The ruling comes roughly one year after a group of 20 conservative state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against two federal agencies for their interpretation of the 1972 landmark civil rights statute known as Title IX, which prohibited sex-based discrimination in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited employers from discriminating against workers based on race, religion or sex.
In those directives, the agencies said that companies and schools could not deny a transgender person access to a bathroom that corresponded to that individual’s gender identity. They also said that students should be allowed to participate on a sports team consistent with their gender identity. The judge, Charles E. Atchley Jr. of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, sided with the plaintiffs and denied the request to dismiss the suit, issuing a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the directives until courts could decide the matter.