In Iowa, law already protects transgender students

An Obama administration directive Friday that school districts could lose federal funds if they don't allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms aligning with their gender identity brought some rebukes from around the county, but shrugs from several educators and students in Eastern Iowa.

'It's about time,' said City High School senior McKinley BarbouRoske, 18.

Both the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City school districts' non-discrimination policies already line up with the guidelines outlined in a letter issued by the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Justice, district officials said.

'The letter is a good thing for all school districts across the country,' said Kingsley Botchway, director of equity for the Iowa City school district. 'But I'm very happy to be working in a school district where this is an issue we've already addressed.'

The school directive, coupled with a separate federal directive Friday on health care for transgender people, highlight Obama's efforts to make transgender issues a civil rights cause.

Both directives come as the administration and North Carolina are locked in a legal battle over a state law requiring people there to use only a public bathroom that corresponds with the sex marked on their birth certificate.

The new federal guidelines for schools paint transgender rights as a Title IX issue, saying districts could lose federal funds if they treat transgender students — whose gender identity is different from their sex assigned at birth — any differently than other students of the same gender identity.

Attorneys general in Texas and Oklahoma have threatened to sue, and conservative critics say the directive is a violation of states' rights.

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who in the past had expressed support for transgender people using the bathroom of their choice, said the kind of regulations announced Friday would be better left the states.

'I don't think it's a federal issue where the federal government gets involved. And I see what's happening. It's become such a big situation,' he said on NBC's 'Today' show.

In Iowa, state law already protects transgender students and prohibits any educational institution from discriminating on the basis of gender identity.

'It is federal law that we're looking at currently, and with our non-discrimination policies and procedures, we follow the state guidelines,' Cedar Rapids Deputy Superintendent Mary Ellen Maske said. 'So this does take a step further, now that it's federal.'

Maske said the Cedar Rapids district's policies line up well with the federal guidelines, saying issues related to a transgender student's bathroom or locker room choice are dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

'Sometimes we just have to put the politics aside,' Maske said. 'Our job in the school district is to support our kids, support the students and take all of their needs into consideration.'

In Iowa City, Botchway said gender identity has been protected under the district's non-discrimination policy for some time, and he hasn't seen much opposition to the practice of accommodating students who identify as transgender.

For students like McKinley, the guidelines seem long overdue. She's the president of her high school's gay/straight alliance, GLOW, and was a co-plaintiff with her parents in Varnum v. Brien, the Iowa Supreme Court Case that established same-sex marriage in the state.

'The whole thing has been made into a much bigger thing than it should have been,' she said. 'It's as simple as people identifying as male using the male restroom, and people identifying as female using the female restroom.'

'It's not in any way, shape or form OK that anyone has to face that harassment just because their genetics are a little bit different from what they feel like they should be.'

The Washington Post contributed to this report.