It is not breaking news that conservatives, having lost their battle to suppress the rights of American LGB people have since focussed on transgender people.
Three quarters of the way though February we have so far seen ten states introduce legislation to make the lives of transgender people more difficult.
We're seeing proposals around the country that would make it harder for trans people to go to work, go to school, participate in public life, or even do things as simple as go to the store or go to a restaurant with their family. If laws like this pass, they can send a message to transgender people and their families that they are not as worthy as their peers and that they don't deserve to have the same rights as everyone else.
And of course the Trump Administration is behind that movement 100%.
Where students, including transgender students, are penalized or harassed for failing to conform to sex-based stereotypes, that is sex discrimination prohibited by Title IX. In the case of bathrooms, however, longstanding regulations provide that separating facilities on the basis of sex is not a form of discrimination prohibited by Title IX.
--Liz Hill, Education Department
Of the 10 states that have introduced legislation aimed at the transgender community, seven have crafted bills that are a variation of North Carolina's bathroom bill, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. Two states, Alaska and Massachusetts, are also considering ballot initiatives that could restrict the freedoms of transgender people.
In Tennessee, four bathroom-related bills were introduced, including three that require the state to provide legal defense for schools that adopt North Carolina-like restroom bans and for employees of those schools.
In South Dakota, two conservative lawmakers proposed a bill to prohibit public school teachers from even mentioning "gender identity" or "gender expression" to students in kindergarten through seventh grade. And in New Hampshire, a proposed bill would have made providing transition-related medical care to a minor, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, a form of child abuse. The bill has since died in committee.
I would say what we're seeing with transgender people is history repeating itself.
We saw the same thing 60 years ago with integrating black and white kids together. We saw it 40 years ago integrating kids with disabilities into public schools, and now we're seeing it with transgender people.
Transgender students are at risk of being deprived of basic civil liberties.
--Seth Galanter, National Center for Youth Law
But Galanter — and other advocates — contend that courts have already made that determination [that Title IX encompasses gender identity], including a ruling last May by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Whitaker vs. Kenosha Unified School District in Wisconsin.
The right struggles with the concept that "sex assigned at birth" has anything to do with "sex."
A policy that requires an individual to use a bathroom that does not conform with his or her gender identity punishes that individual for his or her gender non-conformance, which in turn violates Title IX.
--7th Circuit
The Office for Civil Rights has closed its doors to these complaints, and for a lot of people, they can't afford a lawyer, and they don't want to make a big scene in a courtroom. They just want their kid to be able to go to school.
--Galanter
And today is the deadline for Defense Secretary James Mattis to make his recommendations to Trump about the military service by transgender people, which, of course, Trump has already made up his mind about...and four federal courts have already declared that Trump's views are unconstitutional. The Pentagon is saying that the recommendation will be made this week, but probably not today.
What is the position on all this taken by right wing sources?
There is no “war on transgender people” going on. What you’re seeing is an effort to prevent a further erosion of societal norms, privacy concerns and a respect for scientific facts in the name of normalizing a mental illness. At the same time, more focus should be given to finding ways to actually help people suffering from gender dysphoria rather than enabling them in their delusions and trying to force the rest of society to go along with the trickery.
--Hot Air
Because we know that conservative political voices are all about the science.