Virginia school board takes transgender bathroom case to high court

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Grimm in April.

Gavin Grimm leans on a post on his front porch during an interview at his home in Gloucester, Va. Grimm, who is transgender, sued the Gloucester County School Board after it barred him from using the boys’ bathroom.

“Based on the evidence submitted through declarations previously proffered for the objective of the hearing on the Preliminary Injunction, this Court, pursuant to Title IX, hereby ORDERS that Gloucester County School Board permit the plaintiff, G.G., to use the boys’ restroom at Gloucester High School until further order of this Court”. After complaints, the school board adopted a policy requiring students to use public restrooms corresponding with their biological gender.

She said there is no specific policy, per se, but transgender students have been using the bathroom of the gender with which they identify, the private bathroom in the nurse’s office, or a single-room unisex bathroom.

Twenty-three states have sued the Obama administration over an edict compelling public schools nationwide to regulate intimate facilities on the basis of gender identity. Another motion – which would have allowed students to use a bathroom that matched their expressed and personal gender identity – also failed on a 4-4 vote.

“I’m banned from a gender specific place and it is a big issue for me, this is one way the school is saying, we do not believe you are legitimate, and that is a big deal to me”, he said.

Separately, the Justice Department sued North Carolina in May over a state law requiring people to use public bathrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates.

Allowing Grimm, who was born female but now identifies as a boy, to use the boys’ bathroom will cause “irreparable harm to the Board, to the school system and to the legitimate privacy expectations of the district’s schoolchildren and parents alike”. Grimm will be a senior at Gloucester High School in September.