US court sides with trans student against school’s loo ban

NEW YORK: A federal judge ruled o Friday that a Virginia school district’s policy barring a male transgender student from using the boys bathrooms violates the US Constitution, an important victory for transgender rights advocates in a closely watched case. In a 28-page ruling, Judge Arenda Wright Allen of the US district court in Norfolk said the school district’s policy violated the rights of Gavin Grimm, a former student.
“There is no question that the board’s policy discriminates against transgender students on the basis of their gender nonconformity,” Wright Allen wrote. “Transgender students are singled out, subjected to discriminatory treatment, and excluded from spaces where similarly situated students are permitted to go.”
School bathroom policies vary across the country. Many in recent years have faced contentious legal challenges over which bathrooms transgender students should be allowed to use. Grimm’s suit against Gloucester County Public Schools in Virginia is among the best known. Wright Allen’s ruling echoes those in several other courts that have recently ruled in favour of allowing transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding to the gender they identify with.
Yet nationwide, the question is far from resolved. The Supreme Court this year chose not to take up an appeal in a similar case. And it is not clear that the SC would take up any such cases until there are conflicting opinions in lower appellate courts, according to Joshua Block, Grimm’s lawyer.
Grimm, 20, attended Gloucester High School from 2013 to 2017. The Gloucester County school board had maintained that his “biological gender” was female, prohibiting administrators from allowing him to use the boys’ restrooms. Grimm said the ruling was “was certainly a victory for the trans community”.A lawyer for Gloucester County Public Schools declined to comment on Friday.
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References

1. ^{^} Virginia (www.happytrips.com)
2. ^{^} transgender (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
3. ^{^} Norfolk (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

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