The federal government told United States public schools in May that transgender students must be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity.
Advertisement
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor signed the injunction Sunday after Texas and 12 other states challenged the order, calling it unconstitutional.
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said the state supports O’Connor’s decision and understands it is temporary while the case is heard fully.
President Barack Obama’s administration had labelled the Title IX interpretation as “guidance” but warned “schools receiving federal money may not discriminate based on a student’s sex, including a student’s transgender status”.
United States authorities had issued written guidelines in May, built on existing laws against sexual discrimination, which asked schools to let youths use the bathrooms matching their gender identity rather than the sex on their birth certificate. Despite this judge’s decision, schools are not barred from following the federal guidance, and school administrators still have a responsibility to ensure that the civil rights of all students are respected and that transgender students have access to facilities consistent with their gender identity.
The ruling signals the Supreme Court could take up a case addressing transgender rights in its next term.
O’Connor, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, said the guidelines from the defendants, which included the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice, were legislative and substantive.
The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who frequently sues the Democratic Obama administration, said he was pleased with a decision against “illegal federal overreach”.
When lawmakers passed a major anti-discrimination law more than 40 years ago that banned unfair treatment in public schools on the basis of sex, did Congress mean to protect students who identify with a gender that differs from their sex at birth?
The nondiscrimination rule was proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in May. Legal experts told the New York Times that higher-level courts in other regions have previously sided with the Obama administration’s view that transgender people are protected by existing anti-sex-discrimination laws, and those rulings won’t be affected by the new injunction.
“Boys are going to go to boys’ bathrooms and girls are going to go to girls’ bathrooms”, he said.
Advertisement
The order came as numerous nation’s schools prepare to begin the new academic year and means they might not face federal sanctions if they choose to do nothing different to accommodate the restroom and locker room choices of transgender students.
