Alabama AG Luther Strange wants court to stop Obama transgender bathroom order before school begins

Alabama and a dozen other states are seeking an immediate stop to the Barack Obama Administration’s recent transgender bathrooms directive — that schools must allow students access to restrooms and locker rooms of their gender “identity,” rather than their sex, or lose federal funding — asking a federal judge to stall its implementation before the school year begins next month.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange announced Tuesday Alabama joined in filing a preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court against the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, for promoting a federal directive that local schools must allow transgender access to campus restrooms or face a loss of federal funds.

In May, the Obama Administration issued the formal guidance in the form an eight-page joint U.S. Justice Department–U.S Department of Education directive telling every public school in the nation they must allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their gender identity and not their biological sex. The directive read:

“A school may provide separate facilities on the basis of sex, but must allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity. 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.”

“On May 25, I joined a legal challenge to the Obama administration’s restroom mandate,” said AG Strange.  “With schools nearing the beginning of a new year, time is short and school administrators need clarity about the impact of this controversial new order on their school systems. Alabama and the other states are asking the federal court to grant a preliminary injunction of the transgender restroom edict until the court has reached a decision on its legality.”

Tuesday’s request, if approved, would affect not only Alabama and the 12 other states who filed, but all public schools across the country.

Strange continued, “I believe Alabama and the other states will ultimately prevail in federal court against the new restroom order because federal law allows schools to have separate facilities based on the ‘sex’ of the individual, not their gender preference.”

Alabama joined Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin in filing the motion for a preliminary injunction Tuesday.