TEXAS: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Orders Public Schools To Defy Feds On Transgender Student Guidelines

From the Associated Press:

The fight over bathroom rights for transgender students escalated in Texas on Tuesday as the state’s lieutenant governor urged schools to defy the Obama administration while parents of transgender children accused Republican leaders of stoking intolerance and making their kids targets for bullying.

Few states are as publicly and persistently pushing back on transgender rights as Texas. Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pledged at a press conference to support for schools that refuse to let transgender students use the bathrooms of their choice. Texas is leading an 11-state lawsuit that accuses the federal government of turning schools into “laboratories for a massive social experiment.”

“Transgender students deserve the rights of anyone else. It does not mean they get to use the girls’ room if they’re a boy,” Patrick said.

Parents of transgender students warned outside the Texas Capitol on Tuesday that the constant repudiation is taking a dangerous toll. They included the mother of a 5-year-old transgender girl who held a picture of her child smiling in a pink patterned dress and shoulder-length hair. She cried while asking why the state wants to force her daughter into the boys’ room at school.