A high school in my home state of Virginia discriminated against a female-to-male transgender teen boy by forbidding him from using the boys’ restroom, a federal appeals court ruled today. The case is a win for human rights, and could change what happens just one state to the south, in North Carolina. There, a recent and similarly weird bathroom law just went into effect, discriminating against LGBT people and hearkening the good old southern days when “colored” Americans were forced to use separate bathrooms, far away from where they could contaminate any white people with their otherness.
From the Associated Press:
In the Virginia case, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — which also covers North Carolina — ruled 2-1 to overturn the Gloucester County School Board’s policy, saying it violated Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination in schools. A federal judge had previously rejected Grimm’s sex discrimination claim, but the court said that judge ignored a U.S. Department of Education regulation that transgender students in public schools must be allowed to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity.
“We agree that it has indeed been commonplace and widely accepted to separate public restrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities on the basis of sex,” the court wrote in its opinion. “It is not apparent to us, however, that the truth of these propositions undermines the conclusion we reach regarding the level of deference due to the department’s interpretation of its own regulations.”
Maxine Eichner, a University of North Carolina law professor who is an expert on sexual orientation and the law, said the ruling — the first of its kind by a federal appeals court — means the provision of North Carolina’s law pertaining to restroom use by transgender students in schools that receive federal funds also is invalid.
“The effects of this decision on North Carolina are clear,” she said, adding that a judge in that state will have no choice but to apply the appeals court’s ruling. Other states in the 4th Circuit are Maryland, West Virginia and South Carolina. While those states are directly affected by the appeals court’s ruling, Eichner said the impact will be broader. “It is a long and well-considered opinion that sets out the issues,” she said. “It will be influential in other circuits.”
Court overturns Virginia school’s transgender bathroom rule [AP]