The Obama administration has told schools to let transsexual pupils use the toilets, changing rooms and showers of their choice, or face serious cuts.
In a move deemed irresponsible by a host of US states, the White House said public schools must respect a pupil’s ‘gender identity’, even if records indicate a different sex.
So far, eight states have vowed to oppose the order, with four further states complaining that the President has abused his power.
Opposition
The Governors of Texas, North Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana have urged schools to reject the order on the basis that it endangers pupils.
North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest said his state 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 girls”.
And Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said his state would give up an estimated $10 billion of federal education funding before changing its existing schools’ policy.
Intimidation
In Oklahoma, Attorney General Scott Pruitt wrote a letter to the Obama administration saying that he would “vigorously defend” the state’s current schools’ policy.
And in Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa and Tennessee, the Governors said that they did not feel the move was an appropriate one for the federal Government to make.
Religious liberty group the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) noted that solutions already exist to accommodate transsexual people, without violating the privacy of others.
In spite of this, ADF said, the White House prefers to “unlawfully impose its political will through threats or intimidation”.
God’s purposes
At the same time it issued the order on schools’ policy, the Obama administration told healthcare providers to carry out sex-change treatment and surgery or face sanctions.
The Department of Health and Human Services ordered providers who receive Government funding to perform ‘gender transition’ services and abortions or face a loss in funding, as well as possible legal action.
Ken Klukowski, legal editor at Breitbart News and a lawyer with First Liberty Institute, described the threat as an “unconstitutional assault on the First Amendement”.
He added that the Obama administration is “forcing their rejection of biological fact onto people whose faith teaches that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ refer to what they have meant for thousands of years, and that God purposefully created them that way”.