Texas Attorney General Wants Transgender Bathroom Directive Stalled Before School Year

Texas’ attorney general has asked a federal judge to stall the implementation of an Obama Administration directive that would instruct public schools to allow transgender students to use whichever bathroom matches their gender identity.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joins a dozen other states—all of which are a part of a coalition led by Paxton against the directive—in asking the directive be stalled before the school year begins in August, the Dallas Morning News reports. The states had already filed a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration in May to demand that the directive be permanently blocked.

That month, the Obama Administration wrote every public school district in the country to warn them against not allowing students to use whichever bathroom they preferred. It implicitly threatened noncompliant schools with lawsuits or the withdrawal of federal funding.

The case requesting the directive be stalled was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas on Wednesday, according to the Morning News. If approved, it would affect public schools across the country. It follows a non-binding opinion that Paxton issued last week, which said the new guidelines for transgender students would violate state law.

The states involved in the lawsuit are Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

[Dallas Morning News]