Just over a month ago we talked about Township High School District 211 in Illinois and how they were ordered by the Department of Education to allow a “transgender” boy to use the girls’ locker room and showers. Failure to do so would result in a massive loss of federal funding. The school system administrators, in a rare display of common sense when faced with politically correct but socially destructive and scientifically bogus mandates, actually pushed back. They did not wish to simply allow a boy to shower with the young girls simply because he claimed to be one himself.

Trouble was on the horizon, but District 211 came back this week with a compromise which was designed to alleviate all the hurt feelings and still comply with the federal order. Let’s see how that works out. (Yahoo News)

A suburban Chicago school district said on Thursday it reached a deal with the U.S. government over locker room access for a transgender student, but the civil rights group representing the student said the agreement fell short of its hopes.

Township High School District 211 in Palatine, Illinois, said it will provide changing areas in the girls’ locker room for the student, who has not been named, and for other students, within 30 days.

The seven-member school board held a special meeting on Wednesday evening, heard public comments and then voted 5-2 early on Thursday to approve the deal reached with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR).

The OCR last month found the school district discriminated against the student and gave it a month to provide full locker room access. At stake were millions of dollars in annual federal funds for the district of five high schools west of Chicago.

Looking at the details it’s not entirely clear what the specific construction project required to implement this will entail. What it sounds like is that within the confines of the girls locker room, there will be separate areas in the showers with curtains so that anyone can shower in private. There will also be separate changing areas which are likewise curtained off. The reality here is that they had originally offered the boy a private shower and changing room rather than subjecting the girls to his presence, but that was refused. Now there will be “private” changing areas and shower stalls available for anyone. Could be worse, I suppose.

But the ACLU of Illinois is complaining yet again, of course. Even if the Feds somehow went along with this “compromise” that’s simply not enough for the plaintiffs because, well… you will be made to care. It doesn’t sound like the boy has any interest in using a private dressing area or a private shower, so why would he be using the curtained off area in the girl’s locker room? In other words, he can now have his run of the locker areas and showers while the actual girls (you know… the ones who are supposed to use the girls room) will be forced to flee into the private screened areas to have any level of privacy from the boy. That’s certainly one heck of a compromise.

This is all regrettable because it should never have had to come to this. As we discussed recently, the root of the problem is the Executive Order pen of President Obama once again. He has already codified the entire idea of being “transgender” as some form of new entitlement class and made it easier to “qualify” for such favored status. The fact that such considerations are being extended to children is, frankly, an abomination, though the parents in these cases are far more culpable than the White House. But the die has been cast and it’s probably too late to turn back now. (At least until January of 2017 anyway.)