Transgender Bathroom Policy Case to Be Heard by Supreme Court

restroom sign showing male and female symbols

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case involving a transgender teen who has filed a lawsuit against a school for the right to use the restroom according to gender identity.

Gavin Grimm, 17, is a student at Gloucester High School in Virginia, and was allowed to use the boys' restroom at school in 2014, which Grimm did for seven weeks. However after receiving complaints from parents, the school prohibited Grimm from using the male bathroom and instead required using single stall or female restrooms instead.

Grimm says that the policy is in violation of Title IX and amounts to sexual discrimination.

Earlier, Grimm was using the unisex stall, but said that it was too far and it would take about 10 minutes to cover the distance, leading to tardiness to most of Grimm's classes. The school also built three other single-stall restrooms to accommodate Grimm, but the student felt singled out by having to comply with a segregated arrangement.

Grimm filed a lawsuit against the school in 2015 with the help of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and a lower court ruled in favor of the school. But, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against the school.

The panel referred to a letter sent by Department of Education to the school asking them to permit transgender students to use bathroom in accordance with their gender identities.

"Transgender kids should not have to sue their own school boards just for the ability to use the same restrooms as everyone else," Grimm had said in a statement after Fourth Circuit announced its decision.

Judge Paul Niemeyer, had written a dissenting opinion at the court, in which he sided with the school.

"Bodily privacy is historically one of the most basic elements of human dignity and individual freedom. And forcing a person of one biological sex to be exposed to persons of the opposite biological sex profoundly offends this dignity and freedom," he said. "Somehow, all of this is lost in the current Administration's service of the politically correct acceptance of gender identification as the meaning of 'sex'."