Feds plan changes in transgender guidelines

Administration looks to roll back federal gender identity protections

The Trump administration plans to roll back protections for transgender students and is preparing changes to federal guidance that required the nation’s public schools to allow students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that matched their gender identities.

A White House spokesman said Tuesday that the Education and Justice departments would soon issue new guidance on the matter.

He hinted that it would be different from the Obama administration’s position, which was that denying transgender students the right to use the bathroom of their choice violates federal prohibitions against sex discrimination.

“I think that all you have to do is look at what the president’s view has been for a long time, that this is not something that the federal government should be involved in, this is a states’ rights issue,” spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters at a daily media briefing Tuesday afternoon.

Should the Trump administration reverse the existing transgender guidance, it would be a significant setback for the gay rights movement, which made enormous gains under President Barack Obama, winning the right to marry and gaining the ability to serve openly in the military. It suggests that President Trump, who had signaled during the campaign and in the early days of his presidency that he supports gay and transgender rights, will hew closer to the GOP party line.

The decision would not have an immediate impact on the nation’s public school students because a federal judge had already put a hold on the Obamaera directive issued in May. That directive told schools that students must be permitted to use facilities that corresponded with their gender identity rather than the sex listed on their birth certificates.

But it would instantly affect several legal cases, including that of Gavin Grimm, a transgender Virginia teen who sued his school board for barring him from using the boys’ bathroom. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Grimm’s case next month.

A lower court ruled in favor of Grimm based on the Obama administration’s position on transgender student bathroom use. As a result, the change would at least partially undermine Grimm’s case.

Gay rights groups condemned the move preemptively.