U. S. District Judge temporarily blocks Obama's transgender bathroom policy

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of  Texas has temporarily blocked President Obama’s directive that boys who think they are really girls be allowed to use girls restrooms in public schools across the country. Texas and 12 other states including Tennessee had challenged the Obama administration’s unilateral move, calling it unconstitutional. Here is how it was reported in Politico:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, immediately cheered the decision.
“This president is attempting to rewrite the laws enacted by the elected representatives of the people, and is threating to take away federal funding from schools to force them to conform,” Paxton said. “That cannot be allowed to continue, which is why we took action to protect states and school districts.”

The federal government told U.S. public schools in May that transgender students must be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity. That announcement came days after the Justice Department sued North Carolina over a state law that requires people to use public bathrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificate, which U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch had likened to policies of racial segregation. Republicans have argued such laws are commonsense privacy safeguards.

Schools were not explicitly told to comply or lose federal funds. But the Obama administration also didn’t rule out that possibility in court documents filed in July, saying recipients of federal education dollars “are clearly on notice” that antidiscrimination polices must be followed. Texas alone gets roughly $10 billion in federal education funds.

Read the judge's order.