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The state of Utah has joined 10 other states in suing the Obama administration for what it sees as "federal overreach" with its memo on bathroom policies for transgender students.

Even if there is a reasonable constitutional question, where are we headed with this?

Those who have followed this spring's "bathroom wars" saw the debate sharpen after North Carolina passed a law requiring that everyone use the bathroom of their birth gender rather than the gender they identify with. North Carolina is still addressing the backlash.

So why did North Carolina legislators decide that they had to act? Because the city of Charlotte had passed an ordinance that allowed people to choose the bathrooms of their gender identity.

Right now, Gov. Gary Herbert and Attorney General Sean Reyes can have lots of election-year fun with painting the feds as intrusive. It's true that the members of Congress who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 probably didn't have transgender people in mind.

But some Utah school districts have said they already have policies in place that are similar to the federal guidelines. Will we see the governor and Legislature swing into action and pass something like North Carolina's law? Then, we too, can join in losing conventions and employers?

Even if the U.S. Congress of 1964 did not specifically consider transgender people, the Utah Legislature of 2015 did. Senate Bill 296, the landmark anti-discrimination legislation that brought LDS Church and LGBT leaders to their handshake moment, specifically states that employers may have sex-specific facilities, including restrooms, "provided that the employer's rules and policies ... afford reasonable accommodations based on gender identity."

Overreach or not, it sounds like the state is already pretty far down the road to the Obama administration's position. And even if the states want to argue that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 didn't specifically address gender identity, the act surely did specifically address discrimination in public bathrooms (hence no more "whites only" bathrooms).

As a society, we're headed to where we arrived with same-sex marriage: It can't be shown that anyone is damaged by allowing people to choose the bathroom of their identity. Their innate desire can be accommodated with no harm to others. The argument that it encourages predators is baseless, not to mention that it's not up to transgender people to give up their rights so predators can be discouraged. That's not how civil rights work.

Just like same-sex marriages never harmed straight marriages, letting a transgender kid choose a bathroom will never hurt the rest of the kids. But it will make that kid's life better. That is where we're headed as a state and a nation. This lawsuit won't change that, thankfully.