The Obama administration sent a letter on May 13 to every public school district in the country telling them to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their chosen gender identity, as opposed to their birth certificate.

The letter is signed by officials at the Justice Department and the Department of Education.

The letter warns that schools that do not abide by the administration’s interpretation of civil rights law may face lawsuits or loss of federal aid.

"There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement.

Please act now! Congress needs to intervene immediately to STOP and REVERSE President Obama's directive to force public schools to open male and female bathrooms to the opposite sex. Sign this petition to keep public school bathrooms safe!

 What can Congress do?

Congress has at least three different ways of reasserting its authority.

1) Congress could make clear that all federal laws that refer to a person’s “sex” cannot be understood or interpreted by any court or federal agency to mean “gender identity” without explicit Congressional authorization. This would have the benefit of undoing the administration’s past and current abuses, as well as preventing future ones.

2) Congress could pass a statute offering the same clarification but targeted to just the specific federal laws the administration has abused, such as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, among others.

This would reiterate that when Congress referred to a person’s “sex” in these laws, the word referred then to what it continues to refer to now—a biological reality, not “gender identity.”

3) Congress could pass statutes based on its power of the purse. It could specify that the Departments of Education, Justice, and HHS (Health and Human Services), as well as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission may not use any funds to implement or enforce its new administrative transgender directives or regulations against persons, institutions, schools, businesses, and governments that allegedly do not comply.

Additionally, Congress could specify that these agencies may not revoke federal funding for any purported non-compliance with the administration’s gender identity directives.