By James Esseks
A federal appeals court weighed in yesterday in the nation’s ongoing conversation about restrooms and transgender people, ruling squarely in favor of transgender people and equality.
Gavin Grimm is a junior in high school in Gloucester, Virginia. He’s a boy, but because he’s also transgender, his school told him he couldn’t use the boy’s restroom at school, but would have to use the girl’s room or single-user restrooms. Gavin didn’t think it was right for him to be treated differently than all the other boys at his school, so (with the ACLU’s help) he challenged the district’s rule as discriminatory.
Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed with Gavin. It held that schools that bar students from using gender identity-appropriate restrooms discriminate based on sex in violation of Title IX, a federal law against sex discrimination in education. The court sent the case back to the trial judge for further proceedings.
The ruling is a big deal on many levels. It’s the first federal appeals court ruling on the issue and backs up the interpretation of Title IX from the federal Education Department, which has been a true leader on this issue.
The decision applies directly to North Carolina and South Carolina, not just Virginia. That means that the requirement in North Carolina’s recently enacted law, that schools and government buildings force transgender people into the wrong restrooms, is now clearly unlawful sex discrimination that violates federal law. And it should send a strong message to South Carolina, where another anti-transgender bill is being considered, that it’s time to put these harmful measures to bed for good.
Perhaps most importantly, the ruling should mean that Gavin himself — and so many other transgender people all across the Fourth Circuit and all across the country — should no longer have to be humiliated by having his very identity disrespected and undermined day after day when he — like all of us — has to use the restroom.
We still, though, have some work to do to help educate America about who transgender people are and why the bathroom predator myth is just the extreme right’s most recent strategy for curbing LGBT equality. It’s their last ditch effort after they lost the marriage fight. The good news is that the public is catching on. The more people learn that Gavin is in fact just a boy who needs to use the bathroom like his peers, the more these bills will die quietly.
This good news follows another win for transgender students this week. Two days ago, the Tennessee state legislature lay to rest a bill that would have forced transgender students to use the wrong restroom. Pressure from LGBT advocacy groups like the ACLU and leadership from transgender students on the ground in Tennessee helped to put the nail in the coffin of that harmful measure (at least for this year). Unfortunately, there is another bill in Tennessee that already passed and is awaiting the governor’s veto or signature in the coming days. The bill would allow therapists to turn gay and transgender patients away with claims that treating them would violate their religious beliefs. A similar but perhaps even more threatening measure in Missouri would enshrine in the state’s constitution the right to discriminate against same-sex couples and turn them away from wedding services in the name of religion. These states should look to the economic fallout in Mississippi and North Carolina as a warning about what could happen if they ram these bills through.
All in all, it’s been a roller coaster of a ride for LGBT rights recently. We’ve seen some big wins and big losses these past few weeks, and we’re likely to see yet more in the weeks to come. What we know for sure is that the moral arc does indeed bend towards justice, and we will continue to fight with all our might until we’ve achieved full equality.
James Esseks is the director of the ACLU LGBT and HIV Project
The commenters on yesterday’s article never came to a solution for the current progress. Do They have one to offer now?
Do you?
For some reason as I read this debate yesterday, I kept thinking of the Dylan line: “you’re old road is rapidly aging, better get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand.”
So who or what are transgender people?
Dictionary definition:
noting or relating to a person whose gender identity does not correspond to that person’s biological sex assigned at birth
What about people who are born with mixed genitalia and mistakenly id’d by the birthing doctor? In their early teens they realize they are not the gender they, and the doctor, thought they were.
When people insist they’re a boy when they are biologically female, or vice versa, that’s a disorder known as ODD and OCD.
I believe it covers a wide swath of different people – I don’t believe the mistaken identity is one but I’m not expert.
tj
“What about people who are born with mixed genitalia and mistakenly id’d by the birthing doctor? “
This condition is on a spectrum of what has been commonly referred to as “ambiguous genitalia”. This is less common, or at least makes less press, than the situation in which a child who biologically appears to be “male” by having a penis and scrotum ( with or without palpable testicles) but identifies as “female” or is identified at birth as having labia with the apparent absence of a penis and scrotum and thus is registered as a “female” but by nature self identifies as a boy.
I think that the best outcome will be when, as a society, we recognize that sexual self identification is not as binary as “male” and “female” as determined by the visual appearance of the genitals at birth but actually exists along a continuum. This is really not so different as our false insistence on identifying people by race when there are clearly gradations as is proven by the existence of mixed race individuals. We will really be free of these biases when we allow people to self identify rather than attempting to force them to live by standards that are biologically proven to not be immutable.
Never met one [that I know of], except seeing Bruce Jenner (gender?) in the media…
but,for a definition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender
“that you know of”
Which brings us to the point of what really makes us uncomfortable. It is really sort of silly if you think about it… that our sexual organs are the same that we urinate with. So the place were we urinate become uncomfortable because for us to urinate (and also to do our other business) requires us to put our sexual organs on display.
Again, I get back to the solution being bathroom redesign. Just make it all private stalls.
Because I already dislike the way men’s restrooms are design were everyone “hangs out” together… and more importantly for me… others stand directly behind me just waiting for me to finish… which then causes me to think too much about someone waiting behind me waiting for me to finish… and both of us end up waiting longer because of it.
As Beyonce’ should have sang…”put a door on it!”
Also known as “stage fright”.
I take it you are no fan of the big stadium “cattle trough”.
I think it’s time we all learn to squat.
“As an aside, I’m not an Ayn Rand fan: She was a grumpy misanthrope,”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/04/21/time_to_go_galt_on_the_public_schools_130340.html
I don’t know why I got a citation in this article I guess I’m most upset my name was misspelled.
Link does not work for some reason.
Probably a sign that Atlas is beginning to shrug.