12 states reject Obama’s transgender bathroom policy
Despite the power of the bully pulpit, and the
pull of billions of dollars in federal education funding, leaders in at least a
dozen states have said Barack Obama's guidance on transgender bathroom, shower,
and locker room use is unconstitutional, with many saying the decree will not
be implemented, come what may.
Governors, attorneys general, and school
officials – not to mention incensed parents – say the federal document released
last Friday is a vast overreach of the president's powers and places young
children at risk.
Disregarding 'the president's
social experiment'
Upon release of the long-rumored document last
week, multiple governors declared the decree dead on arrival.
North Carolina, which is already locked in a
protracted battle over its own state law over transgender restroom use, brushed
off last Friday's directive.
Obama's policy is “an invitation for
violations of privacy and personal safety,” said North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan
Forest.
“North Carolina will not stand by and let our
locker rooms and high school showers be used for social experimentation at the
expense of the privacy and protection of our young boys and girl,” he
continued. “I don't think it appropriate for teenage boys and girls to shower
next to each other...I feel confident, the vast majority of North Carolina
parents feel the same.”
“North Carolina public schools in receipt of
the president's letter are reminded that there is a binding state law on the
books governing bathroom policy and the president's non-binding directive is
merely his attempt to push his version of a social policy on our state with no
Constitutional authority to do so. It should be rejected as a matter of
principle and policy," Lt. Gov. Forest said.
"I do not think it is appropriate for
teenage boys and girls to share the same bathroom. I don't think it is
appropriate for male coaches and male teachers to have access to girls' locker
rooms and showers while the young girls are naked and exposed," he
continued.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said his state
would give up federal education funding before changing its policy, although
that would deprive the students of an estimated $10 billion, much of it in the
free breakfast and lunch program.
Their calls to defy the president's innovative
interpretation of a 1972 civil rights law - Title IX, which does not mention
gender identity - echoed throughout the country.
“Mississippi's public schools should not
participate in the president's social experiment,” said Gov. Phil Bryant,
because “these decisions are better left to the states, and not made at the
point of a federal bayonet.”
Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves agreed that
"state and local communities should not be forced to push a liberal agenda
by a president out of touch with the American people."
Gov. Bryant recently signed H.B. 1523,
which explicitly allows people to set their own policies on “access to
restrooms, spas, baths, showers, dressing rooms, locker rooms, or other
intimate facilities” without fear of government reprisal.
Kentucky
Gov. Matt Bevin said
public schools in the Bluegrass State “should not feel compelled to bow to such
intimidation.”
Utah Gov.
Gary Herbert said,
“Schools are the domain of state and local government, not our nation’s
president. Unfortunately, this is exactly what I have come to expect from the
Obama administration. If we have to fight this order, we will not hesitate to
do so." His Board of Education Chair, David Crandall, has advised school
districts not to implement any policy changes in lieu of a more concrete court
order or binding legislation.
Alabama state Attorney General Luther Strange,
a Republican, vowed, "If the Obama administration tries to enforce this
absurd edict, I will work with other Attorneys General to challenge it.”
One such state AG, Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma,
wrote a letter to
the Obama administration Friday afternoon shortly after the guidelines became
public, saying he would “vigorously defend the state's” commonsense solution.
In Louisiana, 32 of the state's 105 state
representatives sent a letter asking
the attorney general to clarify the administration's guidelines, as well as an
executive action by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards on transgender issues.
Other states are fighting the administrative
regulation that anyone who says he identifies as a member of the opposite sex
must be treated accordingly. After the Obama administration released its letter
the states of Arizona, Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, Utah, and West Virginia signed
on to defend a rural Virginia school district the administration had sued over
the issue.
Less outspoken opposition
A few Republican governors have said, while
transgender students must be treated with respect, they did not feel this was an
appropriate role for the federal government. Indiana's
Mike Pence, Wisconsin's
Scott Walker, and Iowa's
Terry Branstad said
the decision should be left to local leaders. Tennessee's Bill Haslam called
the document “heavy-handed.” However, Pence seemed ready to implement the
document's guidelines, sources say.
While many said they felt it inappropriate for
members of one biological sex to be left unsupervised inside intimate
facilities, others cited constitutional and legal concerns.
Obama turned the Constitution on
its head
President Obama on Monday said he released the
guidelines only because “schools were asking us” for appropriate legal
guidance. However, transgender activists such as Mara Kiessling at the National
Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) haveasked the
Obama administration to impose such regulations for years.
But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on “Fox and
Friends” this morning that there is “only one body of the three branches of
government that can write the law and that is Congress. We have a president who
decided, well, if Congress is not going to pass the law, he's going to impose
the law.”
“The president is turning the Constitution on
its head," he said.
Pat McCrory, the governor of North Carolina,
said the guidelines violate the president's “constitutional authority,” because
“the executive branch of the federal government does not have the authority to
be the final arbiter” of law.
Gov. Matt Bevin, a constitutionalist, said,
“It is difficult to imagine a more absurd federal overreach into a local issue.
Under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the federal
government has no authority to interfere in local school districts' bathroom
policies.”
“My administration is researching the options
available for ensuring that this local issue is decided by Kentuckians, not by
bureaucrats in Washington," he said.
