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President Retreats on Transgender Bathroom Fight, Sticks with Obama Protections for Federal LGBTQ Workers

In his nomination acceptance speech last July (back before we jumped the continuum rails into this strange alternate reality where black is white and ignorance is strength), Donald Trump promised to “protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of the hateful, foreign ideology, believe me.”

Trump said nothing about protecting LGBTQ Americans from the oppression of a hateful domestic ideology. But don’t believe me; believe the Trump Department of Justice’s decision to retreat from the Obama Administration’s guidance on transgender students’ bathroom rights:

In a filing Friday with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal government asked to withdraw a motion filed last year that asked a judge to scale back a temporary injunction blocking Obama administration guidance on the issue.

The Department of Justice’s filing, which came a day after Jeff Sessions was sworn in as Trump’s attorney general, said the parties were “currently considering how best to proceed in this appeal.”

…Sarah Warbelow, legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, said they were “incredibly disappointed” by the filing on Friday.

“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,” she said [Jamie Stengle, “US Withdraws Stay Request in Transgender Bathroom Case,” Salon, 2017.02.11].

Just a couple weeks ago, the President said he will continue his predecessor’s policy protecting federal employees from anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Now if he could just continue his predecessor’s policy of speaking factually and governing consistently.