Transgender rights in US schools being pushed by Obama administration

Chiqui Guyjoco Tuesday, May 10, 2016

The Obama administration is reportedly planning on adding pressure on schools to comply with the Title IX stipulations especially on the issue of transgender student rights in federally funded schools. This comes in a head-on collision with North Carolina's bathroom bill, House Bill 2, which says people are to use bathrooms according to their biological sex and not their gender identity.

Gender-neutral bathroom in University of California, Irvine, California Sep. 30, 2014 | Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

According to Politico, their unnamed sources have confirmed that the current administration plans to see through the full implementation of Title IX, taking in its interpretation of the law that transgender discrimination can also mean illegal sex discrimination. In 2014, Obama had issued a guidance highlighting this particular part of the statute, which opponents referred to as a federal overreach.

The Justice Department has already warned North Carolina about its House Bill 2, explaining that it is in violation of other federal civil rights laws, namely Title IX and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and the Violence against Women Act. The Obama administration has given North Carolina until Monday to respond.

"It's important to recognize that there's a lagging legal framework in the face of rapidly changing social norms," National School Boards Association general counsel Francisco NegrÃ³n told Politico. "Our understanding of gender identity is changing, and the law hasn't kept up."

A legal battle may be expected to ensue especially as the bill touches on other legal issues and rights. "Certainly that's the case here with Title IX," NegrÃ³n added. "The lack of specificity about gender identity in the law creates all kinds of room for folks on both sides of this issue to make arguments about how the law should be taken."

The state of North Carolina may lose an estimated $2 million state-funded education budget depending on how this case goes.

Advocates are hopeful that just as with the same sex marriage issue, more states would pass on ruling regarding the bathroom bill so that it can be taken to the Supreme Court.