A Trump-appointed judge in Tennessee temporarily blocked Biden’s woke LGBTQ policy on Friday, including transgender workers and students to use gender-appropriate bathrooms, and participate in sports teams, Reuters reported.
U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley Jr. ruled in favor of the 20 state attorneys general who sued the Biden administration saying the directives infringe on states’ freedom to establish laws governing transgender.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Knoxville by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery last August and was joined by Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia.
In the ruling, Judge Atchley prohibited the federal agencies from enforcing the orders issued by the Biden regime regarding the treatment of LGBTQ people.
More from Reuters:
A coalition of 20 Republican attorneys general brought a lawsuit last year against the federal government, noting that they stood to lose significant federal funding as the Biden directives were in conflict with their own state laws.
Atchley agreed with that, writing in his order that the states “cannot continue regulating pursuant to their state laws while simultaneously complying with Defendants’ guidance.”
Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor, one of the plaintiffs, said in a written statement on Saturday that Atchley’s order “is a major victory for women’s sports and for the privacy and safety of girls and women in their school bathrooms and locker rooms.”
The Justice Department, the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are named as defendants in the lawsuit. None immediately replied to requests for comment on Saturday. The three had earlier requested that Atchley dismiss the states’ lawsuit, a motion the judge denied in his Friday ruling.
