On Thursday February 23 the Trump administration withdrew a directive which allows transgender students to use the restroom they identify with. The protections, put in place in May 2016 by the departments of Education and Justice, were opposed by Republicans who claimed Obama had overreached federal authority on the issue. The Trump administration has already come to the defense of the withdrawal, citing the rights of states to choose.
If you are familiar with the history of this country, you may recognize this argument. During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, many states fought tooth and nail to avoid implementing federal civil rights rulings. Supporters of states' rights argue that states have a level of sovereignty and individual authority that allows them to guide their own laws. But the idea that each state should decide how it runs has been around for much longer, and often is a proxy for other less socially acceptable ideology.
In the late 1700s as the constitution was drafted and implemented, the biggest question in the air was about the role of the federal government. At the country’s conception, states had no idea what their relation to each other would be or who would be in charge of the collective of states – if anyone at all. Two groups emerged taking sides on the issue. Democratic Republicans wanted states to have more control. A compromise was made in the form of the 10th Amendment of the Constitution. The 10th Amendment declared that any powers or rights that were not specifically granted to the federal government in the constitution were given to the states instead. This amendment pigeon-holed the federal government to only serve the purposes listed in the Constitution and made it difficult for the federal government to expand its power by requiring new amendments to authorize new power.
At the conception of the country, Federalists wanted the federal government to be stronger. At the time, issues were centered on trading. The Federalists wanted the federal government to take on the debts of all states which would then be paid back through taxation (mainly on imported goods). Democratic Republicans, many of whom were from the economically powerful slave-reliant South, wanted each state to handle its own finances.
During the 1850s, state rights became the big issue again with the South arguing that attempts to abolish slavery discriminated against slave states by disadvantaging them against the growing manufacturing-based economies of the North.
Since then, state rights have been used as an argument for powerful states and weaker federal government. But trends show that over time, as the federal government gets stronger, people become accustomed or even attached to federal government strength. For example, the Republican Party vehemently opposed Obamacare on the grounds that the federal government could not force states to expand their healthcare programs. Yet, after Republicans gained control of two branches of government, recent polling shows that most states, including those that lean Republican, favor keeping Obamacare.
On Thursday, when confronted by a reporter citing stats about transgender students feeling bullied due to restricted bathroom access, Press Secretary Sean Spicer stated that the decision on bathroom access was for the states to make. Historically, it can already be seen that the semi-sovereignty of states is never the reason for this assertion. The Democratic Republicans wanted to maintain economic dominance. Slave states wanted to subdue African-Americans and keep them as forced laborers. Southern states in the 60s wanted to maintain discriminatory policies. And now, states –(likely Republican-leaning ones), will take this opportunity to deny transgender students the right to use the bathroom of their gender.
The fact that conservatives have gone back time and time again to beat the dead horse of state rights with the same stale results is proof that despite periodic setbacks in social opinion and civil rights, the United States has consistently shifted away from conservative bigotry and toward progressivism. If there was a real factual, empirical and objective reason why transgender students should not be allowed to decide where they should use the restroom, then conservatives should, and would make that argument. But to revert to "state rights" as an excuse every time conservatives want to arbitrarily deny a group's rights is to admit that there is no reason aside from bigotry.
