Last week a Texas federal judge ruled federal officials are temporarily barred from enforcing students’ rights with regard to school restroom and locker room use under the federal Title IX law. The next day, the U.S. Justice Department filed a notice of appeal in the case.
On Tuesday, a federal court in Illinois joined many others in ruling that the federal Title IX sex discrimination law protects transgender students, and said that respecting transgender students when it comes to restrooms doesn’t infringe other students’ rights. The court rejected a request by an anonymous group of students and parents that it immediately halt a Chicago-area school district’s policy of permitting students to use locker rooms and restrooms that match their gender identity.
La semana pasada, la Asamblea Nacional francesa aprobó una legislación que elimina los requisitos quirúrgicos para las personas que desean cambiar su género en los documentos oficiales. Este cambio legislativo refleja un entendimiento cada vez mayor entre los legisladores de que la transición de género de cada persona es diferente y que los cambios en los marcadores de género no deben requerir información médica privada.
Earlier this month, NCTE applauded the filing of a pleito challenging the constitutionality of New York’s extremely vague “loitering for the purposes of prostitution” law. This week, NCTE was also pleased to join other transgender, LGBT, women’s, and people of color organizations in supporting another lawsuit directly challenging California’s laws criminalizing sex work on the grounds that it unconstitutionally interferes with personal and private decisions about sex.
For some time now, NCTE has been asking the federal government to update its policies for updating gender on US passports, green cards, Social Security records, and other key documents. Not long ago it was impossible for most transgender people to obtain documents that matched their identity and daily life because of policies that required proof of surgical procedures. When those policies were improved a few years back, it made a big difference for many trans people, but not everyone.
