Obama Administration Issues Guidance on Transgender Bathroom Use in Schools

Students must be treated in a way that matches their gender identity, guidance says.

The Obama administration Friday told educators around the country they should allow transgender students to use the bathroom and locker facilities of their chosen gender, saying federal law bars discrimination against such students.

The move instantly broadens an emotional debate on the issue, which escalated earlier this week when the Justice Department and the state of North Carolina sued each other over a new law in that state requiring people to use public bathrooms according to their gender at birth.

The legal guidance issued Friday by the federal government could open the door to more lawsuits in other jurisdictions that don’t agree with the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law.

”There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex,” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said.

Education Secretary John King said no student “should ever have to go through the experience of feeling unwelcome at school or on a college campus.’’

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bars discrimination in education based on sex, and the Obama administration has said that includes transgender people. That view is challenged by North Carolina officials and social conservatives.

More From The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):