U.S. Rep. Martha Roby, R-Montgomery, said Friday the people of the Obama administration "have lost their minds" over the guidance issued to states saying that transgender public school students should be able to choose with bathroom to use.

"They have lost their minds. This is a great example of an issue in which we need a lot less government and a lot more common sense. These are children. Eighth grade boys don't need government-guaranteed access to the sixth grade girls' bathroom, or vice versa," Roby said in a statement. "Schools can figure out how to accommodate students' unique needs on an individual basis without federal bureaucrats' tortuous redefinition of sex. Moreover, threatening to sue schools or withhold funding if they don't conform to this backward application of law is an abuse of power that won't stand. I look forward to hearings that will expose how ridiculous and unworkable such a policy is."

The guidance, issued Thursday by the Department of Justice and the Department of Education, suggests that schools could lose federal funding if they don't adhere to it, according to CNN.

U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Hoover, said the guidance was another example of executive overreach by the Obama administration. He urged Alabama schools to reject the policy.

"The guidance purports to create an environment that is 'supportive' and 'safe.' It will do neither," Palmer said in a statement. "In fact, it will create an environment with much more potential for sexual misconduct and harm. No reasonable person could conclude that forcing school children, particularly adolescents, to share bathrooms and showers with individuals of the opposite sex, no matter how they might self-identify, is a smart idea. The safety implications for sexual predation have been well documented, but this administration apparently has no concern about the sexual predators."

Transgender rights have been thrust into the national spotlight over a North Carolina law that makes it a crime for transgender individuals to use a restroom that doesn't correspond with their biological gender. The law is viewed as discriminatory by LGBT activists.

Roby and Palmer were the first members of Alabama's congressional delegation to publicly react to the move by the Obama administration. Earlier in the day, State Rep. Will Ainsworth, R-Guntersville, said he plans to introduce legislation preventing the guidance from taking effect in Alabama.

"Like many of you, I am outraged and disgusted by the Obama administration's threat to withdraw federal funding from states that do not allow so-called 'transgender' students to use the bathroom, locker room, and shower facilities of their choosing," Ainsworth said. "Alabama will not succumb to Obama's extremist extortion. ... Gender is not a choice. It is a fact that is determined by biology and by God, not by how masculine or feminine you feel when you wake up in the morning. Dressing like a pirate doesn't make you a pirate, dressing like an astronaut doesn't make you an astronaut, and dressing like the opposite sex doesn't make you a man or a woman."