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The Obama administration just released a mandate on Friday forcing all educators to allow students use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity rather than their biological sex. The mandate has been extremely controversial, affecting all public schools and most colleges and universities that are federally funded.
NEW: Obama administration issuing mandate that all public schools allow transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 13, 2016
At the Texas State GOP convention, lawmakers and prominent Republicans are standing up to the new mandate. Just hours after new directive was sent to all public schools across the country Friday, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick offered a doomsday outlook.
“President Obama, in the dark of the night – without consulting Congress, without consulting educators, without consulting parents – decides to issue an executive order, like this superintendent, forcing transgender policies on schools and on parents who clearly don’t want it,” Patrick told NBC 5.
“This will be the beginning of the end of the public school system as we know it,” he told NBC 5.
In addition, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a tweet saying President Obama is “not a king.
I announced today that Texas is fighting this. Obama can't rewrite the Civil Rights Act. He's not a King. #tcot https://t.co/vDgfQPZXjR
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 13, 2016
“I got news for President Barack Obama,” Port Neches-Groves (Texas) Superintendent Rodney Canvass told 12News. “He ain’t my President and he can’t tell me what to do. That letter is going straight to the paper shredder. I have 5 daughters myself and I have 2,500 girls in my protection. Their moms and dads expect me to protect them. And that is what I am going to do. Now I don’t want them bullied… but there are accommodations that can be made short of this. He is destroying the very fiber of this country. He is not a leader. He is a failure.”
The result of the Obama administration’s efforts will be a long court battle between the states and the federal government. North Carolina officials have already filed a lawsuit over withholding federal funding over transgender bathrooms.
Several notable Republicans across the country are joining Texas and North Carolina in fighting the federal mandate on public schools. For example, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) issued a tweet from his personal account: “Is there any issue the Obama Administration believes can be left to state and local government?”
For now, the battle proceeds to the federal courts to decide if the Obama administration’s actions are legal. And all eyes are on North Carolina’s lawsuit.
(H/T: Washington Post)
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http://hypeline.org/texas-responds-to-obamas-transgender-bathroom-mandate/