Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with 12 other states, filed a brief on Wednesday asking a federal judge to put holds on lawsuits over North Carolina’s anti-LGBT law, known as HB2, until other lawsuits over transgender bathroom use have been decided, Buzzfeed News reported.
A federal judge last week issued a narrow temporary ruling telling the University of North Carolina that the school cannot block two transgender students and an employee from using the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity. The judge has not yet issued a broader ruling on HB2 as a whole, but U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder noted in his injunction last week that an appeals court that also overseas North Carolina ruled that a Virginia school’s policy blocking transgender students from using the bathroom of their choice was discriminatory.
If Judge Schroeder were to put the North Carolina cases regarding bathroom use on hold, HB2 would still be able to be enforced in its entirety.
In the brief filed on Wednesday, Paxton and other states noted that a federal judge in Texas ruled against the Obama administration’s guidelines telling schools to allow students to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.
Texas led several other states to file the lawsuit against the Obama administration in May after several Republican officials in the state spoke out against allowing transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice.
