For now, a federal judge in Texas is blocking the Obama administration’s directive to U.S. public schools that transgender students must be allowed to use the bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity. The ruling impacts public schools in West Virginia.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor issued the injunction in a decision dated Sunday, August 21. It comes after officials from Texas and 12 other states, including West Virginia, asked O'Connor to halt the directive. In May, the federal government told U.S. public schools  that transgender students must be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity. O’Connor ruled that the federal education law, Title IX, “is not ambiguous” about sex being defined as “the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth.”