Obama's guidance for trans people and school bathrooms is not "new and surprising"

In the reaction to the Obama administration's guidance for transgender people and school bathrooms, there has been a very consistent misconception perpetuated by journalists, pundits, and even some legal experts: that the guidance is based on some new, unheard of legal principle.The idea behind the guidance is that existing federal civil rights laws that ban sex discrimination, including Title IX (for education), also protect trans people, because anti-trans discrimination is rooted in expectations of what people of certain sexes should be like. The administration's guidance tells public schools about this standard, asking them to not discriminate against trans people, including in bathrooms and locker rooms.

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Some members of the press and pundits apparently find this to be a fringe interpretation of federal law. In a recent New Yorker piece, Harvard law professor Jeannie Suk wrote, "These interpretations of federal anti-discrimination law are new and surprising."
But as Chase Strangio, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union points out in Slate, it is simply not true that this legal principle is "new and surprising":

As Jillian Weiss, an employment lawyer and law professor, explained recently, "So many federal courts have specifically held that federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination also include sex discrimination against transgender people that such protections should be considered a given." These federal courts span from Maine to California and include the federal courts of appeals for the 1st, 6th, 9th, and 11th circuits. Additionally, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit also recently held that the Education Department’s interpretation of Title IX with respect to transgender individuals and restrooms use consistent with gender identity is reasonable and valid.
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In fact, it's not even just some of the courts that have affirmed this legal principle. The Obama administration has explicitly backed it for years.

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Read more @: Obama's guidance for transgender people and school bathrooms is not "new and surprising"

More credence to the argument that this whole "trans people using bathrooms controversy" is all about distraction. Its being used as a wedge issue to distract use from actual political debates that matter.

Re: Obama's guidance for trans people and school bathrooms is not "new and surprising

TheDemSocialist said:

Read more @: Obama's guidance for transgender people and school bathrooms is not "new and surprising"

More credence to the argument that this whole "trans people using bathrooms controversy" is all about distraction. Its being used as a wedge issue to distract use from actual political debates that matter. [/FONT][/COLOR]

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Of course it's distraction, distraction is one of the major tools of the Republocrats .

Re: Obama's guidance for trans people and school bathrooms is not "new and surprising

Can you type that a little smaller and grayer?

Re: Obama's guidance for trans people and school bathrooms is not "new and surprising

TheDemSocialist said:

Read more @: Obama's guidance for transgender people and school bathrooms is not "new and surprising"

More credence to the argument that this whole "trans people using bathrooms controversy" is all about distraction. Its being used as a wedge issue to distract use from actual political debates that matter. [/FONT][/COLOR]

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I think it's a distraction - specifically - from the Clinton/Trump coup unfolding in this election season.

Re: Obama's guidance for trans people and school bathrooms is not "new and surprising

The problem is how Obama went about this. What happened was Obama issued policy for schools to follow using the threat of Federal funding for those that did not comply. So in that sense, Obama created the distraction on the issue all on his own. It ends up a little bit of a gray area on the enforcement of Civil Rights law through "policy" or taking the States to court over the actual law.

No matter how we may individually feel about this subject Obama may have made error in trying to enforce the initiative this way, and it caused more complication for the subject overall. For the States that are filing suit against this, Obama may be ultimately responsible for how that came about.