The Obama administration issued a directive today requiring public schools across the nation to allow transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray praised this directive. “Schools should be a place where everyone is welcome, and one's mind is free to learn and grow,” he said in a statement. “Students should never live in fear because they happen to be transgender. I applaud President Obama for his continued leadership on transgender issues.”
Seattle public schools already follow guidelines, adopted in 2012, designed to ensure equality and safety for transgender students. They include providing access to the appropriate bathrooms and locker rooms for students, among other anti-discrimination measures.
Almost half of all Seattle's public schools have gender neutral bathrooms. The latest one will be opened by Nathan Hale High School next week, through the efforts of the school’s Gender Awareness Group and Pride Club, and a student who came up with the idea for the bathroom for his senior project, according to a statement from Seattle Schools.
Washington Initiative 1515, filed in March this year, would defy today’s directive from the Obama administration, because it calls for refusing transgender students access to the bathrooms appropriate for their gender. Heather Weiner of the local coalition Washington Won’t Discriminate, which was created to fight WA I-1515, points out that the measure would also put $1 billion dollars per year of federal funding at risk. It would also allow students to sue schools every time a transgender student used a bathroom inconsistent with their gender assigned at birth. This is according to a legal analysis of WA I-1515 done by Washington Won’t Discriminate.
Fighting WA I-1515 is so important to transgender activist and political candidate Danni Askini that she announced today she is dropping out of the race for the 43rd District in the Washington State House of Representatives.
"I have come to the conclusion that I cannot run the campaign for state representative that this district and my community deserve while also fighting attacks both nationally and across our state on transgender rights," she told The Stranger.
Askini would have been the first openly transgender person elected to the Washington State House of Representatives. In addition to transgender rights, her campaign was also focused on homelessness, and affordability of housing and higher education.
