A federal judge has ruled against “guidance” from Washington, D.C. that dictates special treatment for people who call themselves transgender, siding with “red” states trying to maintain a world where males are males and females are females.
The order issued on July 22 allows 20 states to continue enforcing laws that keep men out of women’s restrooms and locker rooms and vice-versa, make sure that female sports teams remain all-female, and prevent people from being forced to use inaccurate pronouns to accommodate the gender-confused.
That is, the laws are about protecting the privacy, free-speech and other rights of non-transgender people, which are endangered by empowering one small group to deny a biological reality.
The order allows such laws to remain in effect without retaliation from the Biden administration, which could include loss of federal funds for schools. LGBTQ advocates have already criticized the judge as “legislating from the bench,” according to coverage by pro-transgender, pro-Biden CNN.
Tennessee and 19 other Republican-led states brought a lawsuit in August of 2021 arguing that “guidance” issued earlier in the year by the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an unlawful overreach of executive authority.
The agencies claim that transgender people are covered under Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination at federally funded schools, and Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
Judge Charles E. Atchley Jr., a Trump appointee, responded thus in his preliminary injunction: “As demonstrated above, the harm alleged by plaintiff States is already occurring – their sovereign power to enforce their own legal code is hampered by the issuance of defendants’ guidance and they face substantial pressure to change their state laws as a result.
“As it currently stands, plaintiffs must choose between the threat of legal consequences – enforcement action, civil penalties, and the withholding of federal funding – or altering their state laws to ensure compliance with the guidance and avoid such adverse action,” the order stated.
