The Department of Education and Department of Justice both said that under Title IX, schools must allow transgender students to have access in bathrooms that match their gender identity.
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“At the heart of this appeal is whether Title IX requires schools to provide transgender students access to restrooms congruent with their gender identity”, the court’s opinion said.
– Buzzfeed News Reporter Chris Geidner reporting on a recent federal court case weighing the right of transgender students to use public school bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity.
While the Fourth Circuit decision will dramatically shift the legal landscape across the country, it holds particular importance for any future cases that will be heard in the Southern states that fall within the Fourth Circuit – including North Carolina, home of the vicious anti-trans law HB2, and SC, which is now considering a virtually identical bill.
Because the school board could appeal further, its unclear whether Grimm will be able to use the boys room anytime soon but he said hes not anxious about that. “I thought when I first read the North Carolina law… if they tried to enforce it, they’d have serious problems”. Maybe. Consider MSNBC’s report yesterday on important appeals court ruling out of Virginia.
25, 2015 photo shows Gavin Grimm as he gestures during an interview at his home in Gloucester, Va. Grimm is a transgender student whose demand to use the boys’ restrooms has divided the community and prompted a lawsuit.
Grimm maintained that the federal government can force schools to allow transgender students to choose whatever bathroom they feel like using. Yet he said the appeals court’s decision confirms one their key argument that the North Carolina law violates Title IX.
LGBT advocates argue the ruling by the court applies to North Carolina, where the HB2 Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act was enacted in March limiting the rights of transgender people in the state.
Another test for McCrory comes when lawmakers reconvene Monday and perhaps weigh a request in the governor’s executive order to reverse part of the law stripping the right to sue over workplace discrimination in state court. Businesses and politicians have announced boycotts of North Carolina, and legal challenges ensure that the wedge issue will dominate Republican Gov. Pat McCrory’s re-election campaign. Gavin sued the district previous year, and a district court judge rejected Grimm’s sex discrimination claim in September and dismissed the suit. Judge Andre M. Davis, an Obama appointee with senior status on the bench, joined Floyd in the Grimm decision Tuesday.
“Today’s monumental decision reinforces the Obama Administration’s position that Title IX protects transgender and gender nonconforming public school students from discrimination”, Nathan Smith, the group’s public policy director, said in a statement sent to The Daily Caller.
“However, I will uphold my oath of office and respect these court rulings and make sure these court rulings are abided to, because I’ve sworn an oath to do just that, and I have a tradition of doing just that”, McCrory said in a video of the meeting published by The News & Observer newspaper. Under the law, universities, colleges and public schools are allowed to establish single-person facilities for transgender use.
That teen is Gavin Grimm, who was banned from using the bathroom of the gender he identifies with.
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David Patrick Corrigan, attorney for the school board, has not yet indicated whether the board would appeal. “I think that’s bad precedent and I don’t think it’s the traditional way we do things”.
