President
Trump rescinded transgender bathroom rights given by President Obama causing
outcry among the LGBTQ community and other activists. Not only was his move
unpopular to many, but it was also a little out of character since Trump had
not been hard on same-sex issues in the past. This drew criticism from the New
York Times when the authors of “Trump Rescinds Rules on Bathrooms for Transgender
Students” wrote his stance shift was a sign of “bowing to pressure from
the religious right and contradicting his own personal views.” Instead of
arguing that Trump thinks unreasonably about LGBTQ rights, journalists are
saying he is being influenced by voters, his party or other sources. This
notion attacks the concept of President Trump being independent in thought,
which was the trait he used to highlight being different from other
politicians. Other journalists, from National
Review for example, focus more on the protesters like in Jim Geraghty’s
article, “What ‘Uproar’ Over Repealing the Obama Transgender Bathroom Directive.”
Geraghty takes the attention away from the president’s motivations but argues
that the backlash from the decision are insignificant. He reasons that the
majority of the country voted for Trump anyway and that the blue districts do
not have to give up transgender protections on the local level. The author
notes that Obama’s original bill involved “government forcing,” but now it
would be left up to more local institutions to protect transgender people. This
article concludes that since nobody who supported the directive, voted for
Trump, that the ruling is just. The article only has one mention of Title IX
though. Even though Obama specified that sex-based discrimination included
transgender people, Trump’s administration simply undid all of the Obama
administrations alterations to leave the same vague description as before Obama
took office. Even without that specification, many argue that Title IX still
requires transgender protections just because it is a way to discriminate
someone’s gender. Some states have gone on to clarify that the rights apply to
Transgender people and some states have even added protections. Jeannie Gersen
of the
New Yorker predicted issues with Title IX about a year ago claiming that
some schools were not equipped to face all of today’s social problems. The
author criticized bigoted people for slowing the process of creating an
inclusive environment. She says how there were not many actual steps taken in
any direction and equates it more to “legal theater.” She concludes the article
stating, “The sense that the Education Department has not looked down the road
to consider the conflict is only confirmed by its penchant for announcing bold
and controversial rules in letters, rather than through lawful processes.”
There has not been enough time actually solving the issues with Title IX which
made it a vulnerable concept for a new president to change. This has been
described as many as another political distraction to other issues by some
journalists too. Along with the debates come coverage of protests, but there is
very little that has actually happened legally in terms of changes to Title IX
or other laws.
