Boys (or Girls) Will Be Boys: SCOTUS Runs for Cover on Transgender Bathroom Case

The Supreme Court declined to take up the issue of whether schools must allow students to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity. 

Without comment, the court declined to hear the case of Gavin Grimm, who was born a female but now identifies as a male. 

Grimm, from Gloucester County, Virginia, legally changed his name and began hormone therapy following his freshman year of high school, NBC News reports. 

The principal gave him permission to use the boys’ bathroom, but the school board shortly thereafter adopted a policy saying restrooms were “limited to the corresponding biological genders.” 

“For school officials, as for parents, the question how best to respond to a teenager who identifies with the opposite biological sex is often excruciatingly difficult,” lawyers for the school district told the Court. 

Grimm’s lawyers, from the American Civil Liberties Union, told the court that requiring him to use a separate, single-stall bathroom “stigmatized him as unfit to use the same restroom as his peers.” 

They said there was no need for the Supreme Court to take up the appeal because lower courts that have considered the issue came to the same decision: treating transgender students differently violates Title IX. 

Monday’s order denying review in the case means that Grimm’s win in the appeals court remains. 

“Being forced to use the nurse’s room, a private bathroom, and the girl’s room was humiliating for me, and having to go to out-of-the-way bathrooms severely interfered with my education,” Grimm said. “Trans youth deserve to use the bathroom in peace without being humiliated and stigmatized by their own school boards and elected officials.” 

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said the Supreme Court should have taken the case.