From the Justice Department’s advisory to public schools:
Housing and Overnight Accommodations. Title IX allows a school to provide separate housing on the basis of sex. But a school must allow transgender students to access housing consistent with their gender identity and may not require transgender students to stay in single-occupancy accommodations or to disclose personal information when not required of other students. Nothing in Title IX prohibits a school from honoring a student’s voluntary request for single occupancy accommodations if it so chooses.
My alma mater is a public boarding school for gifted and talented high school students. There are several self-declared transgenders studying there now, including a female-to-male genderfluid girl (meaning she is a male or female, depending on her whim). According to the new federal directive, not only is the school prohibited from telling these students’ parents about their children’s behavior without the children’s permission, but if one of these minors decides that he or she wants to live in the opposite sex’s dorm, the school has no choice but to permit it.
A biological female living in a dorm full of underage teenage boys. What could possibly go wrong?
The school houses students two to a room. As we know from recent courtroom experience, if the school tries to accommodate her by housing her in a private room in the boys’ dorm, she could sue on the grounds that she’s being treated separate-but-equal, and would likely win.
This is a terrible position to put a school like that in. I can’t imagine that there are too many public schools that will face this kind of dilemma. This school, by the way, is here in Louisiana, a culturally conservative state. You can be certain that after this, fair or not, many Louisiana parents will be reluctant to send their minor children to school there. If a male student decides that he wants to live in the girls’ dorm, all he has to do is to declare himself female, and thanks to the Obama administration, the school’s hands are tied.
After this, that school is likely to have a hell of a time recruiting students in this state. Thanks, Obama.