Photo by Gage Skidmore // CC BY-SA 2.0
The White House is planning to roll back guidelines that require public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The Obama administration issued this guidance last May and received both praise and backlash.
President Donald Trump said in April that he thought transgender people should be able to use “the bathroom they feel is appropriate.” But he also told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in April that legislation on the issue should be handled by state and local governments.
“I think that local communities and states should make the decision,” he said on the show. “And I feel very strongly about that. The federal government should not be involved.”
The Washington Post obtained a draft of a letter to U.S. public schools that said , “this interpretation has given rise to significant litigation.”
“The draft says administrators, parents and students have ‘struggled to understand and apply the statements of policy’ in the Obama-era guidance,’” the Post reported.
While this change will not affect Penn directly, advocacy for transgender rights has historically been visible on campus.
Last February, the Social Planning and Events Committee invited Caitlin Jenner to speak at Irvine Auditorium. Penn’s non-cisgender community, including members of Penn Non-Cis, a group founded in 2013, was hesitant to welcome her because of her political views. In April, the Wharton School announced the construction of gender-neutral bathrooms in Huntsman Hall, in order to follow suit with other academic buildings that already had gender-neutral options.
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