Trump administration to issue new guidelines on trans student bathroom access
The Trump administration is working on new guidelines on the use of bathrooms in schools by trans students.
While Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer has not given out details of the new directives, LGBT+ activists across the US have called for the President to maintain guidelines from the Obama administration.
Obama issued guidelines stating that trans students should be allowed to use the restroom which fits with their gender identity.
“I think that all you have to do is look at what the president’s view has been for a long time, that this is not something the federal government should be involved in, this is a states’ rights issue,” Spicer said.
Trump has in the past said that he thinks states should be able to decide their own policies on trans bathroom issues.
Back in 2016, the President said he agreed with a widely condemned law in North Carolina, HB2, which bars trans people from using gender-appropriate public bathrooms.
The Obama guidelines were slammed by conservatives at the time, who claimed among other things, that allowing trans kids to use gender-appropriate bathrooms would put other students in danger.
But those in favour of the guidelines have said that Title IX, a federal law, should be clarified to include gender identity as a protected characteristic as well as sexual orientation.
Donald Trump will roll back Barack Obama’s orders on LGBT rights, his Vice President Mike Pence said in December.
Trump’s newly-confirmed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos reportedly plans to rescind discrimination protections for transgender students.
Officials in the Trump administration went ahead to scrap anti-discrimination protections just days after the President intervened, as he was branded a “hypocrite” by LGBT rights campaigners.
Last week the President said he would not repeal Obama’s executive protections for LGBT people, with Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner said to have convinced the Presidentto ignore his strategists on the issue.
