WASHINGTON — The 11 states suing the Obama administration’s decree on trans­gender students in public school bathrooms have to hope that the courts think the president exceeded­ his authority. Because their other argu­ments not only lack legal foundation, they go against empirical evidence and common sense, experts said.

The lawsuit lists several causes of action, including­ claims that the decree goes beyond the constitutional powers of the executive branch, unconstitutionally allows only transgender students to choose their bathroom, and violates the privacy rights of non-transgender students.

The executive overreach argument is the only one that has ever been a winner in court. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently weighing whether President Obama went out of bounds with his immigration order shielding 5 million ille­gal immigrants from deportation.

“Just as they did with issues like immigration, the Obama administration has simply decided to exclude Congress entirely,” said state Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, one of the states, all but one with Republican governors, that brought the suit yesterday.

“It’s overly coercive,” said Matt Sharp, legal­ counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending North Carolina’s trans­gender bathroom law, noting that school districts can lose their federal funding for defying the directive.

But Paxton, who incorrectly stated that the guidance “open(s) up all school bathrooms to people of both sexes,” went further, saying the decree threatens students’ and employees’ safety­, privacy and equal protection of law because­ non-transgender kids don’t get to pick their bathrooms.

“It is premised on the idea that transgender women are actually men. That is wrong,” said James Esseks of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and HIV Project. “Transgender women are women. Transgender men are men.”

Which gets to the underlying supposition of all arguments against letting individuals use rest­rooms or other facilities appropriate to their current gender: that transgender people are sexual predators or somehow otherwise dangerous.

The argument asserts that their mere presence violates the privacy rights of others. It supposes that members of the public, particularly children, have reason to fear them.

Quite the opposite is true, Esseks says. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, transgender people report higher levels of bullying, harassment and violence in schools. “They are the most vulnerable people in our society,” he said.