Supreme Court backs out of transgender-rights case

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is leaving the issue of transgender rights in schools to lower courts for now after backing out of a highprofile case Monday of a Virginia high school student who sued to be able to use the boys’ bathroom.

The court’s order in the case of teenager Gavin Grimm means that attention now will turn to lower courts around the country that are grappling with rights of transgender students to use school bathrooms that correspond to their chosen gender, not the one assigned at birth.

The appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, and other appellate panels handling similar cases around the country will have the first chance to decide whether federal antidiscrimination law or the Constitution protects transgender students’ rights.

Monday’s action by a court that has been short-handed for more than a year comes after the Trump administration pulled back federal guidance advising schools to let students use the bathroom of their chosen gender, not the one assigned at birth.

The justices rejected a call from both sides to decide the issue in a case that was dramatically altered by the election of President Donald Trump.

Lawsuits involving transgender students are making their way through the courts in at least five other states: Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

A possible explanation for Monday’s order is that the top court might want more of a societal consensus to develop before it issues a ruling in favour of transgender rights, said John Neiman, an Alabama lawyer who served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy.