President Donald Trump recently rescinded a set of federal guidelines for transgender students in schools that receive federal funding that were issued by Barack Obama. In the guidelines, it basically said that the aforementioned schools would be in risk of losing their funding if they did not allow transgender students to use the restroom the corresponds to their gender identity. After the State’s Attorney General of Texas, Kevin Paxton lead a coalition of 13 states that immediately sued to get the action stalled, and their efforts were validated when a Texas federal judge placed a temporary hold on Obama’s decree. The initial action happened in May of 2016, the hold came a little later. Up until Trump rescinded the action, it was still on hold and up in the air. It could have theoretically been revived and upheld, or permanently blocked.
The directive cited Title IX (Title 9) which prevents discrimination in education based on sex. Obama’s Department of Justice and Department of Education interpreted “sex” to also apply to those who are transgender and essentially assign themselves a sex outside of what they were born as. Which, of course, does not make sense. Personal feelings do not denote biology. Therefore, Donald Trump rightly rescinded the action.
What this means going forward is that the issue of whether or not transgender individuals can use the restroom of their choice will be a states’ rights issue. Maybe even a city/county issue as certain cities inside of a state would be more supportive of transgender people using whatever bathroom than others. Donald Trump himself has been in support of transgender people using whatever bathroom they use. Caitlyn (Bruce) Jenner even videotaped himself at a Trump tower asking if he could use the women’s restroom and he had no issues. So some may see Trump’s current stance as hypocrisy, but what it really shows is that he is not a king and does not believe in an overbearing government with total federal centralization of power.
The directive cited Title IX (Title 9) which prevents discrimination in education based on sex. Obama’s Department of Justice and Department of Education interpreted “sex” to also apply to those who are transgender and essentially assign themselves a sex outside of what they were born as. Which, of course, does not make sense. Personal feelings do not denote biology. Therefore, Donald Trump rightly rescinded the action.
What this means going forward is that the issue of whether or not transgender individuals can use the restroom of their choice will be a states’ rights issue. Maybe even a city/county issue as certain cities inside of a state would be more supportive of transgender people using whatever bathroom than others. Donald Trump himself has been in support of transgender people using whatever bathroom they use. Caitlyn (Bruce) Jenner even videotaped himself at a Trump tower asking if he could use the women’s restroom and he had no issues. So some may see Trump’s current stance as hypocrisy, but what it really shows is that he is not a king and does not believe in an overbearing government with total federal centralization of power.
