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A US JUDGE has blocked federal guidelines instructing public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and other private facilities of their choice.
US District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled yesterday in favour of Texas and 12 other states, which have sued the federal government over the new rules.
The regulations were designed to create safer environments for transgender students at public school districts and universities.
US authorities had issued written guidelines in May, built on existing laws against sexual discrimination, which asked schools to let youths use the bathrooms matching their gender identity rather than the sex on their birth certificate.
The letter suggested that not doing so could run afoul of laws barring gender discrimination.
But O’Connor ruled that the federal government had violated procedures in issuing the new standards and incorrectly interpreted existing laws. He said:
The guidelines are, in practice, legislative rules – not just interpretations or policy statements because they set clear legal standards.
Existing federal laws regarding a person’s sex were intended to be limited to “the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth,” the judge said.
Overreach
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who brought the lawsuit and is lead plaintiff, celebrated the ruling. In a statement, Paxton said:
We are pleased that the court ruled against the Obama administration’s latest illegal federal overreach.
“This president is attempting to rewrite the laws enacted by the elected representatives of the people, and is threatening to take away federal funding from schools to force them to conform.”
The gay and transgender rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign expressed disappointment and hope that the new trans guidelines will ultimately prevail, as legal battles continue over the scope of gender discrimination laws in public schools.
The ruling “puts thousands of transgender students at even greater risk of marginalisation, harassment, and discrimination as they return to school this fall,” HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow said in a statement.
All students, regardless of their gender identity, deserve to be able to learn in an environment free from discrimination.
O’Connor said his ruling does not preclude states following the federal guidelines if they wish to do so, but states were free to ignore the guidelines without fear that they would be breaking the law.
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If ya have a mickey use the gents and if you have a fanny use the ladies. Problem solved
Aha! But what if you’ve got both or even a kinda hybrid thingy like my aunties?
then you’re lucky you can use both
How much money would that cost George? Would public buildings have to spend taxpayer money to build a 3rd toilet?
Would private business have to add another toilet?
In the US males have both. The arse is the fanny.
Jake. The judgement is here http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/22/490915833/u-s-judge-grants-nationwide-injunction-blocking-white-house-transgender-policy
I disagree with the judgement but there’s no particular evidence of bigotry and there’s no mention of religion in it or even God. From what I can understand it the Judge has decided that the states’ case I.e. that the definition of sex they have been using and want to use is biological rather than a persons own gender identity, is strong and that it may not be the federal governments right to change it. Because he thinks there is a strong chance they will win the case (and unfortunately there is), he has passed an injunction preventing the federal imposition of what he considers more recent definition until the case is heard and settled. It’s a fairly common event in the US where a status quo is maintained until someone proves in law that it is unconstitutional. I suspect the attorney general isn’t surprised and that it’s eventually going to go to the Supreme Court.
The mickey/fanny argument only works until you see a big burly bearded man in a ladies room – because they’re trans and they’re on hormones etc, but don’t meet your ridiculous criteria of not having a penis. Or the complete reverse with a woman in the men’s room.
“the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth,”…what sort of a world are we in when a common sense statement like this is considered controversial?!
I suggest you google hermaphrodite!
turn on ‘safe search’ first (unless you would rather not)
Kennedy put a man on the moon, Obama put a man in the ladies bathroom.
And Sam Hunt took Rick Perrys quote and tried to pass it off as his own…
Nice one Paddy. *Burn*
Paddy I picked it up off another wise journal commenter over the weekend. It’s very witty
And Peter Tarasov took Cyril Knowles quote and tried to pass it off as his own….
Sam, classic!!
Make the disabled toilet the transgender toilet. But rename it the ‘special needs’ toilet so as not to offend anyone.
Don’t be silly, I use the disabled toilet and I’m not having some hairy woman banging down the door screaming “TOILAA”
That suggestion offends me.
Proper order! !
Transphobia destroys lives.
.
Problem is if you allow transgenders to use the other bathroom then what about perverts and paedophiles following girls into the girls toilets?
While it may be ‘unjust’ to transgenders you must realise the security issues this can cause…
Because perverts and paedophiles, as the law abiding citizens they are, never break the law and therefore never venture into the wrong toilets on purpose already anyway?
Making something illegal because a tiny percentage of people misuse it is ridiculous. As one example, imagine if we couldn’t have any deodorant sprays – made them illegal because some people abuse solvents!
I don’t care which bathroom you use as long as you wash your hands
And lift the lid. But then “ladies” surely don’t need to do that.
Lots off puddles is the ladies jacks I presume
Transgender needs physchotherapy, not a bathroom.
Tom, based on your comments, you might first look to your own cure.
LGBTQIAP+
An umbrella acronym that stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Two-spirited, Queer and Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Pansexual and other marginalized orientations/identities.
The LGBTQIAP+ community has suffered greatly due to society shoving heteronormativity and gender binary down their throats.
If you think this is normal Mick then off with you in the strange world you live in
Hey Tom. You forgot about the omnisexuals!
No surrender on urinals , its about the only benefit a man has gong out these days. the feminists and other lefties want us peeing sitting down like girls. first they will get rid of urinals then they will complain about the mess , they they will install alarms to catch men peeing standing up.the technology already exists believe it or not
using they are using fluoridation of water supplies to pollute our “precious bodily fluids”
This was never an issue until SJWs made it one.
Are you opposed to social justice?
Social distortion you mean.
Some of those states would reintroduce seperate bathrooms for blacks & whites if they could get away with it.
Fully agree. And it’s saddening how many people are green thumbing the transphobia but red thumbing your suggestion that those states would like to be even more regressive, when it is inevitable that they would be if they could get away with it.
I’ll piss sitting down and none of you will stop me.
This is a shit issue.
In this backward country – which lives in the 1916/22 era – we should have toilets for catholics and protestents,
Shame on the judge. Trans rights truly are one of the biggest social justice issues of our time. In a few decades time we will look back at the simply horrendous things people casually say about trans people and be completely horrified.
‘Horrendous things’
Like what?
A 17 stone bloke with size 14 feet who shaves four times a day is a bloke.
That sort of stuff.
The decision will be appealed. It will likely be ultimately decided by the US Supreme Court.
No shame on the judge actually. I want everyone to be able to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity, but if the guidelines are unconstitutional, better to know now so it can be fixed to make it fully constitutional and unquestionably legal. If the judges actions cause that to happen quicker then that will be a good thing.
The problem with progress is that sometimes people are so concerned with making it happen quickly, they don’t care about making it happen correctly, in a way which will be sustained.
Although I agree on another point you made. 2 or 3 generations from now people will look back on now in the same horrified way that I look back on white/black segregation (I hope).
The issue will likely proceed up through a few stages of judicial appeal before reaching the US Supeme Court. This decision is far from the last word on the subject.
Social conditioning can habituate some people to a highly rigid, conservative and gender binary perspective but eventually more flexible and enlightened views tend to prevail.
Exactly Michael.
Let’s have alphabet toilets flt the LGBTQAS brigade.
Let’s embrace all the weirdos of the world and pretend everything is normal.
Abnormal is the new normal.
Hear hear.
Of course my ‘hear hear’ was in response to Michael’s comment; not to Tom Burke the transphobic c***.
Transphobic?
There’s another new word.
Another new word in the LGBTQATJK
alphabet soup.
No I’m not transgender, I’m questioning.
I’m questioning also. I’m questioning when this weirdo BS is going to end.
We have a gender-neutral toilet in our house that is used by all the family and visitors.
This topic included to-day to cover up a Donald Trump report on calling for the shut-down of the corrupt Clinton Foundation!
Wouldn’t look too good for What-difference -does-it-make-now-Hillary’s falling lead..
I’m all in favour of having people use the bathrooms that match their gender identity. As people often point out, we all have gender-neutral bathrooms in our houses. This story seems to gloss over a point which is pretty important in my opinion – at the moment you cannot change your official gender in America (to the best of my knowledge). If you could change your birth cert/ drivers licence/ passport to reflect your gender identity, then you could use the bathroom of that gender without any issue, because legally you now are that gender.
That would also do something towards combating the fake excuse made by republicans about perverts and paedophiles.
I’m in favour of people using bathrooms that reflect their gender. Not their gender identity, but their gender.
Gender is fixed. Gender identity is in your head.
I can wake up today feeling very much a lady, but I still have a penis.
We can change paperwork but we can’t change gender.
The sooner we cop on to this fact and forget this PC BS, the better for society.
What if I wake up tomorrow and think I’m a horse. Will it be ok for me to dump on the street?
This is mad.
Having a penis or a vagina decides your sex, not your gender. And sometimes not even then. Intersex and hermaphrodite people do exist and theres no room for them in our closed-minded binary system.
There are wars going on, poverty homelessness, economic turmoil worldwide and we are arguing about bathrooms. This is a monumental distraction wasting time, money and energy. It has to be the stupidest issue I have ever heard of, benefiting no one (even those it purports to help) and sets back legitimate minority group concerns by decades. I can’t believe this is happening. We are such miserable clowns.
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