Sometimes court must lead the way

Gavin Grimm is a teenager who wants to use the bathroom at his public school (“Turmoil for transgenders,” Dispatch article, Tuesday).

His story is tragic and heartbreaking, but, if anything, it is the precise embodiment of all the right has come to stand for: discrimination, exclusion, anti- intellectualism, and the invoking of federalism to perpetuate, discrimination, exclusion, anti- intellectualism.

Of course, Gavin is but a citizen of the United States hoping for the opportunity to live publicly in the United States, as most citizens do. He is a brave kid trying to navigate the turmoil of adolescence and the rigors of high school, who has been forced to litigate his way to empty his bladder during the school day.

This policy is shameful and it is cruel, I hope that is obvious enough already. But it’s also bad policy. California has let kids choose their restroom for three years without a peep.

It’s a shame that the U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear Gavin’s case.

History has shown us that we have had to litigate our way to progress, and that bigotry in parts of this country has meant that the Supreme Court needs to lead the way. Let’s remember that not only are LGBTQ people not a protected class in Ohio, if not for the Supreme Court, samesex marriage wouldn’t be legal, either. It took the Supreme Court to overturn a 6th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge (from our own backyard) arguing against gay marriage on the basis of biology.

Let’s stop kidding ourselves: We know exactly what it means to leave the trans youth of Virginia in the hands of their state. I am devastated for Gavin and disgusted by all he’s had to face.

Rachel Ellman Bexley