Last September I told you about Gavin Grimm, who was born female but identifies as male. He/she had sued school officials over a policy requiring him to use either the girls’ restrooms or a single-stall, unisex bathroom open to all students. The special snowflake got his/her way yesterday via a court ruling.
Gavin Grimm
Via Daily Mail: A transgender Virginia teen won the right to use the boy’s toilets at his high school Tuesday in an appeals court decision that will affect four other states – including North Carolina.Tuesday’s decision came from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that Gloucester County School Board was discriminating against Gavin Grimm, 16, by making him use female toilets in line with his biological sex.
That decision establishes legal precedent in all five states of the 4th Circuit, including North Carolina, which on April 1 passed a bill forcing people to use bathrooms based on the sex on their birth certificate.
Grimm, who was born female but identifies as male, was allowed to use the boys’ bathroom at the school for several weeks in 2014, until parents complained. (Grimm, 16, told his parents he was transgender in April 2014. They helped him legally change his name, and a psychologist diagnosed him with gender dysphoria, characterized by stress stemming from conflict between one’s gender identity and assigned sex at birth. Grimm had his breasts removed and began hormone treatment to deepen his voice and give him a more masculine appearance.)
He was then told he could use either the girls’ bathroom or a single private stall – a policy he called stigmatizing. School officials said it respected the privacy of all students.
The U.S. Justice Department filed a ‘statement of interest’ in Grimm’s case in July, saying that not allowing students to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity amounts to sex discrimination.
Gavin Grimm
And now Grimm has won in the state of Virginia – creating a precedent that may concern politicians in neighboring North Carolina. On March 25, North Carolina’s House of Representatives voted 82-26 for House Bill 2, which ordered public schools, government agencies and public college to designate bathrooms by biological sex stated on a person’s birth certificate. It also removed protections that stopped businesses discriminating against people based on their sexuality or gender.Now, however, precedent has been set in all 4th Circuit states: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Maryland. North Carolina Governor Pat McRory is to meet with house attorneys to see how Tuesday’s decision will affect the bill that he signed, North Carolina News reported.
And back on March 26, Joshua Block, attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Citizen-Times: ‘What the court rules in Gavin’s case will likely be precedent for district courts in North Carolina that they will have to follow. It does seem odd that even though the governor and legislature presumably know a decision is going to come down from the Fourth Circuit, that they rushed in to enact this sweeping policy without seeing how the court rules. It seems like they are exposing the state to a lot of legal liability for no reason.’
Read the whole story here.
DCG