Eleven states have sued the Obama administration over its directive to let transgender students use public school bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.

The states are Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The lawsuit was filed on May 25.

The federal government’s May 13 directive on transgender students was met with tearful praise from parents of transgender students.

“It’s heartbreaking that these kids are losing their lives because they can’t be accepted,” said Hope Tyler, who has a transgender son in a high school in Raleigh, N.C., referring to suicides among transgender people.

The question of whether federal civil rights law protects transgender people has yet to be answered by the courts and may ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. But states that refuse to comply could face government-led civil rights lawsuits as well as the loss of federal aid to schools.

Eight states — West Virginia, Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Maine and North Carolina — have also asked a federal appeals court to rehear a case in which it sided with a Virginia transgender student seeking to use the boys’ bathroom.

[Editor’s note: In October, Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued state regulations that ban harassment of and discrimination against transgender people. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order in March that guarantees people access to buildings and facilities that correspond with their gender identity.]