90 Miles From Tyranny

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

4 Things to Know About Trump’s Possible Reversal of Obama’s Transgender Policy

The Department of Health and Human Services is reportedly considering scrapping Obama-era executive actions tying federal school funding to recognizing gender as a choice.

The report Sunday in the New York Times on the proposed change referenced a leaked memo. Nothing has been finalized, however.

Here’s what to know about the potential new policy.

1. New Policy Same as the Old?

The new policy, if adopted, would likely put into writing the presumption in place before President Barack Obama’s administration’s executive actions.

The Obama administration in 2016 mandated that public schools open their restrooms, locker rooms, and showers to transgender students based on their gender identity, rather than on their biological sex.

The Times reported on the leaked memo that said HHS would define gender “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.”

The Times’ headline on its report asserted: “‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration.”

However, the substance of the article explained the definition would be applied for the purposes of Title IX, which is the law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive federal financial assistance.

“In the last months of the Obama administration, federal bureaucrats unlawfully redefined the word ‘sex’ to mean ‘gender identity,’ and then imposed a radical bathroom and locker room policy on all our public schools, and said that doctors who declined to perform sex ‘reassignment’ procedures would be guilty of discrimination,” Ryan T. Anderson, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation and author of “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” told The Daily Signal.

“Thankfully, it appears that the Trump administration has rejected Obama’s transgender agenda and understands the word ‘sex’ correctly as a bodily reality,” Anderson said.

The memo reportedly says: “Sex means a person’s status as male or female, based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth. The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

2. What’s the Current Legal Precedent?

A lower federal court ruling in Texas halted the Obama administration’s regulation.

Twenty-four states challenged the Obama administration’s Education Department and Justice Department for the gander-identity mandate in three different lawsuits.

The Obama administration asserted Title IX provides protections for transgender students, thereby requiring schools to allow transgender students into restrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity.

Federal Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth ruled in 2016 that the Obama administration had overstepped its bounds in bypassing the regulatory process in imposing the rule.

“It cannot be disputed,” O’Connor, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote that in passing Title IX, Congress “meant the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined by their birth” in reference to “sex” in the Title IX law.

3. What is the Trump Administration Saying?

Canada has placed four Chinese monitoring devices just 186 miles away from the US coast, near a major waterway used by a US nuclear submarine base, reports SCMP. The sensors were placed on the Endeavour segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge by a remote controlled Canadian Coast Guard submersible on June 27, and are now fully operational.

The instruments, which use hi-tech sensors to monitor the underwater environment, are connected to the Ocean Network Canada (ONC), a grid of marine observatories stretching from the northeast Pacific to the Arctic. While the network is operated by the University of Victoria in British Columbia, its four new additions are the property of the Sanya Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering, a unit of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which also developed and built them. -SCMP

Data from the sensors can be streamed in real-time to the Chinese institute's control center in the city of Sanya, located on the island province of Hainan.

While there is no indication that the devices will be used to spy on the United States, both Canada and Beijing have refused to say what they're for, while the US State Department said it had "nothing to say" on the matter.

What is known is that information collected by the devices will help Chinese marine scientists better understand the environment of a strategic waterway close to the United States, and get a close look at the structure and operation of one of the world’s largest and most advanced underwater observatories.

While there is no evidence to suggest China’s military is involved with the project – there is also no suggestion the devices can be used to track submarines or other vessels – maritime environmental data is equally valuable to both civilian and non-civilian researchers.

Some Chinese government research websites have suggested the positioning of the monitoring devices could be a precursor to China building its own network in the region. -SCMP

ONC is primarily a research facility, however it does maintain a defense contract with the Canadian military monitor Arctic waters using an AI-powered surveillance system, according to state broadcaster CBC.

As SCMP notes, "the Strait of Juan de Fuca is one of the world’s busiest waterways. Across the strait to the south, not far from the city of Seattle, is one of the United States’ two strategic nuclear weapon facilities – Naval Base Kitsap – which is home to a nuclear submarine shipyard and the only dry dock on the country’s west coast capable of accommodating a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier."

"Deep sea observation networks are highly sensitive, and closely related to national security," says Chen Hongqiao - a researcher for...