According to the U.S. Constitution. under the duties of the U.S. president, there is nothing giving the president authorization to approve the letter of May 13 to the school and university systems concerning the rights of “transgender” and those who claim “gender identity” to use restrooms, showers and dressing rooms of their choice.

Since this is the case, the president would be responsible for a “baseless and blatant overreach” in “an attempt to unilaterally rewrite long-established federal civil rights in a manner that is wholly inconsistent with the intent of congress and disregards decades of statutory interpretation by the courts,” according to the North Carolina lawsuit against the Department of Justice.

In defense of the Department of Education and the DOJ letter, they use the following laws: Title VII and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The problem for them is that these laws say that one cannot discriminate against “sex” (not “transgender” or “gender identity”) they would like to say, “as far as they are concerned, sex includes “gender identity.” In law, you cannot change the meaning of a word to suit your purpose.

On the website www.dummies.com, “sex,” “gender” and “gender identity” are defined. On sex and gender, people tend to use the two terms interchangeably, but they refer to different characteristics about an individual. Sex refers to biological makeup, including the reproductive organs as well as chromosomes. Gender refers to the set of traits and characteristics that, over time, have come to be assumed of (some might say imposed upon) one’s assigned sex.

Gender identity refers to an individual’s own psychological sense of self — who you know yourself to be. There are two types of gender: cisgender or transgender. Cisgender is anyone whose gender identity is harmoniously aligned with the sex they were assigned at birth (which accounts for the vast majority of the population). Transgender is when one’s gender identity is “across from” one’s assigned sex (approximately 0.3 percent of the U.S. population).

The May 13 letter has replaced the word “sex” (as seen in the laws) with the word “transgender” as if the laws state it in its contents. Not abiding by the letter’s guideline should not be a reason to legally take our federal funds.

The main objection to these guidelines is not the transgender population, but that men, women and children of the same sex deserve their rights to privacy in public restrooms, dressing rooms, shower, locker rooms and dorms. Under the May 13 guidelines, anyone can feel they have a right to enter public facilities under the guise of gender identity or transgender. If this is allowed, where are our privacy rights?

All U.S. schools and universities need to consider the civil rights of all students in your charge.

Phyllis Marshall
Cornelia

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