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No To Trans Students: 11 States Oppose Transgender Ordinance; Obama Under Fire For Supporting Trans Students

By George Houston | Update Date: May 26, 2016 07:48 AM EDT

Eleven states, which includes Texas, are filing a legal proceeding against President Barack Obama and his admin following an issued ordinance that schools must permit transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms in the gender that they identify with.

According to Los Angeles Times, the suing continues the scuffle between the federal government and a certain demographic of states and their issues regarding LGBT rights.

Representatives from Texas were followed by Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin, as well as Maine Gov. Paul Lepage, Arizona's department of education and several school districts in crusade against what they deemed is a disruption of the civil rights.

The suit marks the latest skirmish in the growing divide between the federal government and some states over LGBT rights.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement as mentioned in the website which said that:

"The president continues to violate the Constitution by trying to rewrite laws as if he were a king. The states serve as the last line of defense against an unlawfully expansive federal government."

Texas Atty. Gen.Ken Paxton said he filed suit after hearing from parents in Fort Worth and a school district along the Oklahoma border opposed to the directive. School officials at the Harrold Independent School District approved a policy Monday that would block the federal directive, risking the loss of $117,000 in annual federal funding, according to the superintendent, who joined Paxton at a briefing in the capital. The district includes a hundred students, he said, none of whom are transgender.

Advocacy groups quickly condemned the lawsuit.

"This lawsuit is an attack by the Attorney General on transgender Texans, plain and simple. While ... Paxton sued the Obama administration, the real targets are vulnerable young people and adults who simply seek to live their lives free from discrimination when they go to school, work or the restroom," Rebecca L. Robertson, a policy director with the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement.  

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