NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee state Rep. Brad Hulsey thinks public school students should use the restroom and locker facilities that match their biological gender, and he’ proposing a bill to ensure they do.

“When you were born, you got a birth certificate, and that shows what bathroom you use,” the Kingsport Republican told the Knoxville News Sentinel. “It’s pretty simple.”

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Hulsey’s legislation comes as the federal government has attempted to strong arm schools across the country into allowing transgender students to use whichever restroom they want. The U.S. Justice Department and Department of Education have intervened in court cases of transgender students suing their schools over the issue, insisting federal Title IX sex discrimination protections prohibit schools from imposing a boy and girl only system.

Several judges, however, have sided with school officials seeking to protect the privacy of normal students by requiring transgender students to use a unisex restroom, or agree to other accommodations. The nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom is also providing legal guidance to schools embroiled in transgender issues and explaining why the federal government’s interpretation of the law is wrong.

The Department of Education, meanwhile, is threatening to pull funding from schools that don’t comply with its edicts.

Hulsey told WBIR his legislation isn’t intended to discriminate against transgender students, but rather seeks to protect the privacy and safety of the vast majority of Tennessee students.

“Principles are not based on feelings,” he said, “they’re based on what’s best for the school and what’s best for the rest of the students that go to that school.”

The state’s gay rights groups and transgender activists, of course, are losing their minds over the bill.

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“I think it’s fear-mongering at its worst,” Tennessee Equality Project spokesman Chris Sanders said. “Trans students aren’t going to attack anyone in a bathroom. They are more likely to be attacked in a bathroom.”

“Transgender men are transgender men, and transgender women are transgender women,” Beth Sluder, spokeswoman for the local “PFLAG” chapter, told WCYB.

“Men use the men’s room, women use the women’s room. I’m not sure what Representative Hulsey is suggesting. That we check birth certificates or inspect genitalia before someone goes to the bathroom? Either way, it’s impractical, it’s embarrassing and it’s degrading,” she said.

Nashville Scene blogger Betsy Phillips attempted to turn Hulsey’s suggestion into some sort of sexual obsession. Phillips went into a long spiel about X and Y chromosomes, and how not everyone’s birth certificate matches their chromosomes or how they view themselves.

Phillips alleges it’s the sexually odd folks who need protection, not the students who would be forced to share intimate restroom or changing rooms with them.

“So the sad truth is that, regardless of which bathroom jerks like Hulsey force people to use, the people who are perceived as different in them are in danger in them,” Phillips opined. “That’s the real safety issue that should be addressed, but won’t be.”

Many folks who read Phillips’ missive clearly disagreed.

“You mean if a horny teenage boy wants to check out the girl’s bathroom or dressing room all he has to do is say he’s transgender, what could possibly go wrong?” commenter “my back pages” posted. “Back when I was in school the tomboy girl used the women’s. Life was so much different and simpler then.”

“If you have to stand to pee, use the boys!” poster “tired of this BS” wrote. “If you have to sit to pee, use the girls! How hard is that?”

Other poked fun at Philips’ lesson on chromosomes.

“Why not just label the bathroom doors ‘XX,’ ‘XY,’ and ‘other,’” JJack wrote. “Problem solved.”