A U.S. District Court judge today issued a preliminary injunction against the federal government’s guidance to public school districts regarding their legal responsibility to allow transgender students to use the same restrooms as other students. The ruling came in the multi-state lawsuit, Texas v. United States.
Five leading national civil and LGBT rights organizations urged the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to reject an effort to block the Obama administration’s interpretations of several federal laws pending trial in Texas v. United States, including federal guidance advising public school districts across the country that the federal Departments of Justice and Education believe that transgender students should be allowed to use restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
“This is well-deserved recognition for Omar and his exceptional work securing and preserving rights for transgender students, same-sex couples and people living with HIV.”
In the summer of 2012, I was 17 years old and had just graduated from high school. My friends spent their last months of high school submitting college applications and receiving acceptance letters, and would soon be moving out of their family homes and into their freshman dorm rooms. It was all incredibly exciting.
We were in federal court in Winston-Salem, NC, yesterday morning to argue our motion for a preliminary injunction in our lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s anti-LGBT law, House Bill 2, Carcaño v. McCrory.
“All I want is to use the appropriate restroom, in peace, just like everyone else. It’s humiliating that this law separates me from my peers and treats me like a second-class citizen,” said Joaquín Carcaño, 28, a UNC-Chapel Hill employee and transgender man who is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.
In a surprise decision, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals today affirmed a trial court judgment dismissing Lambda Legal client Kimberly Hively’s discrimination complaint against her former employer, Ivy Tech Community College, which denied Hively full-time employment and promotions because she is a lesbian.