Months after the Obama administration advised school districts that transgender students should be given access to bathrooms based on their gender identity, a federal judge in Texas has blocked the guidance from going into effect — for now.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor has granted a preliminary, nationwide injunction in response to a lawsuit filed by Texas and a number of other states.
As we’ve reported, the lawsuit argues that the guidance from the White House would turn schools “into laboratories for a massive social experiment.”
The preliminary injunction would mean that, until that lawsuit works its way through the courts, the “status quo” would be maintained and the guidance could not be considered enforceable.
The guidance from the White House was issued in May, and addresses the Title IX requirement that schools receiving federal funding not discriminate against students on the basis of sex.
The administration says that, as the departments of Justice and Education interpret the law, transgender students must be allowed to use a bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. Alternately, individual bathrooms can be made available to all students.
In their lawsuit, Texas and other states argue that references to “sex” in Title IX refer only to biological sex, and that the administration’s interpretation is a “radical re-authoring” of the term.
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