The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Supreme Court to hear transgender bathroom case in March
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on March 28 in the case of a transgender teenager from Virginia who sued his school board for the right to use the boys’ bathroom, a case that could shape how public schools across the country accommodate transgender students.
Gavin Grimm, now a senior at Gloucester High School, sued in 2015 after the board barred him from the boys’ bathroom. His lawyers argue that the policy, which requires students to use bathrooms aligned with their biological sex, violates a federal law against sex discrimination in public schools.
The court will also consider guidance the Obama administration issued in May that required public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms of their choosing. If the Trump administration rescinds the guidance, some legal observers have said the high court could send the Grimm case back to a lower court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond sided with Grimm in April, deferring to the Obama administration’s position that federal law protected his right to use the boys’ bathroom. A U.S. district judge later granted Grimm a preliminary injunction that would have allowed him to use the boys’ bathroom. The Gloucester County school board appealed the case all the way to the high court. Justices issued a stay on the case, meaning Grimm remains barred from the boys’ bathroom during his senior year.