Justice Department Under Jeff Sessions Pulls Back from Fight for Transgender Rights

With the confirmation of Jeff Sessions as the U.S. attorney general, the Justice Department has halted efforts to fight an injunction to a guidance that would have protected transgender students in schools from discrimination.

Last year, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Justice Department worked with the Education Department to issue a guidance instructing schools to allow transgender students access to bathrooms and changing facilities based on their gender identity. Texas and 11 other conservative states or state officials sued to have the guidance stopped and won an injunction until the court could make a decision either allowing or denying the guidance.

Related: Transgender Students Go Back to School Confused and Scared After a Summer of Legal Battles

The Justice Department was headed for court next week to argue against the injunction, but the department filed a motion with the states to cancel the hearing as "the parties are currently considering how to best proceed in this appeal," according to CNN.

With this fight stymied in the court of appeals, transgender advocates now have to look to the Supreme Court case involving trans teenager Gavin Grimm for any chance at stopping discriminatory behavior based on gender identity in schools.