Random Politics & Religion #00

I thought the republicans had the market cornered on religious wahoos....

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has ordered a taxpayer-funded school district in the suburbs of Chicago to allow a male transgender student who dresses like a girl and otherwise identifies as female to use the girls locker room and shower on school premises.

The feds delivered the edict against Township High School District 211 in Palatine, Ill. on Monday, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The Department of Education has given the school district one month to let the student use the girls locker room. If the district does not capitulate, it risks losing federal funding.

The Department of Education’s civil rights division made its Title IX ruling after a two-year investigation using a “preponderance of evidence” standard.

President Barack Obama’s Department of Education — which manifestly is not vested with judicial powers — has taken to applying Title IX, a comprehensive 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to transgender cases.

The unidentified high school student at the center of the ruling currently is listed as a girl in school files, uses girls’ restrooms and plays on girls’ sports teams.

That’s not enough, though. The student wants to be treated like a female in every respect by the school district that enrolls more than 12,000 students.

Showering in a different place is “blatant discrimination,” John Knight, director of the LGBT and AIDS Project at ACLU of Illinois, told the Tribune.

The ACLU of Illinois is representing the student.

“It’s one thing to say to all the girls, ‘You can choose if you want some extra privacy,’ but it’s another thing to say, ‘You, and you alone, must use them.’ That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she’s not accepted and the district does not see her as girl,” Knight also told the Chicago newspaper.

On Monday, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights agreed.

“Student A has not only received an unequal opportunity to benefit from the District’s educational program, but has also experienced an ongoing sense of isolation and ostracism throughout her high school enrollment at the school,” the letter from the Office for Civil Rights proclaims.

The Tribune has made the full text of the Department of Education’s Title IX letter to school officials available here.

School officials had worked out a plan under which the student could use a separate locker room and shower facility so that girls using the primary girls’ locker room and shower would not feel uncomfortable. The goal was to balance rights — to accommodate the student while, at the same time, “to protect the privacy rights of all students when changing clothes or showering before or after physical education and after-school activities,” according to a recent school district press release obtained by the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago newspaper.

“We are very hopeful that we are going to be able to work to find a solution before this gets to the matter of funding,” Township district superintendent Daniel Cates told the Herald in the days leading up to Monday’s proclamation. “If we were to implement OCR’s unilateral mandate of unconditional access, we believe it sacrifices both student privacy and overrides the will of our local board of education.”

In a recent statement, Cates stressed the rights of every other female in the school district.

“The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one’s gender is not the same as one’s anatomy,” Cates explained. “Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms — where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities — for a reason.”

In a statement obtained by the Tribune, the transgender student said he is elated with the ruling from Washington.

“This decision makes me extremely happy — because of what it means for me, personally, and for countless others,” he said. “The district’s policy stigmatized me, often making me feel like I was not a ‘normal person.'”

Catherine Lhamon, the Obama-appointed assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education, also issued a statement about the male transgender student.

“Unfortunately, Township High School District 211 is not following the law because the district continues to deny a female student the right to use the girls’ locker room,” Lhamon said

"Tolerant" left to NBC, 'Censor Trump by keeping him off of SNL.'

True intellectuals on the left.

"Tolerant" left to NBC, 'Censor Trump by keeping him off of SNL.'

"Tolerant" left to NBC, 'Censor Trump by keeping him off of SNL.'

But he's a liar, so why should we care about what he has to say.

Personally, I never used the showers at school. No one did, and I assumed they were just for the sports teams after school. There was not enough time to use them in the school day.

For someone who is as big of a *** as I am. I have never wanted to use a public shower.

One school I went to required students to shower after gym class. There's no reason for there to be group showers.

I always had gym last period so I could just go home and shower. Public shows are notorious for things like foot fungus.

You should always use slippers in public showers <.<

I always had gym last period so I could just go home and shower. Public shows are notorious for things like foot fungus.

Yeah, or you can just shower at home like I did.

Beach, swimming pool, gym...there are many instances where you might need to shower. And not always it's possible to go home to do it(not for everyone)...you're still dumb if you don't use slippers on a public floor.

Uh, that's not censorship, it's capitalism.

Why do you hate the free market?

Capitalism is where a person doesn't buy and/or use the product.

Er, that's still capitalism. And in no way is this "censorship". How awkward!

no, that's a boycott.

So, a group of people demanding that a person's viewpoint be silenced due to their political affiliation and political viewpoints is not considered censorship to you?

Or is it considered censorship when you feel it to be convenient to you?

Also, please describe how somebody preventing another person from voicing their viewpoints an economic event.

One school I went to required students to shower after gym class. There's no reason for there to be group showers.

Still an economic event. Capitalism involves both the positive and negative actions for economic purposes. This protest is not an economic event, it's a political event.