What?? Well that’s a new one…I mean I guess the argument is how do you go about deciphering which bathroom a person of transgender should use? President Obama tells the public school systems to allow them to choose for themselves.
The Obama Administration released a statement this morning asking public schools to let transgender students decide which bathroom they would like to use, after controversy over North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” – which prohibits people from using bathrooms that don’t match the sex on their birth certificates.
Obama expressed the directive in a letter obtained by the NY Times:
“A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so. As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”
John B. King Jr., secretary of the Department of Education, said in a statement:
“No student should ever have to go through the experience of feeling unwelcome at school or on a college campus. We must ensure that our young people know that whoever they are or wherever they come from, they have the opportunity to get a great education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment, and violence.”
The news comes less than two weeks after a letter was sent to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory by Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, asking North Carolina’s government to “not comply with or implement HB2.”
Oh man…this is about to get interesting.
