Texas Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction on Federal Bathroom Directive

Gender neutral bathroom

A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked a directive allowing students to use bathrooms and locker rooms as per their gender identity. The ruling was pronounced before schools are scheduled to open for the next academic year.

Texas and 11 other states had sued the Department of Education and Department of Justice over the directive which extends the Title IX law to interpret restrictions over bathroom use in accordance with birth genders as sexual discrimination.

US District Judge Reed O'Connor said that the federal education law in Title IX was not ambiguous about the definition of sex determined at birth.

He wrote in his order that interpreting Title IX to interpret the definition of sex to include gender identity was outside the enforcement purview of federal government.

The ruling did not focus on transgender rights but on the decision of federal employees to enforce the directive without following rules permitting a dialogue over the issue.

"This case presents the difficult issue of balancing the protection of students' rights and that of personal privacy ... while ensuring that no student is unnecessarily marginalized while attending school," the judge wrote.

The court order said: "Defendants are enjoined from enforcing the Guidelines against Plaintiffs and their respective schools, school boards, and other public, educationally-based institutions. Further, while this injunction remains in place, Defendants are enjoined from initiating, continuing, or concluding any investigation based on Defendant's interpretation that the definition of sex includes gender identity in Title IX's prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex."

The plaintiffs said that the directive came with a salient threat of withdrawal of federal funds if any of the school districts did not comply with the regulation. They maintained that the rule impinged on student privacy laws as well.

The ruling will apply nationwide, but states can opt out of the injunction if they so decide, while lawsuits by transgender students will be heard in the courts as usual.

"Those states who do not want to be covered by this injunction can easily avoid doing so by state law," he said.