WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to roll back protections for transgender students, reversing federal guidance that required the nation’s public schools to allow children to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that matched their gender identities.
In a letter to the nation’s schools, administration officials plan to say they are withdrawing guidance issued by the Obama administration that found that denying transgender students the right to use the bathroom of their choice violates federal prohibitions against sex discrimination, according to a draft of the letter obtained by the Washington Post.
“This interpretation has given rise to significant litigation,’’ states the two-page draft, which indicates that the Education and Justice departments plan to issue it jointly. The draft says administrators, parents, and students have “struggled to understand and apply the statements of policy’’ in the Obama-era guidance.
As a result, the departments “have decided to withdraw and rescind the above-referenced guidance documents in order to further consider the legal issues involved.’’ The letter makes clear that schools must protect all students and that the withdrawal of the guidance “does not diminish the protections from bullying and harassment that are available to all students. Schools must ensure that transgender students, like all students, are able to learn in a safe environment.’’
A final version of the letter is slated to be issued Wednesday, according to a Republican operative with knowledge of the conversations within the Trump administration on the issue. The administration is expected to release the letter despite objections from Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who did not want to rescind the guidance, the operative said.
The reversal would represent a significant setback for the gay rights movement, which made enormous gains under President Barack Obama. It suggests that Trump, who had signaled during the campaign and in the early days of his presidency that he supports gay and transgender rights, will hew closer to the GOP party line.
The decision would not have an immediate impact on the nation’s public school students because a federal judge had already put a hold on the Obama-era directive.
But it would instantly affect several legal cases, including that of Gavin Grimm, a transgender Virginia teen who sued his school board for barring him from using the boys’ bathroom. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Grimm’s case next month.
Gay rights groups, which expected the Trump administration to change course from the earlier transgender guidance, condemned the move preemptively.
“Such clear action directed at children would be a brazen and shameless attack on hundreds of thousands of young Americans who must already defend themselves against schoolyard bullies, but are ill-equipped to fight bullies on the floors of their state legislatures and in the White House,’’ Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in a statement Tuesday.
The Obama administration’s guidance was based on the position that requiring students to use a restroom that clashes with their gender identity is a violation of Title IX, the federal law that bars sex discrimination. Transgender students and their parents cheered Obama’s move to expand the protections, but it drew legal challenges from those who believe it was a federal intrusion into local affairs and a violation of social norms.
‘‘The important thing to understand is that it doesn’t change the underlying law, but it’s an invitation to harm the most vulnerable kids in school,’’ Tiven said.
