• A top official said the Department of Justice is “using ligation” to reverse state laws that ban sex-change procedures for minors, according to a Department of Education (ED) webinar obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
• The comments were made at a ED presentation titled, “Creating Inclusive and Nondiscriminatory School Environments for LGBTQI+ Students,” on June 21.
• “I just want to say a brief word about the other battlefront and that has to do with gender-affirming care for transgender children. Sadly we are seeing states all across the country right now that are adopting laws that restrict or ban access to gender-affirming care. We are finding states that are criminalizing access to gender-affirming care and we are getting involved in a number of those cases in Alabama [and] Arkansas,” DOJ Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said at the webinar. 

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said it is using its resources to reverse state laws that ban sex-change procedures for minors, according to a Department of Education (ED) webinar obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The ED held the presentation, titled “Creating Inclusive and Nondiscriminatory School Environments for LGBTQI+ Students,” on June 21, which included a panel made up of officials from the ED Office of Civil Rights, the DOJ and the Department of Human and Health Services (HHS), who discussed how to create more “inclusive” environments within schools, according to a video taken by Higher Ground, a parental rights group, and provided to the DCNF. During a panel, DOJ Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said that the department is involving itself in legal cases in states such as Arkansas and Alabama, where minors are unable to undergo sex-change procedures and treatments. (RELATED: ‘Radical’: Parental Rights Advocates Sound The Alarm On Biden DOJ, FBI Cozying Up With LGBT Activist Groups)

“I just want to say a brief word about the other battlefront and that has to do with gender-affirming care for transgender children,” Clarke said. “Sadly we are seeing states all across the country right now that are adopting laws that restrict or ban access to gender-affirming care. We are finding states that are criminalizing access to gender-affirming care and we are getting involved in a number of those cases in Alabama [and] Arkansas.”

In several states, such as Indiana, Florida and Oklahoma, sex-change procedures for minors have been banned. Clarke noted that the DOJ is also using its resources to back school districts that require educators to use the preferred pronouns and the names of transgender students.

“At the Justice Department we are busy in the courts and really using litigation to fight back to stand up for children, to stand up for their parents, to stand up for their teachers and their medical providers, all of whom are facing discrimination and harassment,” Clarke said.

“In Indiana, we recently did some work to protect a school’s decision to require employees to use the names and pronouns that matched the identities of transgender students,” Clarke said. “Here the school sought to do the right thing and they were facing resistance from the district and we stood up for this school doing the right thing.”

The DOJ has filed a statement of interest on behalf of 11-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson, a biological male who sued the West Virginia Board of Education in order to be able to compete on a girls’ cross country team, Clarke said. In January, a West Virginia judge ruled in favor of the state’s law that requires athletes to compete in sports on the basis of biological sex rather than gender identity.

The assistant attorney general added that the DOJ is getting involved in a case on behalf of a teacher who lost their job for being an LGBTQ activist.

Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for Civil Rights at the ED, explained that the department recently got involved in an incident after a school district told a 5-year-old boy that he could not wear an earring because it was a violation of the dress code and the accessory was meant for girls. After the OCR stepped in, the school district changed its entire dress code to make sure that it is not operating on “sex stereotypes.”

Dept. of Health & Human Services’ Rachel Levine pushes body butchery for kids this happy pride month

“Gender affirming care is medically necessary, safe, and effective for transgender and nonbinary youth and adolescents”https://t.co/lEvtOK6GYz via @YouTube

— Higher Ground (@highergroundUT) June 27, 2023

Clarke also noted that the DOJ is working with the FBI to combat violent “hate crimes” against the LGBTQ community, including a case where a man threatened a doctor who was offering sex-change procedures to minors.

“It is the darker side of this conversation, but it is important that people speak up and speak out if they are targeted or if they identify a hate crime in their community,” Clarke said. “To do this work we rely on the FBI and their expertise and so reporting hate crimes to the FBI I think is a really important part of this conversation.”

The DOJ and the ED OCR did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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