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The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday put on hold the implementation of a lower court ruling that required a Virginia school to allow a transgender student to use the boys bathroom.
The Gloucester County School Board’s policy had required students to use bathrooms conforming to the gender they had when they were born or use a private single-stall bathroom. Student Gavin Grimm, 16, who was born female but identifies as male, had claimed that was discriminatory and sued.
In September, U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar ruled against Grimm. That decision was overturned by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which meant when school stars next month, Grimm could have used the boys restroom. The appeals court ruled that the school violated Title IX of the education law, which bans discrimination on the basis of gender. The school then appealed to the Supreme Court.
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The case was significant because it was the first in which the departments of Education and Justice insisted that Title IX, which bans discrimination on the grounds of gender, applies to the issue of transgenders and bathrooms. The federal agencies said students must be allowed to use restrooms they believe match their gender identity, a stand later emphasized in an order sent out to public schools by the Obama administration.
In the 5-3 decision to stay the lower court order, Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined the court’s four conservative justices in granting the stay until the court could fully consider the case later this year.
Circuit Court Judge Paul Niemeyer, who dissented when the Appeals Court ruled in Grimm’s favor, has insisted the ruling that allowed Grimm to use the boys room was wrong.
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“The majority’s opinion, for the first time ever, holds that a public high school may not provide separate restrooms and locker rooms on the basis of biological sex,” he wrote.
“Rather, it must now allow a biological male student who identifies as female to use the girls’ restrooms and locker rooms and, likewise, must allow a biological female student who identifies as male to use the boys’ restrooms and locker rooms. This holding completely tramples on all universally accepted protections of privacy and safety that are based on the anatomical differences between the sexes,” he wrote.
“This unprecedented holding overrules custom, culture, and the very demands inherent in human nature for privacy and safety, which the separation of such facilities is designed to protect,” Niemeyer wrote. “More particularly, it also misconstrues the clear language of Title IX and its regulations …”
h/t: Politico
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