The Gloucester County School Board is not the only school board that has denied transgender students from using preferred facilities since the guidance directed against it.
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“While disappointing, today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court is just a temporary delay”. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan voted against granting the stay.
“President Obama, in the dark of the night – without consulting Congress, without consulting educators, without consulting parents – decides to issue an executive order, like this superintendent, forcing transgender policies on schools and on parents who clearly don’t want it”, Patrick added at the time. That’s a principle that numerous other courts-including the 4th Circuit itself-have upheld.
Justice Stephen Breyer, of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing, joined with its most conservative members in temporarily siding with the school board. “Banishing transgender students from restrooms used by their peers unquestionably interferes with their equal educational opportunity under Title IX”.
The sometimes-polarized court won’t decide what to do about the transgender bathroom case until around the election, and possibly months later.
On Thursday, as news spread that the SCOTUS hold would prevent Grimm from using the boys’ restroom, advocates offered support on social media using the hashtag #LoveForGavin.
Grimm and the LGBT community were happy with the lower court’s decision. It says public restrooms and changing facilities, including in schools and colleges, must be segregated by sex, as defined by “the physical condition of being male or female which is stated on a person’s birth certificate”. Parents complained to the schoool board that Grimm’s use of the male’s bathroom violates the privacy of their boys.
That ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was the first by an appeals court to find that transgender students are protected under federal laws that bar sex-based discrimination. The appeals court found that to be a reasonable interpretation of Title IX.
Block later said the court’s ruling would mean Grimm will be “stigmatized” for the upcoming school year.
The most immediate effects of the stay are, of course, a major blow to Gavin Grimm, the student who was hoping to have a safer and more affirming educational environment as a result of this case (although the ACLU is asking a Virginia district judge to block the school from enforcing their policy).
The school district would suffer no permanent harm, they said, if Grimm is allowed to use the boys’ restroom while the Supreme Court considers whether to take up the larger issue.
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“If they’re not fixed like a man, they should not use the men’s bathroom”, Gary Pilkinton told a reporter past year outside the local Wal-Mart in Gloucester County, Virginia.
