President Barack Obama’s Department of Education has ordered a suburban Chicago school to allow a boy who claims to be a girl into the girls’ locker room, whether or not the girls or their parents like it.
The federal decision about who gets to use each toilet and shower in a distant Chicago school came after a male student sued a high school in Palatine, a northwestern suburb of Chicago. The suit claims that the student’s “civil rights” were violated by a school rule which provided the two sexes their own restrooms and locker rooms.
The school offered this singular student a special area for changing clothes and using the restroom. But the boy and his lawyer instead demanded that school officials submit to his claim that he is female and so can use the girls’ facilities.
Nationwide, only about roughly 1 in 3,000 Americans have changed their names from one sex to the other sex.
On Monday, the Obama administration showed it wants to decide the issues for all schools in the nation, from Maine to New Mexico, from Deadhorse in Alaska to Pensacola in Florida.
“All students deserve the opportunity to participate equally in school programs and activities–this is a basic civil right,” Education Department Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon insisted in a statement. “Unfortunately, Township High School District 211 is not following the law because the district continues to deny a female student the right to use the girls’ locker room.”
Obama’s agency has given the school thirty days to knuckle under to the federal mandate or risk losing the federal funding it gets from Washington.
Under pressure from activists who oppose the idea of two discrete sexes, school officials across the country have been individually creating their own policies on how to handle young people who claim to be “transgender.”
Instead of two sexes, the activists — including many gay and feminist activists — favor a government-imposed idea of “gender fluidity.” This demand would use government power to forcefully suppress the long-standing, popular, public recognition of evolved biological, social and cultural distinctions between boys and girls, and between men and women.
Conservatives says sexual differences are deeply rooted in biology and reasonable preferences, and say the gender-fluid demand would deliberately damage long-standing practices in child-rearing, education, sports, and in adult relations, and self-government by local communities.
By demanding that the Chicago area school allow the male student to use the girls facilities, Obama’s progressive officials at the Department of Education are using their financial and courtroom power to impose the policy they favor, despite the rarity of “transgender ” claims.
Just this year schools in Ohio, Missouri, and other states have recently been struck with the controversial issue.
While deciding in favor of a transgender boy and allowing him to use the girls’ facilities despite complaints by parents, a school in Ohio cited fear of constant lawsuits for its decision to allow the student to use the girls’ locker room.
But some schools are looking to go another way. Last year, for instance, a women’s college refused to allow a man posing as a woman to run for student council.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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