In Congress, the Republicans have introduced H.R. 2616, the “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act”—or as we know it, “Don’t Say Trans.” The bill is modeled after Florida’s "Don’t Say Gay" laws. The U.S. House Republicans wrote:
Washington, May 20, 2026House Republicans are advancing H.R. 2616 – Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act, legislation led by Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) to require parental consent before schools make major changes involving a child’s name, pronouns, gender markers, bathrooms, or locker rooms.
So I got to thinking: where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the right to determine the gender of a child? And when the feds say “Biological Sex,” who gets to determine it?
(A caveat first: I am not a lawyer, so this is all conjecture on my part. As a lawyer friend I know likes to say… it's not over until the judge bangs his gavel.)
Article I, Section 8 (Enumerated Powers): This section defines the specific powers of Congress, such as regulating interstate commerce, coining money, and declaring war. States cannot create laws that interfere with these federal powers.
That is key to my argument. One of those realities of Enumerated Powers is that the federal government does not issue birth certificates—states do!
They are trying to worm around the Enumerated Powers. If you look closely at the text of H.R. 2616, it doesn't outright ban schools from changing a child's pronouns; instead, it says schools will lose federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act if they do so without parental consent. This is how the federal government asserts control without having the explicit constitutional right to dictate local education policy—it holds the purse strings hostage.
But I think that it still boils down to: who determines the gender of a child? If the states say the child is female, how can the feds challenge it? By requiring every child to get a DNA test?
No matter how they word it, the Constitution does not give the federal government the right to determine a child’s gender. This is going to be a long, drawn-out court battle!
When major constitutional battles break out over federalism, executive power, and states' rights, it is rarely just an abstract debate in a courtroom. In this case, the "pawns" being pushed across the board are real people whose daily lives, legal identities, and peace of mind are completely disrupted by changing political tides.
Historically, marginalized groups have frequently found themselves at the center of these structural tug-of-wars between state and federal power. Whether it was the fight over civil rights in the 1960s or same-sex marriage in the 2000s, the legal system often treats human lives as the testing ground for where federal authority ends and state sovereignty begins. And now, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 itself is being attacked.
It is a deeply exhausting place to be, especially when all people are looking for is stability, recognition, and the ability to go about their daily lives without their foundational identity documents being treated as a political football.
This all makes sense only if you ignore the mountain of medical and scientific research showing that gender identity and sexual orientation are inborn to a person and are not choices. Change the target to any other protected class besides gender identity, and you can see this bill for what it really is: bigotry and discrimination.
No comments:
Post a Comment