The New York Times editorial page has already raged that any opposition to the wishes of transgender activists is the new Jim Crow. Now it’s imposing its wrath on conservative politicians. Ken Paxton, the Republican Attorney General of Texas, secured an injunction against the Obama administration’s warning schools it would deny federal funds to any establishment failing to bow deeply to the bathroom wishes of transgender students.
“Just days after the federal Department of Education in May issued sensible antidiscrimination guidelines for accommodating transgender students, Texas’ attorney general, Ken Paxton, set out to challenge them,” the Times editorial board complained. How dare anyone in Texas oppose the libertine agenda of Manhattan liberals.
They suggested Paxton villainously recruited a north Texas school district to adopt a policy insisting students use the bathrooms of the gender on their birth certificates, so George W. Bush-appointed federal judge Reed O'Connor would hold it up with an injunction. The Times would like you to assume a liberal lawyer has never, ever found a plaintiff in the orbit of a sympathetic judge that would agree with their policy goal.
They can't see it the other way: why would small towns in red states need to adopt a Manhattan-liberal policy on gender fluidity? Does it matter if they could find a gender-fluid activist in a 100-mile radius?
Since the Times expects every school to obey the Almighty Obama, they are outraged any school would hesitate to impose transgender Nirvana when the legal situation is still in doubt:
Judge O’Connor on Sunday issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits the Education Department from enforcing its guidelines nationwide. In a 38-page order, he barred the federal government from taking enforcement action against discriminatory policies or practices.
The ruling, which the Justice Department is expected to appeal, may lead educators around the country to question whether they need to follow the Education Department’s transgender guidelines as the new school year starts. They would be wrong not to; the rules provide a common-sense approach that makes harassment and stigmatization of transgender students less likely.
How Orwellian: it’s “common sense” to avoid assigning bathroom use by the actual excretory organs of the students. They can't see that most Americans feel it's Ken Paxton and the other state officials fighting this dictate who are standing up for common sense.
A pollster in today's culture will surely find sympathy for gender-confused children wanting to choose whichever bathroom, but what about imposing that on schools? A Quinnipac poll in May asked "Do you think public schools should be required to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that are consistent with the gender they identify with, or don't you think so?" Fifty-six percent said no, and 36 percent said yes.
The Times only favors “harassment and stigmatization” of Christian conservatives, anyone professing concern about radical Islam, and “climate deniers.” (Don't try to tell them they're "penis deniers" on this policy.) The editorial-page commissars impose the stigma of “bigotry” on anyone who disagrees with their gender revolution:
These legal assaults on equal protection for transgender Americans are based on bigotry and the specious claim that they pose a threat to the safety of others. The toll exacted on this vulnerable population is heavy and will remain so as these cases and other litigation involving transgender laws move through the courts.
So it’s “specious” to see a threat to safety when a man “identifying” as a woman can freely enter the women’s bathroom, including, say, a “trans” teacher in an elementary school. But it’s “never” specious to guess a transgender student will face a “heavy toll” without a national ban on “assigned at birth” bathroom segregation.
