates as the executive branch’s first unequivocal statement to that effect.
While supporters say the measure is needed to protect women and children from sexual predators, the Justice Department and others argue the threat is practically nonexistent and the law discriminatory.
Bevin said his administration is “researching the options available” to ensure the issue of what bathrooms transgender students can use remains a local issue. “Most Americans, including this governor, believe that government is searching for a solution to a problem that has yet to be defined”, McCrory said. “This has everything to do with keeping the federal government out of local issues”.
The governor quoted a survey by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National of Center or Transgender Equality that said more than half of transgender and gender-nonconforming people who were bullied, harassed or assaulted in school due to their gender identity have attempted suicide. It estimates that between 0.25 and one per cent of the population is transsexual. “Boys should go in the boys restrooms and girls should go in the girls restrooms”.
“Well, in Texas, he can keep his 30 pieces of silver”. Title IX, the federal discrimination law that pertains to education, prohibits discrimination based on sex. “People don’t realize that these kids in schools weren’t having any bathroom issues before”, she said. The question of whether federal civil rights law protects transgender people has not been definitively answered by the courts and may ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
The Obama administration states today that a “school may not require transgender students to have a medical diagnosis, undergo any medical treatment, or produce a birth certificate or other identification document before treating them consistent with their gender identity”.
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President Obama, Education Secretary John King, and National Teacher of the Year, Jahana Hayes.
