Trump's anti-transgender bathroom policy doesn't do much

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GoldenRod
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Shawn

Trump's anti-transgender bathroom policy doesn't do much

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-transgender-students-bathrooms_us_58af1591e4b0780bac2725d4?hq71u2bjs85vr6bt9&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

WASHINGTON ? President Donald Trump outraged LGBTQ rights supporters on Wednesday when his administration eliminated Obama-era federal guidance to schools aimed at protecting transgender students from bullying and discrimination.

But it’s important to note that Trump’s action, while it may seem mean-spirited, didn’t change anything legally. The same federal and state laws that protect transgender people against discrimination are still in place, and Trump’s move has no effect on them.

The guidance that President Barack Obama’s Departments of Justice and Education issued to school districts in 2016 was just that: guidance. It wasn’t legally binding. It directed schools to accommodate transgender kids’ desire to use school bathrooms and locker rooms that reflect their gender identity.

...

“The guidance ... didn’t create law,” Vanita Gupta, the DOJ’s civil rights chief under Obama, told NPR on Thursday. “The guidance simply enunciated the Justice Department’s interpretation of Title IX and what federal civil rights law requires of schools. It was based on a decade of case law. It was based on proven best practices that, frankly, a lot of schools around the country were already implementing at the time that we issued the guidance.”

...
Trump got rid of that guidance, but he can’t get rid of Title IX. And Obama’s interpretation of that law ? that a student’s gender identity should be viewed the same as the student’s sex ? is the opinion of a federal appeals court and more than a dozen district courts that have tackled related issues over the last 15 years.

The only difference now, without that guidance, is that transgender students would have to go through more of a hassle when suing a school for discrimination, because they’ll have one less tool to assert the right to use the restroom of their choice.

“They have access to the courts, even without the guidance,” explained Sarah Trumble, deputy director of social policy at Third Way, a centrist think tank. “It’s just a heavier burden for them to vindicate those rights without the guidance.”

It’s also worth noting that Obama’s guidance has been frozen since August, when a judge in Texas blocked it nationwide.
...

Basically, this is what I get out of this, and other articles related to this.

1. Obama just made a federal guideline, not a law or EO.
2. It was held up in court, so it wasn't even active.
3. The actual laws are made and supported at the State/Local level

So.... all he did was make a big public showing to make his base happy, and piss off and scare the transgender community, and those that support them. He didn't make any actual change in any law or policy.

He's doing a lot of that. Big, showy signings of pieces of paper that make his supports salivate, and scare or anger a lot of people. Much of it isn't actionable (or even understandable), so it's basically like shooting blanks into a crowd.

Posted 2/23/17 2:48 PM