President Obama has commanded all public schools to open their bathrooms and locker rooms to either sex in cases of children who are “transgendered.” Children are generally too young for sex-change operations, so what we are dealing with is the extremely small number of children with “gender dysphoria,” confusion about what gender they are.
Not long ago, feminists and LGBTQ activists were insisting on the distinction between “sex” and “gender,” the former referring to biological anatomy and the latter referring to a social “construction.” Now, though, being “transgender” (constructing a different gender identity) must be counted as actually changing one’s sex.
The President’s authority to impose a transgender mandate on all schools, on threat of losing federal funding, is a new interpretation of the Title IX non-discrimination law, construing the language forbidding discrimination on the basis of “sex” so that it also means not discriminating on the basis of “gender,” or, rather, gender identity.
North Carolina, the target of massive indignation over its law requiring that schools and government facilities segregate their bathrooms according to natural sex rather than self-identified gender, is pushing back in a lawsuit challenging the administration’s use of Title IX and its authority to issue transgender mandates. Read Michael Avramovich on the issues after the jump. From Michael Avramovich, Feds Say “Give Up Privacy, Or Give Up Funding!” – Mere Comments
The Department of Education (“DOE”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) are now reinterpreting old laws to push new transgender laws. These new federal government regulations mean that a boy who identifies as female must be offered a college dorm room with female roommates. A biologically male athlete must be allowed to compete on a women’s sports team if he identifies as female. A first-grade boy who “thinks” or says that he is a girl can use the girls’ bathroom. A high school boy who say that he is a transgendered girl may use the girls’ locker rooms and showers. It has been fascinating to watch the breathtaking speed at which transgenderism in public facilities has become such a prominent issue in the waning months of the Obama Administration. I suppose that now that homosexual “marriage” was approved by the Supreme Court, it was time to move onto more foolishness.
In recent weeks, attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom (“ADF”), representing students and parents in both Illinois and North Carolina public schools and universities, filed suit against the United States DOE and DOJ for making federal student aid and educational funding dependent on students sharing restrooms and locker rooms with the opposite sex. In the case in North Carolina, the DOJ disregarded student privacy and safety when it issued letters threatening the suspension of federal funding for North Carolina’s schools and university system, as well as federal financial aid for North Carolina’s university students, unless the state government repudiated the law known as House Bill 2. That law ensures that government facilities and public schools protect personal privacy by maintaining sex-specific restrooms, locker rooms, and showers. Giving North Carolina only three days to repeal the law, the DOJ and DOE then filed suit against the state to force them to acquiesce.
How much is at stake in North Carolina alone? The federal government’s actions jeopardize approximately $1.4 billion dollars in federal funding for North Carolina’s universities, approximately $800 million dollars in federal financial aid to North Carolina’s students, and all federal funding provided to all elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the state.
And what is the authority for the federal government to stop educational funding? Actually, there is none, because this is simply a new interpretation of “sex” in Title IX, a 1972 federal law that specifically states that a school receiving federal funds can “provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex” without putting that funding at risk. The lawsuit by ADF attorneys contends that the DOJ and the DOE are unlawfully redefining the terms of Title IX, which is something that only Congress can alter, and only if signed by the President. (In fact, the North Carolina congressional delegation has rejected the federal government’s reinterpretation of Title IX.) Moreover, the ADF lawsuit maintains that the DOJ and DOE illegitimately force their political will on all public bodies across the nation. No federal law requires schools to allow boys into girls’ restrooms or girls into boys’ restrooms, and five courts have previously rejected the government’s re-interpretation of Title IX.
[Keep reading. . .]
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In