UPDATE: The Federal court of appeals denied Gavin Grimm’s request for a preliminary injunction to block his school from enforcing a restroom policy that segregates transgender students from their peers requiring them to use alternate, private facilities.
The majority of the court denied Gavin the injunction, but it did reinstate Gavin’s claim that the restroom policy violates Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972.
The court of appeals ordered that the case be assigned to a different district judge.
Norfolk, Va.- A transgender male has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to stop the enforcement of a restroom policy that he claims is discriminatory.
After receiving complaints earlier this year, Gloucester County School Board enforced a policy that requires transgender students to use a separate restroom from their peers. Feeling discriminated, transgender male, Gavin Grimm decided to take action against a policy he found to be unfair.
Prior to the school board receiving complaints, Gavin used the boys’ restroom for two months.
“School has been back in session for almost two months and I’m still dealing with day-to-day humiliation of being singled out from other students,” said Grimm.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Gavin and his parents sat at the school board meeting while strangers pointedly referred to him as “a young lady” to deliberately undermine his gender identity and warned about sexual predators. One speaker even expressed personal opinions by calling Gavin a “freak” and compared him to a person who thinks he is a dog and wants to urinate on fire hydrants.
“We hoped that Gavin would get a fresh start at the beginning of the school year, and we are disappointed that will not happen,” said Gail Deady, the Secular Society Women’s Rights Legal Fellow at the ACLU of Virginia.
Joshua Block, Senior Staff Attorney in the ACLU’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Project said, ” We hope and expect that the Fourth Circuit will reverse the lower court’s ruling and reaffirm that Title IX and the Constitution protects students from being singled out for different treatment simply because of who they are.”
