OCR has arrived at this peculiar decision using circular reasoning. They begin with the Inclusion Clause in the Book of Equality. "All students deserve the opportunity to participate equally in school programs and activities." This is taken as gospel and nobody is allowed to dispute this, even though it is illogical and requires a strained interpretation of Title IX.
Title IX states "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."
A dressing room is not an educational program, and while dressing is an activity, it is not one that depends on federal largesse.
OCR's other logical error is using a distorted version of the verb, "to be." "The district, they said, "continues to deny a female student the right to use the girls’ locker room." OCR found it convenient to substitute the truthful "male student who identifies as a female" for the demonstrably false "female."
It is somewhat understandable why OCR would want to protect the transgender student. Although there has never been an incident of a transgender student being attacked in a dressing room (if there were, it would have been wall-to-wall covered), it could happen. Actually, transgender people are a much greater danger to themselves, because they are basically people walking around with an undiagnosed mental illness.
Even if protecting that one student from the threat of violence is a noble goal, what about protecting the sixty or seventy girls in the locker room from unwanted looks? Couldn't one of them sue for creating a hostile educational environment? Oh, right, the circular argument above foreclosed that. A girl can't face sexual discrimination from a girl.
There should be school activities that are exclusionary. Otherwise, women's sports teams could be forced to open to participants who "identify" as female. A clever school might load up their women's soccer team with boys, and win championship after championship. The only reason this hasn't been tried is that nobody gives a fuck about women's sports.
The fact that nobody gives a fuck about women's sports is the whole reason Title IX came down. Colleges were offering athletic scholarships to male students, but female students didn't merit them as much. Maybe a worthwhile experiment would be to to sue any school that denies an athletic scholarship to a transgender person, or denies a spot on their preferred team after they accept the scholarship.
It's not just sports teams that practice discrimination. Should the atheist after-school club deny admission to an evangelical? Should the campus #BlackLivesMatter club be able to exclude whites? What about forcing the local GLAD chapter to accept a Mormon missionary?
Bottom line is if OCR wants the school to make a reasonable accommodation, then OCR needs to cough up enough money to build a unisex dressing room.
Oh, right, they can't.
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