Florida leaders abstain from bathroom battle

TALLAHASSEE — Where transgender individuals go to the bathroom has become the latest battle in America’s social-issue wars, but so far top Republican leaders in Florida have not joined the fray.

“The issue is really about protecting the privacy, safety and security of children,” said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, an Orlando-based group that promotes socially conservative causes.

Stemberger is pressuring Gov. Rick Scott to join a lawsuit filed this week by 11 states opposing a federal directive sent to school districts nationwide. The directive says that federal law requires schools to allow transgender students to use the

bathrooms and locker rooms of the gender with which they identify.

“When it comes to social issues, [Scott] is not a leader, and he needs to be a leader,” Stemberger said.

Democrats and LGBT activist groups have applauded the Obama administration’s directive and decried attempts to criminalize bathroom use.

“To force [a transgender girl] to use the boys’ restroom would be to subject her to abuse, bullying and violence,” said Carlos Guillermo Smith, a lobbyist for Equality Florida, an LGBT rights group.

After last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriages, social conservatives are determined to fight the federal directive. They say they see the social fabric of the country at stake.

“This whole fiction of closing our eyes and pretending that men and women are the same ... is just madness,” Stemberger said.

Although the transgender fight usually falls along traditional partisan lines, in Florida the reaction to the White House directive has been mixed.

Neither Scott nor Attorney General Pam Bondi has moved to join the lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX, a federal law banning gender discrimination in schools.

Obama issued the directive after North Carolina and the Justice Department sued each other over a North Carolina law requiring transgender people to use the bathroom associated with the gender on their birth certificate.

Scott told reporters this week that the Obama letter, which tied federal funds to compliance with the directive, amounted to “blackmail.” He said he’s reviewing the case.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, has a transgender son and has supported transgender equality issues.

Orange County School Board Chairman Bill Sublette, a former Republican state lawmaker, has said his school district would comply with the federal guidance. Sublette, however, did not say that he supported the rule, only that it was a federal issue, not a local one.

But in deeply Republican areas, some officials are looking to fight the directive. Marion County School Board members enacted a policy defying it, which brought a federal complaint filed by the ACLU.

State Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, sent a letter to Bondi asking for a legal opinion on the Obama guidance letter, suggesting it violated states’ rights. Adkins is running for the Nassau County Schools superintendent post.

Bondi’s office sent a two sentence reply saying it can’t provide a formal legal opinion on federal law, even though Bondi has in the past joined other states in lawsuits involving federal issues such as gay marriage, Obamacare and environmental regulations.

Neither Scott’s nor Bondi’s office would answer questions about what makes the transgender issue different from those instances.

Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political science professor, said Florida’s tourism interests and other big businesses could be leery of the backlash from LGBT activists that ensued in North Carolina. Plus, Scott has other issues to deal with such as reorganizing economic development agencies and boosting college affordability.

“Sometimes with these kinds of high-profile issues you ... let somebody else bear the legal costs and wait until the dust settles,” MacManus said.

Last year, a transgender bathroom bill failed to get through the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature.

The measure died in a committee chaired by Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker.

But now, as Evers is locked in a GOP primary for a congressional seat in the Panhandle, he is asking Scott to ensure schools don’t lose federal funding as a result of “common sense” policies.