If it falls under law enforcement, like the monitoring of other controlled substances, HIPAA does not apply. All they have to do is get it listed as a controlled substance and get a high enough schedule on it, and it’s as good as done.
(My understanding from the doc end. I defer to our legal eagles on that end)
Hormones are not a fucking “controlled substance,” when nearly all mammals produce them naturally.
I will fight this bullshit in any way I can.
You are absolutely correct, but that’s not how this system works. “Controlled substances” are whatever the law defines as such. And I guarantee the fuckheads would dearly love to put every damned contraceptive on that list. Probably under the guise of “fighting the trans agenda.”
Others should be prepared to fight along side me.
(Good God, I could only dream of being that handsome!)
Substance over style, Doc; every time.
Now, upon the advice of that law firm — the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center — the board approved spending $8,700 to cut windows so passersby can look into the so-called “gender-identity” student bathrooms.
It’s not as if trans people were fully human. 
My first thought was, “there’s no way a law firm advised them to do that. There’s literally case law making similar actions on the part of a school illegal/unenforceable.” Then I saw this:
they hired a Christian law firm
A Christian law firm. That is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve heard of. Our law is not based on the Bible, no matter what MTG, Mike Johnson, et al claim.
Same guy last year
Guessing his browser history would make even Chuck Tingle blush
Ugh…
In a written statement to the U.K.-based Independent , South Western Superintendent Jay Burkhart declined to comment on the matter, but added: “The district administration did not make any physical alterations, including installation of the windows with sight lines to the sink areas, without specific directive from the board.”
“We were just following orders.” Oh go fuck off. Also, I totally missed an important part of this story before. They didn’t cut windows into every bathroom. Last year, they changed from having two designations for bathrooms (boys and girls) to five (labels mine, I don’t know what the signage actually said): cis male, cis female, trans male, trans female, gender-neutral. The windows were only cut into the “gender identity” bathrooms. In other words, they wanted everyone to know who was using those bathrooms. It wasn’t enough for them to segregate the trans kids, they wanted to expose them as well.
Last year, citing the concerns of a few unnamed people, the board unanimously approved a policy that would split the gendered options into five: male and female facilities based on sex assigned at birth, male and female facilities based on gender identity, and single-user, gender-neutral facilities. The changes, which amounted to new signage, were seen as a compromise in contrast with more restrictive policies enacted by other York County districts, such as Red Lion.
In August, however, a new far-right South Western School Board majority opted to cut windows into the so-called “gender identity” bathrooms at a cost of $8,700 and on the reported advice of the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center. The ILC has advocated for book bans and other anti-LGBTQ+ policies in school districts across Pennsylvania.
Interestingly, ILC is now denying that the windows were their idea. There’s a lot of finger pointing going on now.
The ILC said it had not advised board members to cut windows into a bathroom with stalls. “It’s the position of the Independence Law Center that privacy in multi-user facilities starts at the door of the room, not the door of stalls," the organization’s statement read.
The firm would recommend a single-user bathroom similar to what is on airplanes and would open up to public areas.
The Dispatch has filed a Right-to-Know Law request seeking documents that would clarify what the ILC recommended to the school board.
I’ll be curious to see what those documents show.
ETA: The reason ILC said “It’s the position of the Independence Law Center that privacy in multi-user facilities starts at the door of the room, not the door of stalls” is because that’s what current case law on this issue says. So I’m actually inclined to believe them that they didn’t advise the school board to do this. I said on another post on this story that my initial reaction was that there was no way a law firm would advise a school to do this. Hopefully the school board complies with the FOIA request and we can know for sure.
I suspect ILC are still assholes, but it sounds like they are being used as cover by even bigger assholes in this instance. I staggers me to think that anyone thought that putting windows into bathrooms would be an acceptable action. Most kids are mortified at having to poop or pee in school as is. This is equivalent to putting the stalls in the hallways! And they can’t even argue some bogus security bullshit, since the communal cis bathrooms were left private, while the single occupancy gender neutral one had a window cut in. This was done with no other goal than to further dehumanize kids who don’t conform to their ideas of gender norms, just in an amazingly gross way.
Oh, they absolutely are. But they also likely know what the law currently says, and probably would have predicted the PR shitstorm this move would create. They’re evil, but not stupid. The school board, on the other hand, is evil and stupid.
