The nation’s transgender bathroom brawl intensified Friday after the Obama administration directed public schools to let students use the restrooms and locker rooms of their choice.
Reaction was fierce, with one Texas school superintendent promising to send the document to the nearest paper shredder.
“I have five daughters myself and I have 2,500 girls in my protection,” said Rodney Cavness, of Port Nechess. “Their moms and dads expect me to protect them.”
North Carolina’s Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who sued the Justice Department over the issue, said the feds don’t have “the authority to be the final arbiter.”
Long Island GOP Congressman Peter King asked why the federal government was composing lavatory legalese in the first place.
“The federal government shouldn’t be telling local schools how to run their bathrooms,” King told The Post. “This should be decided at a local level.”
It was not clear if the rule would also cover showers. The federal agencies involved did not immediately return phone calls.
The advisory is not legally binding, but it implies the threat of withholding federal aid to punish noncompliance.
While opponents of transgender bathrooms are often accused of bigotry, King said parents have a right to be apprehensive.
“I have questions about it,” he said. “And I think parents have concerns, legitimate concerns that should be discussed at a local level.”
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said on the “Today’’ show that the issue should not be dictated from Washington.
In their Friday advisory, the US Departments of Justice and Education said that gender identity is now paramount — and that public schools better get used to it.“It’s become such a big situation,” he said. “Everybody has to be protected and I feel strongly about that but you’re talking about a tiny, tiny group of population.”
“Gender identity refers to an individual’s internal sense of gender,” the document said. “A person’s gender identity may be different from or the same as the person’s sex assigned at birth.”
The letter pushed schools to embrace porcelain progressivism.
“When a school provides sex-segregated activities and facilities, transgender students must be allowed to participate in such activities and access such facilities consistent with their gender identity,” the document said.
“A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so,” according to the letter.
The feds argue that current civil rights law protects transgender rights.
“This guidance gives administrators, teachers and parents the tools they need to protect transgender students from peer harassment and to identify and address unjust school policies,” said US Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
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