A federal judge in Tennessee has temporarily blocked the Biden administration from implementing directives that would have allowed transgender students and workers to use bathrooms and locker rooms and play for sports teams that match their gender identity.
Judge Charles Atchley Jr. of the Eastern District of Tennessee ruled in favor of 20 Republican state attorneys general who filed a lawsuit last August arguing that federal directives would make it impossible for states to enforce their own rules on transgender athletes participating in pro sports. girls or access to bathrooms.
Atchley issued the temporary restraining order until the matter is resolved in court.
“As shown above, the harm claimed by plaintiff states is already occurring—their sovereign power to enforce their own legal code is impeded by the issuance of defendants’ guidelines, and they face significant pressure to change their state laws in as a result,” Atchley, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote in the decision released Friday.
Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor called Atchley’s decision “a major victory for women’s sports and for the privacy and safety of girls and women in school bathrooms and locker rooms.”
Federal Judge Charles Atchley Jr. temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s directive to accommodate transgender students using bathrooms. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson Federal Judge Charles Atchley Jr. argued that Republican attorneys general are being pressured to “change their state laws” to follow the Biden administration’s directive. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
GOP attorneys general argued in their lawsuit that the Biden administration’s directives improperly expanded a 2020 Supreme Court decision expanding anti-discrimination protections for transgender workers.
Although the justices in Bostock v. Clayton County ruled that employers cannot fire workers because of their gender identity or sexuality, they did not consider whether the ruling applied to gender-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms.
The Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued the directives last year after the Supreme Court ruled that under a provision called Title VII, transgender, gay and lesbian people are protected from discrimination in the workplace.
In its guidance, the Department of Education interpreted the ruling as discriminating based on a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity would violate Title IX, the 1972 federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education.
“The Department’s interpretation stems from the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, issued one year ago this week, in which the Supreme Court recognized that it is impossible to discriminate against a person based on their sexual orientation or gender identity without to discriminate against that person on the basis of sex,” the department said.
The attorneys general are from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia.
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