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WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Obama
administration’s May 13 directive on transgender access to bathrooms “that
treats ‘a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex’ is deeply disturbing,”
said the chairmen of two U.S. Catholic bishops’ committees.
“The guidance fails to
address a number of important concerns and contradicts a basic understanding of
human formation so well expressed by Pope Francis: that ‘the young need to be
helped to accept their own body as it was created,'” the two bishops said
in a statement May 16.
The statement was issued by Bishop
Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, New York, who is chairman of the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, and Archbishop
George J. Lucas of Omaha, Nebraska, who chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on
Catholic Education.
The directive, or guidance, was issued
by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education. The
departments said it applies to all public schools and colleges and universities
that received federal funding. It “summarizes a school’s Title IX
obligations regarding transgender students,” they said, and also explains
how the Education and Justice departments will “evaluate a school’s
compliance with these obligations.”
The federal Title IX statute prohibits
sex discrimination in educational programs and activities, like sports. AP
reported that the Obama administration earlier had warned schools that denying
transgender students access to the correct facilities and activities was
illegal under its interpretation of federal sex discrimination laws.
MORE TO COME
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