President Obama is going to tell each and every public school district in the U.S. that transgender students can use the bathrooms they feel matches the gender with which they identify, not necessarily their biological gender of birth. As reported by the New York Times , schools will receive letters on Friday, May 13, which tackles the heated transgender bathroom debate.
As expected, the edict from President Obama is causing more debate about the transgender issue, especially in light of the Obama administration’s legal fight with North Carolina. The measure will teach public schools how to make sure that their transgender students — and all students, for that matter — are not the subjects of discrimination.
It isn’t the first time that President Obama has endorsed measures to protect the transgender community. On Monday, July 21, 2014, as seen in the above photo, Mr. Obama signed an order protecting LGBT employees from being discriminated against at work. Those orders sought to stop any discrimination against gay and transgender government employees.
Now this new order states the public schools cannot stop transgender students when they want to use the bathroom of the gender that they most closely identify with. If they do so, they will be going up against a federal law.
Gavin Grimm , as reported by Metro Weekly , is one of the transgender students in the forefront of the issue. When Gavin wanted to use the male restroom, his high school offered Gavin a modified broom closet. Grimm refused and sued the school board, and as a result, offering Gavin the use of the restroom for women or a unisex bathroom means Grimm was subjected to unlawful bias. The 1972 Title IX law was cited as the ruling that prevents sex discrimination in educational situations.
Schools won’t be forced to adhere to the new transgender edict, but the public schools that don’t follow President Obama’s viewpoint of the law then open themselves up to the threat of lawsuits — or risk losing precious federal funding for their public schools. For their part, the Obama administration stated that public school students should never feel not welcomed at school.
Obama administration to issue guidance Friday on transgender bathrooms. https://t.co/OrBBwyBzqI
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) May 13, 2016
All public school students deserve the right to come to school and not experience sex discrimination because they are transgender, said the Obama administration. As expected, the feedback from the liberal side of politics and the conservative side of politics has been swift after the announcement of the ruling from President Obama.
Obama administration warns schools to allow transgender access to bathrooms https://t.co/aeq3A7CgD8 pic.twitter.com/OXpJRI25lw
— HuffPost Politics (@HuffPostPol) May 13, 2016
Comments supporting and applauding the new edict from Mr. Obama appear alongside those who criticize the transgender public school bathroom measure, with some commentators stating that the transgender community makes up a small portion of society. With more than 170 comments flowing into the discussion of the article titled “Obama Orders Schools to Open Up Trans Bathroom Access: There’s no room in schools for discrimination, feds say” by Rob Quinn of Newser , the transgender debate rages on.
“Wow, just wow. The desire to accommodate transgender discomfort should not justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages the majority of students, reasonable Americans state.”
“Time to invest in Kohler & American Standard…going to be hundreds of thousands of new individual bathrooms added in public schools.”
“Liberal agenda and conservative agenda is exactly the same – to make a better country that best serves the need of the citizenry. They just have different ideas on how to go about that.”
“I wouldn’t call this ‘progressive’ as I’m sure cave men and women used the bathroom together as well as third world nations do today. Progressive liberals are very interesting people.”
“Imagine if this was never legislated, there never would have been a problem.”
[Photo by Jacquelyn Martin/AP Images]
