Today in smug tweets...

Guess who's tweeting smugly over trans kids not being able to use the proper bathroom in school. Give up? Why it's Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton!

Yeah, I'd never of him either, but there he is
smiling smugly about his victory over school
kids who just want to use the bathroom.

I'm sure in Ken's mind he's a goddamn
hero, but to me is just some jerk
 freaking out over bathroom signs.

Here's what he had to say on Twitter:

"We are pleased that the court ruled against the Obama Administration's latest illegal federal overreach. This President is attempting to rewrite the laws enacted by the elected representatives of the people, and is threatening to take away federal funding from schools to force them to conform. That cannot be allowed to continue, which is why we took action to protect States and School District, who are charged under state law to establish a safe and disciplined environment conductive to student learning."

-Texas AG, Ken Paxton, giving his

'The line must be drawn he-yah!' speech

The ruling he's referring to is from a district court judge who issued an injunction on Sunday that says schools can ignore the White House's advisory about letting transgender students use the bathroom appropriate to their gender rather than their biological sex at birth. Texas and a number of other states are suing the Federal Government over the administration's interpretation of Title IX. Title IX says that schools can't discriminate on the basis of sex and still receive Federal funding. The lawsuit contends that 'sex' means biological sex and not gender identity.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, nobody's discriminating here. We just don't think
the Federal Government has any business interfering with the State's sovereign
right to discriminate against trans people. Huh? No, I can't hear myself speak.

In the 70's things were a little more black
and white. John Travolta, for example,
was legally female because of his haircut.

Which, I don't know, maybe they're technically correct. Maybe when Title IX was signed into law, sex meant male or female and that's it. But what I want to know is so what? I'm not like, conceding the point here, but Title XI was written in 1972 and gender identity wasn't on anyone's radar. People didn't really think in those terms, they were too busy with, I don't know, coke. And there were certainly trans people, I mean they weren't invented in 1996, there just wasn't any advocacy in the 70's. If there had been, the law would have certainly been more inclusive. But does anyone really doubt the intent here? Sex, in this context, includes gender identity because of course it does. It kind of sounds like the states bringing the suit are just looking for an opening; a way to be dicks to transgender people.

Ok, that's probably not true. Probably. At least, I'd like to think it's not. But even if this is, as Paxton tweets, about government overreach, do you think he could, I don't know, pick his battles? Because right now he's going to bat for a State's rights to pick on trans kids and I'd imagine they've got enough bullshit to deal with at school without district courts chiming in on their bathroom assignments.

Because there is nothing in the world more important for the court to do with it's
time than to referee the State of Texas's tantrum over grade school bathroom policy.