US president-elect Joe Biden has reportedly vowed to restore vital Obama-era trans bathroom protections for students on his “first day” in the Oval Office.
Biden’s team has sought to signal that the Democrat’s leadership will be a turning point for a divided nation by issuing a 10-day blitz of executive orders and planned policy proposals.
Among them, according to Fox News, the reinstating of federal guidance protecting trans students in public schools, allowing trans teens to use bathrooms, locker rooms and other school facilities matching their gender identity.
In 2017, the Trump administration scrapped the guidance – it clashed with Title IX, a federal law that bans sex discrimination in schools, officials said at the time – with the Betsy DeVos-helmed Department of Education punishing schools that did not comply with the reinterpretation.
The Obama administration, which emerged as an ardent defender of trans rights, had only issued the sweeping directive to extend Title IX to trans folk across all public school districts the year before.
Joe Biden, unfettered by Congress, plans to rapidly unravel Trump’s anti-trans policies
Without the guidelines, states were left to interpret legislation for the next four years, quickly resulting in a muddled patchwork of rules for trans teens in the US and various courtroom battles.
But not for long. While Biden’s team has expressed weariness about whether the Equality Act can be passed within the first 100 days of the Democrat’s leadership, the team is reportedly ready to bulldoze plans to re-introduce the nationwide guidelines.
“On his first day in office, Biden will reinstate the Obama-Biden guidance revoked by the Trump-Pence administration, which will restore transgender students’ access to sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity,” Joe Biden’s website reads.
As Biden enters the White House straddled with domestic crises, many of the raft of decrees that he can issue on his own authority after the inauguration show that he is undoubtedly looking inward. Hoped by his team to show the momentum his administration aims for when it comes to LGBT+ rights.
One of Trump’s most hotly-contested moves, the banning of trans people serving in the US military, will also be one of the first Biden hopes to revoke. Although, it may take upwards of a year for the Pentagon to undo the ban.
TheAnt317 on January 20th, 2021 at 03:45 UTC »
Just a reminder that GOP officials seriously wanted to impeach Obama over these very same protections for transgender people. I'd like to say we've come a long way since then, but that's yet to be seen.
doblitons on January 20th, 2021 at 01:43 UTC »
While we're at it, can we have a rule where the stall goes all the way to the ground and ceiling and there is no door gap? I feel like most countries I visit have this one down.
MaximumEffort433 on January 19th, 2021 at 23:14 UTC »
After the past four years of big catastrophes it's really nice to read about even the small victories.
It'll be so nice to not have a President who governs in the spirits of cruelty and division for a change. I never knew how much I missed simple human empathy.
Edit: For the sake of clarity, when I say "small," I don't mean insignificant, but allowing Americans to use their preferred bathrooms isn't a thousand page health care bill, or a seven hundred page voting bill, it isn't the creation of Medicare or the passage of the Civil Rights Act, it is a simple acknowledgement that yes, we will do the right things, it is a common kindness, it doesn't break new ground but it does restore, and maybe, in some small way, rectify what we've lost. Not every bill will be a universal public option, some will be narrow, some will be precise, they won't shake the ground beneath all our feet, but it will shake the ground for some.
I apologize for calling transgender bathroom rights small, it was not intended to be derisive, the act of restoring these protections is a small one, a simple restoration of a repeal, but the results of that small act are massive.
I intended no disrespect, but intentions don't count for much, and I am sorry to those who my comment offended. You are not small, your concerns are not small, the battles you have fought and continue to fight are not small, the rights and protections you win are not small either, and I apologize for leading people to believe I thought that they were.