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On 13 May 2016, the web site Young Conservatives published an article reporting that President Obama had decreed that all American schools must make all bathrooms transgender or face lawsuits and potentially lose federal funding: The ensuing media (and social media) flurries ended up obfuscating a number of details of the issue, with most versions holding that President Obama decreed that all schools must immediately implement such policies, lest they be dragged into court and lose funding. As usual, however, the truth was much less outrageous than the rumors. On 13 May 2016, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division issued a joint Dear Colleague letter [PDF] that included significant guidance to schools about civil rights protections for transgender students under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The letter detailed federal guidelines for transgender students and bathroom use and provided definitions for the terms Gender identity, Sex assigned at birth, Transgender, and Gender transition: Schools were informed that failure to supply legally entitled students with the necessary accommodations could constitute a violation of the obligations of federally funded schools: The letter also contained a portion about restroom and locker room use. That guidance stated that under Title IX, schools were prohibited from forcing students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity. That directive further stated transgender students could not be segregated from others in restrooms and locker rooms: Critics contended that school policies about bathroom access should be decided by states and local school boards, not the feds, and that the guidelines effectively create new federal regulations that may violate the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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