States Seek Transgender Sanity

In an effort to stall President Obama’s recent transgender bathroom policy that threatens to strip schools of federal funding if they don’t allow students to choose their restroom based on gender identity, 13 states are taking legal action.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit on behalf of the states in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Wednesday, asking the court to block the administration from enforcing the policy until the lawsuit is concluded.

“Schools are facing the potential loss of funding for simply exercising the authority to implement the policies that best protect their students,”

“Schools are facing the potential loss of funding for simply exercising the authority to implement the policies that best protect their students,” Paxton said in a statement.

The attempt to win an injunction is part of a larger lawsuit brought in May to permanently derail the mandate, issued by the U.S. Department of Education, that public schools allow students to choose whichever restroom correlates to their gender identity.

The lawsuit was originally brought by twelve states: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. Texas later joined the lawsuit and led the fight Wednesday for an injunction. Texas has experienced some recent success with stopping overreach from the Obama administration in the courts — the state was successfully granted an injunction halting the president’s executive amnesty order last year. That injunction was maintained by inaction at the Supreme Court in June.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey spelled out his concern with the constitutional vandalism of strong-arming schools on a local level.

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“I take very seriously this attack on our schools’ independence and funding,” Morrisey said in a statement. “It is unconscionable for the Federal Government to hold our students hostage in this way to the whims of federal bureaucrats … I cannot — and will not — ignore this threat to our students.”

West Virginia Republican Chairman Conrad Lucas praised with Morrisey, and joined him in warning of the risks that could ensue if the policy stands.

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“Obama and his liberal friends are doing their worst to endanger our kids in their safe spaces at schools and athletic events — with this bizarre transgendered bathroom push. Obama’s initiative endangers children,” Lucas said. “We, as states and counties and school districts,have the right to decide how we will conduct our business, and will not be told by Washington, D.C., what our community values must be.”

If the injunction is granted, the transgender case could become yet another crucial issue headed before the Supreme Court once Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement is confirmed.