The fight for trans rights returns as a wedge in Michigan’s elections

With the election approaching, some residents are receiving mailings urging them to vote for “parent-approved candidates” who will “oppose this dangerous program!”

“Passing Title IX must force all citizens of Byron Center to take a stand to protect our children,” one mailer wrote, arguing that “boys who identify as girls” will be open to girls bathrooms and others will be “forced to accept ” pronoun preferences.

“I think the whole community of people who are afraid of Title IX think that, like RuPaul, they’re going to kick down high school doors or something and demand certain things from this administration,” said Williams, a local resident who supports Nondiscrimination Protections LGBTQ.

“And if the administration doesn’t give it to them, they will file a lawsuit. Instead of thinking about trans kids who are afraid and afraid for their lives, they just want to belong. They just want to be accepted.”

Battles in the courtroom

School board elections are non-partisan, but far from apolitical. Local teacher unions support candidatesGlossy leaflets appear in residents’ mailboxes and candidates are described as extreme.

Moms for Liberty, a national parenting rights group, has endorsed multiple candidates in 2022, but was not a great success. They have now turned to the courts as plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit that blocks enforcement of the new rules in many schools and states across the country.

Last month, the Great Education Initiative, a group that claims to advocate for parents’ rights, student safety and “orthodox education,” filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging Title IX in Michigan schools.

In its complaint, the group argues that many Michigan families have deeply held religious beliefs that would be violated if someone had to use pronouns to refer to someone other than their gender assigned at birth.

The lawsuit also addressed students’ concerns about sharing bathrooms or locker rooms with people of the opposite sex.

Attorneys are asking a federal court to declare the new Title IX provision illegal and said the government cannot prohibit school districts from designating spaces such as bathrooms separated by biological sex or require teachers and other employees to use “preferred pronouns or honorifics.”

The lawsuit targets families whose students attend public schools in Forest Hills, Thornapple Kellogg, Walled Lake and Hartland.

The Great Lakes Educational Projecta state group linked to former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is funding efforts to elect school board candidates in some of these districts, according to a list of independent expenses provided by Executive Director Beth DeShone.

DeShone said parents are generally concerned about school district transparency and accountability, but Title IX concerns have added a new problem to many races. She added that districts “still have a lot of discretion to create school district-level policies that stay within the boundaries” of anti-discrimination laws.

Make school blackboards boring again

Title IX policy has also been: source of division IN other states. However, due to ongoing litigation, 26 states currently lack the ability to enforce the new federal regulations.

In Michigan, Hartland Consolidated Schools approved the minutes in July for transgender students have a meeting with officials and parents before using a bathroom other than the one consistent with their gender at birth.

In Rockford, a couple is suing Rockford Public Schools for alleged treating his daughter like a boy, using a different name and pronouns without informing parents. At Houghton Lake it is available online petition calling on school board members to resign based on the Title IX decision.