Eleven States sue Obama administration over transgender bathroom ‘threat’
Eleven states have joined together will plans to sue the Obama administration over a controversial federal guidance requiring public schools and universities to allow transgender students to use the restrooms, showers, and overnight accommodations of the opposite biological sex based on their gender of choice.
The states filing the lawsuit include Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
The lawsuit accuses the Obama administration of turning “educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process, and running roughshod over commonsense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights.”
photo Marcus Werthmann
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the multistate legal action during a press conference Wednesday afternoon.
The Obama administration’s guidance requires schools to give anyone who identifies as transgender access to hotel rooms or dorm rooms, locker rooms, and restroom facilities used by the opposite sex.
“In President Obama’s final drive to fundamentally transform America, he has pushed aside the concerns of parents and schools, the privacy and safety of students, and ignored the boundaries of his constitutional power,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “We commend Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and these 10 other states for resisting the president’s locker room and bathroom decree that sacrifices the privacy and safety of children.”
Many of the plaintiffs cited legal and constitutional protections that constrain the federal government from setting local school policy.
“School policies should be determined by individual states, educators and parents – not dictated by a presidential decree,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in a statement.
Press Secretary Josh Earnest tried to soften the language of Obama’s edict after the “threat” of federal funding being pulled created even more outrage. Earnest used terms like “advice” and “guidance” but the “threat” was still there. More on Earnest’s remarks HERE
The Obama administration says this is necessary for transgender people – who account for 0.3 percent of the U.S. population – to feel “safe,” but opponents say it exposes women to the advances of sexual predators who will use the law for their own ends.
photo/screenshot video President Obama attacking North Carolina and Mississippi over transgender bathroom laws
