• Gender-Specific Bathrooms Do Not Violate Federal Law, Say Governors and AGs

    Mark Hodges - December 08, 2015


    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Governors Paul LePage of Maine and Pat McCrory of North Carolina, along with the attorneys general of South Carolina, Arizona, Mississippi, and West Virginia, have filed a “friend of the court” brief against letting boys use girls’ toilets, showers, locker rooms, and private facilities.

    As LifeSiteNews reported, a lawsuit was brought by the ACLU on behalf of a teenage girl, Caitlyn Hope Grimm, who, with a name change to “Gavin” and the declaration “I’m a boy,” demands the use of the men’s room at school.

    At issue is whether local school districts throughout the U.S. will be forced to allow girls to simultaneously use the boys’ bathroom, showers, and locker room with boys, and vice versa.

    The Obama administration has filed an opposing brief with the court, saying that Title IX federal tax funding requires schools to permit students to use the facilities of their choice, not their genes.

    President Obama’s team argues that to limit a biological girl to using only the girls’ restroom and showers constitutes sexual discrimination. The states’ brief argues against Obama’s claim of sexual discrimination by noting a 1996 case where the Supreme Court struck down the exclusion of women from the Virginia Military Academy. “The Supreme Court preserved room for treating the sexes differently where warranted by biology,” the brief pointed out.

    Curtis Johnson, press secretary for the West Virginia attorney general, told LifeSiteNews, “The federal government’s opposition to the lower court’s ruling is both inaccurate and unnecessary – yet another example of this administration’s overreach into issues properly decided at the state and local level.”

    Johnson explained that the states have a vested interest in the outcome of this lawsuit. “Any decision rendered from this appeal directly impacts West Virginia,” he told LifeSiteNews.

    South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson filed the brief on behalf of the six state leaders in the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The brief reasons, “This Court should hesitate long before becoming the first court ever, anywhere in the United States, to force schools to admit adolescent biological females into boys’ bathrooms and locker rooms, and adolescent biological males into girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms.”

    The state leaders say any such major societal change must be enacted by the people, not court-imposed. “If such a social revolution is to be wrought, it must come from the democratically elected legislature, not the courts or the executive.”

    Most significantly, the brief notes that the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX incorrectly broadens the definition of a person’s biological sex to his or her self-chosen gender identity.

    “Sex is a biological reality, unlike subjective or cultural constructions of gender or gender identity,” the brief points out.

    While Maine Governor Paul LePage joined the brief, Maine Attorney General Janet T. Mills made it very clear to LifeSiteNews that she is not a party to the brief. “The State of Maine is not a party to this lawsuit, nor has this Office signed on to any Amicus Brief on behalf of the State of Maine,” she said.

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    Reprinted with permission from LifeSiteNews.

  • About the author: Mark Hodges

    Mark Hodges writes for LifeSiteNews.com, a non-profit Internet service dedicated to issues of culture, life, and family.