Earlier this week, Vanita Gupta, principal deputy DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, defended the Obama administration’s transgender agenda by declaring at a DOJ press conference that “transgender men” “live, work and study as men” and that “transgender women” “live, work and study as women.” A listener would reasonably have understood her to be representing that the administration’s bathroom-and-shower agenda applies only to individuals who have established a firm and pervasive identity with the opposite sex.

But the guidance letter that Ms. Gupta co-signed gives the lie to any such representation.

According to the letter, “gender identity” merely “refers to an individual’s internal sense of gender.” (Emphasis added.) Further, “when a student or the student’s parent or guardian, as appropriate, notifies the school administration that the student will assert a gender identity that differs from previous representations or records, the school will being treating the student consistent with the student’s gender identity.” (Emphasis added.)

In short, contrary to what Gupta insinuated at the press conference, the Obama administration would require that schools treat a student according to his latest asserted gender identity, irrespective whether he has been “liv[ing], work[ing] and study[ing]” according to that gender identity.

Gupta’s claim at the DOJ press conference was part of her broader embrace of the transgender lunacy that “transgender men” (i.e., women who identify as men) really “are men” and that “transgender women” (i.e., men who identify as women) really “are women.” But as her guidance letter makes clear, the transgender identity is inherently subjective. The fact that a person can change his gender identity simply by changing his mind (as Bruce Jenner may be in the process of doing again) further belies the notion that a “transgender man” is really a man and that a “transgender woman” is really a woman.