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WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - President Trump is signaling he won't force public schools to adopt Obama's transgender bathroom guidance mandating students be allowed in opposite sex bathrooms and locker rooms.

The White House filed a motion Friday Feb. 10 with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals effectively keeping in place a nationwide injunction that blocked Obama's transgender bathroom "guidance" until the Supreme Court addresses the issue in March. A challenge to the injunction late last year by the Obama administration had been scheduled to go before the court this week but was canceled by Friday's filing.

Sarah Warbelow, legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, expressed disappointment over the filing. "Our concern is that it's a very clear signal that at a minimum the Department of Justice — and possibly more broadly throughout the Trump administration — will not protect transgender students."

Dropping the issue Friday left standing a nationwide injunction penned last August by U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Austin, Texas, in the wake of a 13 states sueing the federal government over its attempt to push the transgender bathroom mandate on their public schools. The injunction blocking the guidance in all states was in place until the case could be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Reed's injunction temporarily suspended the threat made last May by the Obama administration of withholding federal funding from schools across the country that refused to comply with the White House interpretation of Title IX and its nondiscrimination regulations. The Obama administration had been interpreting the word "sex" as used in Title IX to mean so-called "gender identity" instead of its previously understood meaning of biological sex. It's a very clear signal. In his ruling last August Judge O'Connor affirmed the meaning of the word "sex" in Title IX regulation is "not ambiguous." He further stated, "It cannot be disputed that the plain meaning of the term sex as used ... following passage of Title IX meant the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth." Judge O'Connor made his ruling just two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a similar injunction in blocking a lower court from ordering a Virginia public school to allow students access to opposite sex bathrooms and locker rooms. The Supreme Court's injunction will also remain in effect until the Virginia school's transgender bathroom case is heard by the High Court in March. After the filing Friday Mara Keisling — executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality — commented, "By refusing to fulfill their responsibilities to protect all the nation's students and defend this life-saving guidance, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration have attacked the dignity and safety of transgender students." In the legal brief filed Friday the Justice Department remarked, "The parties are currently considering how best to proceed in this appeal."

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