The Supreme Court refused to take a case from Virginia where a student was allowed to use a bathroom that matches his gender identity. Therefore, the decision of the lower court will stay as-is.
Gavin Grimm started going to Gloucester High School in September 2014. Grimm was born a female but identifies as a male. Grimm and his mother asked for permission for him to use the boys’ bathroom, and he did so for seven weeks without a problem. However, parents started to complain, and in December 2017, the county school board made a rule saying that students should use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender at birth. The school board offered Grimm to use a gender-neutral bathroom, but Grimm refused, saying he felt marginalized. Grimm sued the school board in 2015. The Supreme Court took the case in 2016. However, it did not issue a decision and sent it back to the lower courts. First, the federal district court and then the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Grimm’s favor, bringing the case back to the Supreme Court in this most recent petition to hear the case next term, which the High Court declined to do. Meanwhile, Grimm graduated in 2017 and is now 22 years old.
"I am glad that my years-long fight to have my school see me for who I am is over. 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 in a statement.
"Trans youth deserve to use the bathroom in peace without being humiliated and stigmatized by their own school boards and elected officials," he added.
"We won," Grimm wrote on Twitter. "I have nothing more to say but thank you, thank you, thank you. Honored to have been part of this victory."
Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said that the Supreme Court ruling is "an important tactical victory for transgender individuals, especially in public schools."
"The larger question, which wasn't at issue in this case, is how the Justices are going to address circumstances where accommodations based upon sexual orientation or gender identity run headlong into compelling countervailing interests, such as the protection of religious liberty," Vladeck said. "Just as in the Bostock employment discrimination ruling from last Term, leaving the decision below in this case intact kicks that question down the road."
This case involved Title IX, which prevents discrimination "on the basis of sex." The lower court that made the decision was the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Since this case was not heard by the Supreme Court, all students who attend public schools in the states in the 4th Circuit along with the 7th and 11th Circuit can use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.
This is not the first case regarding transgender bathroom use in public schools that has been denied review by the Supreme Court. In December, the Supreme Court declined to take an Oregon case where parents challenged a public school’s rules that allowed transgender students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. Not taking the case kept a ruling in place that would "avoid discrimination and ensure the safety and well-being of transgender students" by allowing the student to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity.
It was noted that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have taken Grimm’s case for the next term. The outcome of this case is a victory for the LGBTQ community.
The Supreme Court refusing to hear these cases indicates that they are not willing to take a clear stance on the issue of transgender people using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity.
