Transgender policies are unchanged in Md.
Local jurisdictions continue their bathroom policies, unaffected by federal action
The Trump administration’s decision this week to lift federal guidelines allowing transgender students to use school bathrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identities might not have much impact locally.
Officials from most Central Maryland school systems say they do not anticipate any changes to policy after the Obama-era guideline was lifted Wednesday.
“We are making no changes to our guidelines,” said Bob Mosier, a spokesman for Anne Arundel County’s public schools.
He said that the Trump administration letter provided no new guidance and that the school system follows guidelines issued by the Maryland State Department of Education before the federal directive was issued last May. The state guideline allows students to use restrooms or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity, and many school local schools districts followed that policy.
The decision by the White House now gives states and individual school districts the right to interpret existing federal anti-discrimination law.
Bill Reinhard, a spokesman for the state education department, said Thursday that officials have not made any determinations based on the administration’s action.
Baltimore County public schools spokesman Mychael Dickerson said that school system continues to follow state guidelines, but “even prior to that time, our school administrators were working directly with students and their families to accommodate students’ needs on a case-by-case” basis.
Similarly, officials with Baltimore City, Harford County, and the University System of Maryland, which includes 12 higher-education institutions across the state, said they also do not anticipate any changes to current policies.
The local response seems to be the outcome the Trump administration expected and wanted.
“This is an issue best solved at the state and local level,” Betsy DeVos, the U.S. secretary of education, said this week. “Schools, communities and families can find — and in many cases have found — solutions that protect all students.”
In Carroll County, officials say they are waiting for a ruling in a Supreme Court case on the issue. A transgender teen in Virginia sued his school system to allow him access to the boys’ bathroom. Arguments are scheduled to be heard before the high court in March.
Steven Johnson, the assistant superintendent of instruction for Carroll County schools, said school system attorneys have advised the school system to “maintain the status quo” until a ruling is made.
Transgender students in Carroll County schools can use bathrooms and locker rooms of their birth gender, or they can use a separate bathroom, Johnson said.
Meanwhile, bills to curtail transgender people’s access to public restrooms are pending in about a dozen states, but even in conservative bastions such as Texas and Arkansas, they may be doomed by high-powered opposition.
Bills that would limit transgender bathroom access are foundering even though nearly all have surfaced in Republican-controlled legislatures. In none of the states with pending bills does passage seem assured; there has been vigorous opposition from business groups and a notable lack of support from several GOP governors.
The chief reason, according to transgender-rights leaders, is the backlash that hit North Carolina after its legislature approved a bill in March 2016 requiring transgender people to use public restrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates. Several major sports organizations shifted events away from North Carolina, and businesses such as PayPal decided not to expand in the state. In November, Republican Pat McCrory, who signed and defended the bill, became the only incumbent governor to lose in the general election.
“We don't need that in Arkansas,” that state's GOP governor, Asa Hutchinson, said earlier this month. “If there's a North Carolina-type bill, then I want the Legislature not to pass it.”
North Carolina's experience has also been evoked in Texas, where a “bathroom bill” known as Senate Bill 6 is being championed by GOP Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who founded the Legislature's tea party caucus. Business groups and LGBT-rights supporters have warned that passage of the North Carolina-style bill could cost Texas many millions of dollars, as well as the opportunity to host future pro sports championships.
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