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| The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of Gavin Grimm and held that Title IX protects the rights of transgender students to use sex segregated facilities that are consistent with their gender identity. Photo: ACLU. |
On Tuesday, April 19th a U.S.
Federal Appeals Court ruled a transgender student is able to use the restroom
of his choice. Gavin Grimm, a high school student from Virginia, cannot be
barred from using the rest room of the gender to which he identifies.
Gavin, though assigned female
at birth, identifies as male and had been barred from using the men’s restroom
following a 2014 rule by his school. The court found that the school’s action
violated the 1972 Title IX Act, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in
schools that receive federal funding.
A district court had dismissed
Gavin’s case, but the appeals court decision allows him to proceed with his
lawsuit against the school. The case may establish a precedent around the
country, as a number of states consider bathroom bills. North Carolina has
actually passed a bathroom bill designed to force transgender people to use
bathrooms associated with the gender they were assigned at birth.
Conservatives who support such
bathroom bills have claimed that this ruling signifies a major shift in
American culture, or that it is unprecedented, but both ignore the legal
realties of the United States.
Despite the recent trend of
bathroom bills, transgender people, though still subject to some of the highest
murder, suicide, or rape rates in the world, have been gaining legal rights and
social acceptance for years.
Transgender people have not
suddenly appeared out of the blue, nor do they prey on women in bathrooms or
any of the other ludicrous, unsubstantiated claims made by conservatives.
As to the issue of the appeals
court being unprecedented, the federal government has already established that
Title IX applies to transgender students as well, and it was the Virginia
school which violated established precedent.
Title IX does not apply outside
of schools which receive federal funding, but this ruling might still be held
up as precedent in upcoming challenges to North Carolina’s bathroom bill, or to
challenge those moving through other state legislations.
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