If the lawsuit succeeds, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commissions will no longer be permitted to investigate complaints relating to discrimination on the basis of characteristics such as sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
Pennsylvania parents and public school districts have filed a lawsuit against the state, alleging that recently approved anti-discrimination protections for gay and transgender people have been expanded well beyond lawmakers’ intent.
According to NBC News, the lawsuit was filed Thursday in Commonwealth Court.
The plaintiffs include two school districts—South Side Area and Knoch, both in the western half of the state—and two Republican legislators, Rep. Aaron Bernstine and Barbara Gleim. Several parents and students are also named as plaintiffs.
“These regulations literally redefine the word sex to include an awful lot of categories that differ from male and female, and in many respects they depend upon how people think or how people feel,” attorney Tom King told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “It has little to nothing to do with their biological indicators of whether they’re male or female.”
King’s firm, notes the Post-Gazette, is representing both South Side Area and Knoch.
If the lawsuit succeeds, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commissions will no longer be permitted to investigate complaints relating to discrimination on the basis of characteristics such as sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression; an attorney for the plaintiffs also said that it would prevent transgender student-athletes from competing in women’s high school sports statewide.
“[The lawsuit is] trying to strike down the regulations that the Human Relations Commission set forth on the basis that only the legislature could make these kinds of decisions,” King told the Post-Gazette. “The Human Relations Commission wasn’t elected by anybody and nor were they ever authorized by the legislature to do so.”
The state Constitution, King said, specifies that it is the duty of the legislature to make “these kinds of policy decisions for Pennsylvania.”
Sources
Lawsuit aims to strike down LGBTQ anti-discrimination protections in Pennsylvania
South Side Area, Knoch schools file lawsuit questioning state definition of ‘sex’
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