Comment on Illinois group of parents and students sues over transgender access

A group of Illinois students and parents sued the Obama administration Wednesday over its stance on transgender students’ access to school bathrooms and locker rooms, arguing that the U.S. Education Department is illegally forcing local authorities to let children use facilities that correspond to their gender identity. The complaint alleges that the federal government has violated students’ fundamental right to privacy and parents’ constitutional right to instill moral standards and values in their children. The lawsuit represents the first legal challenge to the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX, a federal anti-discrimination law, as providing transgender students with the right to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity instead of their biological sex. The plaintiffs include female students who go to a high school that, under pressure from the Education Department, allowed a transgender girl to change in a girls locker room, according to the lawsuit, which concerns Palatine Township High School District 211. The complaint says that the plaintiffs are afraid of seeing a “male in a state of undress” and “are afraid of being seen by, and being forced to share intimate spaces with, a male while they are in various states of undress.” “Every day these girls go to school, they experience embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety, fear, apprehension, stress, degradation and loss of dignity because they will have to use the locker room and restroom with a biological male,” the complaint says. The lawsuit was filed in U.S.