WASHINGTON, D.C., February 22, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – President Trump is dropping his predecessor's unpopular “transgender” federal order pressuring schools to let gender-confused boys use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa, according to the White House spokesman.
The matter of handling school bathroom policies for gender-confused students should be left to states, Buzzfeed reported White House spokesman Sean Spicer as saying Tuesday.
“That is an issue that the Department of Justice and the Department of Education are addressing,” Spicer said. “I think that there will be further guidance coming from DOJ in particular with respect not just to the executive order but also the case that is in front of the Supreme Court.”
“The president has maintained for a long time that this is a states’ rights issue and not one for the federal government,” Spicer said. “So will there be further guidance coming out on this? I think all you have to do is look at what the president’s view has been for a long time. That this is not something that the federal government should be involved in. This is a states’ rights issue.”
Ryan Sorba, chairman of Young Conservatives of America, commended Trump for “keeping his word to the American people” by rescinding Obama’s transgender-school edict, which touched off lawsuits by aggrieved states and a cascade of criticism nationwide.
“It’s preposterous that in the name of public policy and student ‘safety’ we would force states and local schools to adopt a policy of letting boys into girls locker rooms,” Sorba told LifeSiteNews. “This is ridiculous, if not completely insane.”
Sorba said he expects more Trump abandonments of Obama’s “reckless LGBTQ activism.”
Pro-natural marriage advocate Ryan Anderson said students, parents and teachers should work out “win-win” solutions at the local level, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported, like building single-occupancy restrooms, or giving “transgender” students access the faculty lounge.
“We can find a way in which the privacy and safety of transgender students is respected while also respecting the privacy and safety of all other students,” Anderson said.
But pro-family education advocate Linda Harvey cautions that schools should not use their moral authority with children to affirm extreme gender confusion as an “identity.”
“Communities and educators that really care about the long-term welfare of students will not implicitly or explicitly affirm the emotional disorder of gender rebellion,” Harvey, founder and president of the Christian group Mission America, told LifeSiteNews.
The ever-expanding array of “gender” and sexual identities currently include: pansexual, genderqueer, asexual, agender, bigender, androgynous, polyamorous, non-binary, transfeminine and bi-curious.
And in many cases, males who identify as “women” retain their sexual attraction to women, as in the case of cross-dressing “transgender” voyeur Shauna (Patrick) Smith. He was arrested, convicted and sentenced to two to five years in prison for making secret videos by spying on women undressing in changing rooms at an Idaho Target store.
A pro-LGBTQ research organization, The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, says about 150,000 youth — 0.7 percent— between the ages of 13 and 17 in the United States identify as transgender, the Star-Tribune reported.
Obama issued the “transgender” policy last May through his Justice and Education Departments. In a “Dear Colleague” letter to schools, the administration said schools “must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity.” The policy extended from bathroom facilities and locker rooms to sports teams and single-sex classes.
“In its directive, the Obama administration asserted that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bans sex discrimination in public schools, also bans transgender discrimination as a form of sex discrimination, and warned that breaking the rules could cost federal funding,” the Star-Tribune reported.
But after Texas and 10 other states sued the Obama administration to challenge the Obama order, a federal judge, through two court decisions, stopped the transgender school policy.
During the presidential campaign, Mike Pence told Dr. James Dobson in a radio interview, “Donald Trump and I simply believe that all of these issues are best resolved at the state level,” the Star-Tribune reported. “Washington has no business intruding on the operation of our local schools.”
Fabulous news, or “cruel”?
The Trump reversal “is fabulous news and a real signal that this administration will at least listen to reason on social issues. Students, especially biological females, will be authentically safer as a result,” Harvey said.
But the Transgender Law Center called the Trump move “shameful and cruel” and said, “Once again, this administration has singled out a vulnerable group – this time, transgender youth – for attack and made clear they will not fulfill their duty to protect all students from illegal harassment and discrimination.
The TLC said White House “does not have the power to singlehandedly change federal law, and school districts across the country are still legally obligated to comply with Title IX and protect transgender students.”
“No matter what this administration says, the law remains on transgender students’ side and students can still take legal action when schools cross the line and discriminate against them because they are transgender,” said the Center.