Claiming the law is unclear and further investigation is needed, President Trump, acting through his Departments of Education and Justice, put on hold an Obama-era executive directive that tied federal funding of public schools to the transgender bathroom issue.
Though Trump was within his rights to re-examine such an order, LGBT critics pounced. The word of the day seemed to be “bullying.”
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said he opposed the “the bullying coming from the White House” and charged Trump with “ratcheting up the fear among marginalized communities.” Lamba Legal’s Rachel Tiven, an LGBT-Left legal group, chimed in stating, “We all know that Donald Trump is a bully, but his attack on transgender children today is a new low.”
The press, too, were quick to overreact.
“President Trump Breaks a Promise on Transgendered Rights,” was the headline of a New York Times editorial. To the aging Gray Lady, Trump’s decision to investigate an issue further before imposing sweeping regulations by executive fiat was akin to opposing “abolitionists, the women’s suffrage movement, the repeal of Jim Crow laws and, most recently, same-sex marriage.”
There is no denying that Trump has done more to extend an olive branch to the LGBT community than any Republican president before him. But as Trump has worked to build a broad-based coalition devoid of identity politics, LGBT foes have used fear to thwart his efforts.
“This should be a clarifying moment for the L.G.B.T. movement,” the New York Times editorial board wrote. “Mr. Trump has offered no evidence that he is committed to advancing L.G.B.T. rights.”
The editorial, though, misses the mark. The fact is that Trump’s decision to examine the legal issues surrounding transgender students has exposed President Barack Obama’s inaction when it comes to transgender rights. It has shown the nation that at the end of the day, Obama and Democratic lawmakers had for transgender students was all talk and no action.
The center of this controversy stems from a series of 1972 amendments, one of which addressed the education rights of women. Title IX, the section of the law in question, holds that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Much to the chagrin of progressives, it is unlikely that Title IX’s definition of “sex” includes transgender students. Federal courts are not in agreement, the Supreme Court is poised to hear its very first case addressing the question, and common sense suggests otherwise.
Title IX became law to help defeat discrimination directed at women. Title IX was not about gender identity, it was about gender.
That is not to say that transgender students should be denied rights, but it is to say that Congress, not the courts or the president, should be the governmental body creating them. If Obama really wished to be an ally of the trans community, he could have used the Democratic majority he enjoyed during his first two years in office to advocate for amending Title IX to include transgender students. He chose not to.
Instead, Obama acted by executive fiat with full knowledge that a Republican president could remove such an order just as easily as he created it. Trump did just that.
Trump is following the rules of federalism, rules that hold that without action from Congress such decisions are best left to the states. This is not a broken promise, nor is it a sinister move. It is what a president does. It also could have been prevented if Democrats used their majority in Congress to pass anti-trans discrimination laws. Instead, they waited to act until they decided it was politically-convenient.
If the New York Times wants to wail over broken promises to the trans community, it should direct its grief towards Obama, the man who had a chance to clarify this issue and chose instead to take the easy way out.
Joseph Murray (@realJoeMurray) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. Previously, he was a campaign official for Pat Buchanan. He is the author of “Odd Man Out” and is administrator of the LGBTrump Facebook page.
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