LOCAL DECISIONS BEST ON BATHROOMS
We believe Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen took the right stance in a memo she sent to school directors this week that leaves decisions about the use of bathrooms to local districts.
That’s where it always was until former President Barack Obama issued an executive order last year that allowed transgender students in public schools to use the bathroom and locker room of their choice.
Studies place the number of transgender adults between the ages of 18 and 64 anywhere from 0.1 to 0.5 percent of the population. The number of transgender students below the age of 18 is likely to be much lower than that.
A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked the directive from being implemented last August, and new United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said he will not enforce the Obama administration policy that threatened to withhold federal money from the schools if students are not allowed to use the bathroom of their choice.
“We are confident local school districts are in the best position to appropriately and responsibly respect the rights and concerns of transgender students and others,” McQueen said in her memo.
She took a similar position last May when Obama issued his executive order.
That position allows students, parents, school administrators and/or school district officials to discuss individual cases on their merits. Is the student legitimately transgender or is there another issue going on? Is there a faculty bathroom the transgender student could use? Are there enough transgender students to warrant a separate bathroom? What is the sensitivity to having students of another sex in the same bathroom?
A conversation on the front end is much preferable to any trouble that might have arisen had the Obama administration directives that allowed the carte blanch use been enforced.
A bill introduced in the state legislature by Sen. Mae Beavers, R-Lebanon, and Rep. Mark Pody, R-Mt. Juliet, would prevent those conversations. It would direct students at public schools in Tennessee to use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender assigned on their birth certificate.
Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said Thursday he believes, given Sessions’ statement and McQueen’s memo, the Beavers-Pody bill is unnecessary. We agree, but we don’t believe the issue will go away, despite the tiny minority of people affected. Reason, after all, goes out the window when there are politics to be played.