Withdrawal of Transgender Protections Exposes Students to Discrimination
The Trump administration rolls back crucial civil rights guidance
By Lincoln Dow
The Progressive Teen Staff Writer
ON MAY 13, 2016, PRESIDENT OBAMA’S ADMINISTRATION distributed a letter to schools and colleges across the nation clarifying that a student’s gender identity would be considered that student’s sex under Title IX and for the purposes of enforcing federal law. In practice, this directive ensured that transgender students were able to use the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities. After less than a year, however, President Trump has reversed this protection by issuing a follow-up letter withdrawing the prior statements of policy and guidance, allowing schools to require that students use bathrooms corresponding with the biological sex assigned to them at birth. The letter does, however, reaffirm that “all schools must ensure that all students, including LGBT students, are able to learn and thrive in a safe environment.”
The issue of transgender bathroom use has been controversial since at least 2015, when Houston, Texas’s Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) was rejected by voters in a referendum where conservative lobbyists had construed the non-discrimination protections as a law that would allow men masquerading as women to enter public bathrooms and assault women. Obama’s directive was issued shortly after the passage of North Carolina’s House Bill 2, a law mandating that individuals only use bathrooms that correspond with the gender listed on their birth certificates, while also usurping and overruling non-discrimination laws passed by municipalities. Other states have also recently begun considering similar laws, such as SB6 in Texas.
Opponents to the so-called “bathroom bills” assert that they exist solely to further a transphobic ideological agenda, and they do nothing to protect public safety. Sebastian Varma, Research Coordinator at Texas Students United, a political action committee that opposes SB6, believes that “the real motivation of bathroom bills is to impose religion on others.” In an interview with Equality Texas, transgender student Lily Pando, a member of Houston’s LGBT Advisory Board, expressed concern that discriminatory legislation could prevent students like her from having “a place where little kids coming out as trans don’t have to worry about being hurt.”
Evidence supports the notion that anti-transgender legislation does not serve to protect women from assault in public bathrooms. There have been zero reported cases of transgender people attacking cisgender individuals in bathrooms, nor is there an epidemic of men pretending to be women to gain access to these facilities. Last year, the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women along with more than 250 other organizations issued a statement condemning bathroom bills and calling the claim that this type of legislation is necessary blatantly false. Conversely, though, according to the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey, 59% of transgender individuals have explicitly avoided using public bathrooms due to fear of confrontation, a percentage expected to grow should anti-transgender bathroom bills continue to be passed in state legislatures.
The action taken by President Trump’s administration to revoke protections for transgender students serves only to further stigmatize this minority. The step is especially shameful considering that a staggering 77% of K-12 students either out as or perceived as transgender have experienced mistreatment at school, according to the same national survey. Varma is concerned that “transgender students who live in states like Texas where legislators are trying to impose anti-LGBT laws will no longer have any form of federal protection.” His organization is encouraging cisgender students to contact their elected officials, and he believes that everyone has a moral obligation to help others, including transgender students.
Looking within the current administration, it’s not especially surprising that President Trump chose to reverse President Obama’s actions. Vice President Mike Pence has long been a vocal opponent of LGBT+ rights, and in September 2016, the Transgender Law Center sued Pence in partnership with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) on behalf of a transgender man unable to change his name to one that matched his gender identity due to a poorly worded law signed by Pence. Furthermore, Jeff Sessions, Trump’s Attorney General who likely ordered the Department of Justice to rescind Obama’s guidance, received a zero on LGBT issues from the Human Rights Campaign as a Senator and has been described as “anti-civil rights” by the ACLU. It’s only natural that an administration filled with such vehement anti-LGBT cabinet members would recklessly allow schools to discriminate against and cause harm to students for the sake of an ideological agenda.
