Officials from 11 US states sued the administration of US President Barack Obama on Wednesday to overturn a directive telling schools to let students use bathrooms matching their gender identity, decrying the policy as “a massive social experiment.”
Ramping up the simmering battles over contentious cultural issues in the US, the states accused the federal government of rewriting laws by “administrative fiat.”
“We are willing to fight this all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told reporters in Austin.
Obama’s administration on May 13 told US public schools that students must be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice, upsetting Republicans and paving the way for fights over federal funding and legal authority.
The states’ lawsuit accused the federal government of overstepping its constitutional powers by taking actions that should be left to the US Congress or individual states. It also challenged the Obama administration’s interpretation of federal civil rights law with regard to sex.
The lawsuit said the administration “conspired to turn workplace and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process and running roughshod over commonsense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights.”
Texas was joined by Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin, plus Arizona’s Department of Education and Maine’s governor.
“It’s about parents who are upset, grandparents who are upset,” Paxton said. “They want to see that the safety of their children is taken care of.”
Transgender rights advocates argued it is transgender people who need protection, particularly male transgenders, who they said are disproportionately the victims of assaults and would be forced to use men’s bathrooms if states succeed in forcing people to use bathrooms matching their sex at birth.
“This action puts students at risk for the sake of politics,” said Alison Gill of the Trans United Fund advocacy group supporting transgender rights.
The administration’s letter to the schools said that to get federal funding under existing rules, schools must agree not to treat students or activities differently on the basis of sex.
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