Obama's Transgender Folly
May 16, 2016 21:04:57 #
From the Wall Street Journal
Obama’s Transgender ‘Guidance’
The White House starts another culture war to drive liberal turnout.
May 16, 2016 6:45 p.m. ET
The directive on bathroom facilities for transgender students, sent last Friday by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education to every public school district in the country, is not the first time the Obama Administration has swept American institutions under its administrative control.
In April 2011 Education, backed by Justice, sent every institution of higher learning what has come to be known in academia as the “Dear Colleague” letter. They don’t mean that in a friendly way. That 19-page letter described how the feds wanted every college and university to comply with the Administration’s expanding definition of Title IX requirements on sexual harassment. The letter wasn’t a law or even a regulation. It was described as “guidance.” As the nation’s public schools learned Friday, this gives “guidance” new meaning.
That meaning is that the Obama Administration intends to obliterate what is left of federalism, the principle that states retain powers not delegated to the national government. How else can one interpret Friday’s “guidance” on bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams to public grade schools and high schools, long considered a symbol of local control?
The Administration’s letter to its “colleagues” in the nation’s public schools brings to mind Little Red Riding Hood, standing innocently before the large, smiling figure in granny clothes, except for the disconcertingly big, sharp teeth. The Obama teeth emerge on page two of the Education Department’s letter: “As a condition of receiving Federal funds . . .” Yes, unless the schools “treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for the purposes of Title IX,” the school district may lose federal funds.
This is Washington calling in its side of the Faustian bargain states and cities struck years ago to get federal revenues flowing to local needs. Now the Obama regulators are showing up to tell these governments that it’s time to hand over control of your public schools as well. Some are resisting.
Texas Attorney General Dan Patrick has raised the possibility that his state may forfeit its $10 billion of annual federal funding for its schools. We hope Texas follows through and is joined by other states. There is more at stake here than sexual identity, not least the self-identity of the United States.
The Obama Administration’s preoccupation with sex, whether in sophomore year or the fourth grade, raises questions about whether the federal bureaucracies know at all what they are doing on anything resembling the merits. The 2011 letter on sexual harassment waved into existence a long list of compliance measures that schools had to institute, including novel procedures for handling accusers and the accused. This has led to serious complaints that traditional due process is disappearing on campus.
The new rules on transgender students push further into unknown territory. The Friday “Dear Colleague” letter posits that a student’s personal declaration of sexual gender, or what the letter calls “an individual’s internal sense of gender,” must be accepted without challenge.
Two years ago on these pages we published “Transgender Surgery Isn’t the Solution” by Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Paul McHugh. In one of the most widely read pieces we have published, Dr. McHugh pointed out that the idea of gender as subjective “personal truth” has no basis in science. What studies have been done on gender preference also suggest that the belief that these choices result in positive psychological outcomes isn’t proven—especially for students in grade school.
Suddenly, though, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has solved the mysteries of gender confusion—for the whole country.
We made this argument on abortion and gay marriage and will do so again to the transgender activists: Let the states decide. Texas and Arizona are opposed to coerced bathroom choice, while Oregon is already there. Oregon’s Education Department on May 5 sent its schools recommendations on pronoun preferences (legal first name versus preferred first name), locker rooms and unisex changing spaces. If this makes Oregonians happier, so be it.
This being a presidential election year, we’ll indulge some cynicism about this sudden invention of national grade-school transgender rights. The Obama White House will rub whatever raw political nerves it takes to kick up a culture clash in order to mobilize the Obama election coalition for Hillary Clinton’s flagging campaign. That Friday’s “Dear Colleague” letter on transgender students will launch years of litigation and release political furies in school districts across America is the main point.
The progressive goal is: We win, you comply.
Obama’s Transgender ‘Guidance’
The White House starts another culture war to drive liberal turnout.
May 16, 2016 6:45 p.m. ET
The directive on bathroom facilities for transgender students, sent last Friday by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education to every public school district in the country, is not the first time the Obama Administration has swept American institutions under its administrative control.
In April 2011 Education, backed by Justice, sent every institution of higher learning what has come to be known in academia as the “Dear Colleague” letter. They don’t mean that in a friendly way. That 19-page letter described how the feds wanted every college and university to comply with the Administration’s expanding definition of Title IX requirements on sexual harassment. The letter wasn’t a law or even a regulation. It was described as “guidance.” As the nation’s public schools learned Friday, this gives “guidance” new meaning.
That meaning is that the Obama Administration intends to obliterate what is left of federalism, the principle that states retain powers not delegated to the national government. How else can one interpret Friday’s “guidance” on bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams to public grade schools and high schools, long considered a symbol of local control?
The Administration’s letter to its “colleagues” in the nation’s public schools brings to mind Little Red Riding Hood, standing innocently before the large, smiling figure in granny clothes, except for the disconcertingly big, sharp teeth. The Obama teeth emerge on page two of the Education Department’s letter: “As a condition of receiving Federal funds . . .” Yes, unless the schools “treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for the purposes of Title IX,” the school district may lose federal funds.
This is Washington calling in its side of the Faustian bargain states and cities struck years ago to get federal revenues flowing to local needs. Now the Obama regulators are showing up to tell these governments that it’s time to hand over control of your public schools as well. Some are resisting.
Texas Attorney General Dan Patrick has raised the possibility that his state may forfeit its $10 billion of annual federal funding for its schools. We hope Texas follows through and is joined by other states. There is more at stake here than sexual identity, not least the self-identity of the United States.
The Obama Administration’s preoccupation with sex, whether in sophomore year or the fourth grade, raises questions about whether the federal bureaucracies know at all what they are doing on anything resembling the merits. The 2011 letter on sexual harassment waved into existence a long list of compliance measures that schools had to institute, including novel procedures for handling accusers and the accused. This has led to serious complaints that traditional due process is disappearing on campus.
The new rules on transgender students push further into unknown territory. The Friday “Dear Colleague” letter posits that a student’s personal declaration of sexual gender, or what the letter calls “an individual’s internal sense of gender,” must be accepted without challenge.
Two years ago on these pages we published “Transgender Surgery Isn’t the Solution” by Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Paul McHugh. In one of the most widely read pieces we have published, Dr. McHugh pointed out that the idea of gender as subjective “personal truth” has no basis in science. What studies have been done on gender preference also suggest that the belief that these choices result in positive psychological outcomes isn’t proven—especially for students in grade school.
Suddenly, though, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has solved the mysteries of gender confusion—for the whole country.
We made this argument on abortion and gay marriage and will do so again to the transgender activists: Let the states decide. Texas and Arizona are opposed to coerced bathroom choice, while Oregon is already there. Oregon’s Education Department on May 5 sent its schools recommendations on pronoun preferences (legal first name versus preferred first name), locker rooms and unisex changing spaces. If this makes Oregonians happier, so be it.
This being a presidential election year, we’ll indulge some cynicism about this sudden invention of national grade-school transgender rights. The Obama White House will rub whatever raw political nerves it takes to kick up a culture clash in order to mobilize the Obama election coalition for Hillary Clinton’s flagging campaign. That Friday’s “Dear Colleague” letter on transgender students will launch years of litigation and release political furies in school districts across America is the main point.
The progressive goal is: We win, you comply.
May 16, 2016 22:13:29 #
May 17, 2016 09:22:20 #
May 17, 2016 16:44:05 #
May 17, 2016 17:03:55 #
Thank you, SBW. If you are going to be sick, try to avoid the keyboard. They're difficult to clean.
--Bob
--Bob
SBW wrote:
Good job!
I think I may be sick.
I think I may be sick.
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