I am happy to report that on Wednesday, the federal Departments of Justice and Education repealed the Obama era policy mandating public schools to force students into the humiliating situation of sharing showers, restrooms and locker rooms with members of the opposite sex. This repeal is a victory for common sense and for the privacy and safety of every student in America. This generated a huge media firestorm nationally, and here at MFI, we spent much of yesterday and Wednesday fielding interview requests. (We even had to pull MFI’s President Emeritus Kris Mineau out of retirement to help out.) Now that the initial dust is beginning to settle on the policy change, here are some things you should know:
1. In Massachusetts, this policy reversal will have little immediate impact.
a. It does not change the recently passed “Bathroom Law” here in the Commonwealth, as that applies to public accommodations, not schools. We still need to campaign for the repeal of that law in November of 2018 to restore privacy and safety in public restrooms, locker rooms and changing areas in places other than schools.
b. Our schools are now back in the same place they were in 2012, after enactment of a statewide “gender identity non-discrimination” law in education. In short, despite the aggressive “guidance” from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which was a model for Obama’s federal policy, local school committees have the right to preserve the privacy and dignity of all students as they deem best. (You can listen the MA Ed. Commissioner admit as much here).
2. This issue is already at the Supreme Court.
Many schools have attempted to deal with this sensitive issue by offering a single occupancy bathroom or shower, which maintains the privacy and safety of the gender confused student and all of his or her classmates. One of the reasons this policy change was made now is that this common-sense approach has become the subject of litigation all the way to the Supreme Court. A young woman in Gloucester, VA, who believes she is a man, is suing to be let into the boys’ locker room and bathroom at her local high school. She believes using the girls’ room or a single occupancy facility is “discriminatory,” and the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in her case next month. We’ll be watching that case closely and keeping you posted.
3. The now-repealed Obama guidelines actually undermined Title IX.
When the federal transgender school bathroom mandate was issued last year, it was justified as enforcing Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination in education. According to the Obama Administration’s logic, when Congress passed the legislation in 1972, they intended to include the concept of “gender identity” in the word “sex.” Even by today’s bizarre standards, the words “sex” and “gender identity” are separate and distinct entities. It is a wonder how even federal bureaucrats can take such an argument seriously. The irony is, rather than enforcing Title IX, these transgender school policies (like the “guidance” from DESE here in MA) actually undermine the true purpose of the law, which was to provide equal opportunity for women in education. For example, the Commissioner Chester told schools in MA to let biological males play on girl’s athletic teams. This means that when a high school girl doesn’t make the varsity basketball team because a boy, who says he’s a girl, takes her spot, you have a situation where transgender activism deprives real women of their rights under the law.
4. Governor Baker was “disappointed” with the return to bathroom sanity at the national level.
Despite having pledged to veto any “bathroom bill” that came across his desk when running for office in 2010,Governor Charlie Baker said he was “disappointed with the decision that the administration made to roll that back,” and that “I obviously don’t support the message.” The real disappointment is that there appears to be no daylight left between the GOP governor and any of the Democrat state leaders on this issue.
5. This helps us raise awareness for the MA Bathroom Law Repeal.
Even with a potential Supreme Court ruling on this issue in schools on the horizon, the national dialogue about how far parents and children should be forced to go along with the gender confusion industry will continue. And although the federal government getting out of the showers and bathrooms of America’s schools may not change things dramatically here in the Commonwealth, it demonstrates that the progress of the radical LGBT sexual agenda is not “inevitable,” and that elections do indeed have consequences.
For our families,