Ted Cruz has been extremely vocal about President Obama’s actions regarding transgender restroom and facilities policy. During the primary campaign, he pounced on rival Donald Trump when the mogul suggested he didn’t have a problem with allowing people to use bathrooms according to the gender with which they identify.
Friday, after the administration issued a directive instructing all public schools to accommodate transgender students when it comes to their choice of restroom and other facilities, possibly at the cost of federal funds, Cruz hit back hard.
In a statement issued Friday, Cruz slammed Obama’s directive as another example of “executive fiat”:
“America has woken up to yet another example of President Barack Obama doing through executive fiat what he cannot get done through our democratic process…There is a reason that we give girls access to their own changing rooms: It is for their privacy, safety, and security.”
Cruz noted his past legal tangles with dangerous men as background for his disagreement:
“Having spent many years in law enforcement, I’ve handled far too many cases of child molesters, of pedophiles, of people who abused little kids. The threats of predators are serious, and we should not facilitate allowing grown men or boys to be in bathrooms with little girls.”
Then, he went for the jugular, calling the directive a “threat” and saying it’s going to hurt those whom the administration claims it wants to help:
“While the administration’s decree has no force of law in our constitutional system of government, the ‘implicit threat,’ as the New York Times reported, is that public school districts who fail to toe the line will face lawsuits and the loss of federal aid.
This is both legally improper and harmful to the most vulnerable among us—for what the Times failed to report is that the money the federal government sends to local school districts provides lunches for economically disadvantaged children and vital services for those most in need. So the Obama White House, for the sake of political correctness, is holding hostage the poorest, most disadvantaged children across the nation.”
Cruz said the actions represent “common sense” being replaced by “leftist notions of faux egalitarianism,” then concluded on a personal note:
“As a father of young girls, I wouldn’t want my daughters being forced to change in the same room as men and boys. It’s that simple. And parents across this country shouldn’t have to tolerate it either.”
After the directive was made public Friday, there was intense backlash from conservatives across the country, forcing White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest to clarify.
Regardless of any clarification, Independent Journal Review previously reported that “gender identity” falls under the “sex” umbrella of Title IX, meaning a school cannot “exclude, separate, deny benefits to, or otherwise treat differently” a student based on his or her gender identity.
Despite this reality, many still perceive the edict as a threat, particularly since schools face loss of funding if they refuse to fall in line.
