“The court’s ruling sends a strong message to schools and lawmakers that discriminatory restroom policies don’t just harm transgender students, they put Title IX funding at risk”, says Gail Deady, the Secular Society Women’s Rights Fellow at the ACLU of Virginia.
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Besides in Virginia, the ruling automatically set precedent in West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland – states covered by the 4th Circuit.
Grimm’s suit had been dismissed by a lower court, but the appeals panel found that he had a valid complaint given the current federal interpretation of transgender students’ rights.
The court decision has prompted swift condemnation from the state’s Republican leadership.
If a recent federal court ruling overrides North Carolina’s recently passed anti-LGBT bill, Gov. Gavin’s case, however, does have immediate implications for North Carolina’s controversial HB2 law, which includes a provision requiring transgender students to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender listed on their birth certificates. Gender identity and sexual orientation are also excluded from statewide workplace and public accommodation protections in the law, which triggered widespread criticism from equality advocates and business leaders nationwide.
The only silver lining in all this is that at least North Carolinians should all now know where things really stand.
With a rash of proposed anti-trans legislation sprouting in North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia, the national conversation has turned toward the “bathroom debate”, which is concerned with transgender people and which bathroom they use.
“This court victory affirms that there is no commonsense reason to bar transgender students from using the restroom that aligns with their gender identity and that doing so is discriminatory and harmful”, said Schultz.
Yahoo published that US President Barack Obama’s administration has reached out their support for Grimm.
Rodney Autry, a Gloucester County pastor who joined an amicus brief supporting the school board, told Baptist Press the ruling could prove to be a “landmark decision”. McCrory and the Republican-led state legislature would be wise to take advantage of the opportunity.
The law also no longer allows people in North Carolina to sue for discrimination in state court and prevents local governments from raising the minimum wage higher than the state’s. Yet he said the appeals court’s decision confirms one of their key arguments.
“I don’t know that I would at any point be ready to say we are going to make any changes”. If you are a recipient of federal education funds you can not discriminate..
The 2-1 ruling by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals remands the case to the lower court, which now has to use a different interpretation – one giving the federal government deference – to decide the case. School officials, though, denied the request in December.
The lawsuit was brought by a biologically female teenager who identifies as male. He was allowed to use the boys restrooms at the school for several weeks in 2014. The Gloucester County school board enacted a policy that required students to use either the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender or a private, single-stall restroom.
“Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of the situation”, Grimm said by telephone.
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“I just want to use the restroom in peace”, Grimm declared in a June 2015 ACLU press release obtained by the Washington Blade, America’s oldest gay-oriented newspaper.
