Obama Decrees Schools Must Allow Transgender Bathroom Use
Obama Decrees ALL Public Schools Must Allow Transgender Bathroom Use
Sep 18, 2014: United States President Barack Obama during an official
meeting with the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in Washington, DC
(USA) (Drop of Light / Shutterstock.com)
The
Obama administration will send a letter to every public school district
in the country Friday warning them that they must allow students to use
whatever bathroom and locker room corresponds to their stated gender
identity, or face a federal lawsuit.
The decree, sent jointly by the Department of Justice and the
Department of Education, comes just a few days after North Carolina and
the federal government sued each other over the state’s recent law
governing bathroom use in public buildings. It won’t be a new federal
law, but will instead reflect the Obama administration’s interpretation
of existing federal anti-discrimination law.
In particular, the decree is based on Title IX, the 1972
law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools that receive federal
funding. While the drafters of the law may not have known it at the
time, the Obama administration’s position is that the law covers
discrimination based on gender identity as well as physical sex.
“A school may not require transgender students to use facilities
inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user
facilities when other students are not required to do so,” the letter
says, according to The New York Times,
which obtained a copy.
Currently, federal courts have not conclusively settled whether, and
to what degree, sex discrimination laws cover matters of gender identity
as opposed to physical sex. But the Obama administration appears
optimistic that an aggressive approach will succeed, especially after
an April court ruling favored a transgender Virginia girls who sued for the right to use a boys’ bathroom.
The letter says that schools must immediately respect a student’s new
gender identity as soon as it is declared by their parent or guardian.
Schools are not allowed to require that a student provide a medical
diagnosis to justify the change, and they also cannot require a student
to legally change their gender.
To assist schools in implementing the new policy and help those made
uncomfortable by it, the letter includes a 25-page document of “emerging
practices,” with suggestions such as erecting privacy curtains in
locker rooms for those who need extra privacy.
Obama’s new order will without a doubt enrage many Republicans who
have argued that transgender bathroom policies will allow perverted men
to prey upon women in bathrooms and locker rooms. A few such incidents
have already occurred.
In February, for instance,
a Seattle man used the city’s now transgender bathroom ordinance to
enter a women’s locker room and begin stripping while young girls were
using it. When confronted, he said the law gave him the right to be
there, and he was never identified or arrested.
