GOP-Led States Sue Biden Over LGBTQ Protections
States ask to keep sex-segregated locker rooms, showers, and other public facilities
BY TAT BELLAMY-WALKER
More than a dozen US states are
suing the Biden administration
in response to directives aimed at
protecting LGBTQ individuals in
schools and the workplace.
Attorneys general from 20 states, led by Tennessee,
alleged that the US Department of Education
and the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission overstepped their authority in following
the guidance issued by the Biden administration
after the president signed an executive
order asking federal agencies to broadly
interpret sex discrimination laws following the
Supreme Court decision last year in the Bostock
case, which stipulated that ban on sex discrimination
in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
includes sexual orientation and gender identity.
The suit was fi led in the District Court for the
Eastern District of Tennessee.
In June, the Department of Education followed
up on Biden’s order by publishing a “Notice
of Interpretation” in the Federal Register
stating that Title IX of the Education Amendments
REUTERS/ANDREW KELLY
More than a dozen states are suing the Biden administration for
enforcing LGBTQ workplace and school protections.
of 1972 applies to discrimination on the
basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
That month, the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission also rolled out a fact sheet
about LGBTQ workplace discrimination.
The states argued in the lawsuit that these decisions
POLITICS
should be left up to the states, and in doing
they continued to use offensive terms — such
as “biological sex” — that disregarded the identities
of transgender and gender non-conforming
individuals. The lawsuit pushes to keep sexsegregated
facilities, including showers, locker
rooms, bathrooms, residential facilities, school
sports teams, and even dress codes,
“The guidance purports to resolve highly controversial
and localized issues such as whether
employers and schools may maintain sexseparated
showers and locker rooms, whether
schools must allow biological males to compete
on female athletic teams, and whether individuals
may be compelled to use another person’s
preferred pronouns,” the lawsuit states. “But
the agencies have no authority to resolve those
sensitive questions, let alone to do so by executive
fi at without providing any opportunity for
public participation.”
Other states in on the lawsuit are Alabama,
Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana,
Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma,
South Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia.
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