10 states just sued the federal government over Obama’s transgender bathroom rules

Friday’s filing means almost half of the 50 USA states are formally objecting to recent federal guidelines that recommend public schools allow students to use bathrooms corresponding to the gender with which they identify, instead of the gender listed on their birth certificates.

Friday’s lawsuit-the second large, multi-state action over the federal rules-was filed in federal court in Nebraska.

“When a school provides sex-segregated activities and facilities, transgender students must be allowed to participate in such activities and access such facilities consistent with their gender identity”, the letter says, citing Title IX, the law forbidding discrimination based on sex. The lawsuit was filed in a Nebraska federal court, with Arkansas, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming signing on in solidarity. OH did not join that lawsuit. The guidance came with an implicit threat that schools found in violation could lose federal education funding.

What’s troubling, he said, is that the federal change disregards the work done by local school districts, which now are creating individualized plans to meet the needs of all students.

The coalition of states opposing the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice filed an action in Nebraska federal court challenging the government’s recent Title IX decision that prohibits schools receiving federal money to discriminate based on a student’s sex, including a student’s transgender status. “This guidance gives administrators, teachers and parents the tools they need to protect transgender students from peer harassment and to identify and address unjust school policies”.

The battle began to take shape when officials in Charlotte passed a sweeping anti-discrimination ordinance that included a provision allowing transgender people to use restrooms corresponding to their gender identity.

The guidance is not legally binding, but details the Obama administration’s expectation for schools receiving United States federal funding to follow it. And they want the federal government to agree with their interpretation of the term “sex” as something that refers exclusively to “one’s genes and anatomy”. An individual’s sex “consists of multiple factors”, the Department wrote, including “hormones, external genitalia, internal reproductive organs, chromosomes, and gender identity, which is an individual’s internal sense of being male or female”.

In the last two months, the federal guidance has sparked controversy, with critics warning that it has a wide potential for abuse and endangers the safety and privacy of students.

And new guidance presumes junior high and high school kids will act responsibly, he said.

They stressed that the Catholic Church “consistently affirms the inherent dignity of each and every human person and advocates for the wellbeing of all people, particularly the most vulnerable”. “Children should always be and feel safe and secure and know they are loved”, they added.