NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY/AP) — Attorneys have finished arguments in Norfolk Federal Court over whether a Virginia school board’s bathroom policy discriminates against transgender students.
Gavin Grimm, a young man who has become a national face for transgender student rights, returned to a courtroom Tuesday to challenge his former high school’s bathroom policy.
“It is a shame that I have to stand here and defend my basic humanity and the rights that I’m afforded as a result of being me,” said Grimm in a press conference shortly after Tuesday’s summary hearing.
In court, Grimm argued that having identified as a boy, he found using a single stall bathroom to be humiliating.
On the other hand, the school says as long as you have certain genitalia, you have to use the restroom prescribed to that genitalia, unless you get gender reassignment surgery. The school says this is to protect the privacy of non-trans people.
“Trans people have such a higher standard when it comes to being accepted for who they are and often times certain surgical measures are required. Unfortunately in and of themselves they’re discriminatory because not all trans people have access to those resources,” rebutted Grimm in the presser.
U.S. District Court Judge Arenda Wright Allen didn’t rule from the bench Tuesday.
Grimm’s ACLU Sr. Attorney Josh Block says it could take between 2 and 12 weeks for a ruling.
“The actual ruling will just apply to Gavin, but I think other schools will look to the decision as precedent,” said Block.
Once the judge rules either way, there is an opportunity for appeal. If the ruling does not come back in their favor, Block says he will appeal.
If that’s the case, it would then go up to the Supreme Court.
Grimm graduated in 2017 and is now 20, but his case remains just as unsettled as the national debate over transgender student rights. He transitioned from girl to boy before his sophomore year and sued after the Gloucester County School Board banned him from using boys’ bathrooms.
A federal judge in Norfolk is considering whether the school board violated Grimm’s rights when it banned him from using boys’ bathrooms.
The hearing is the latest step in a years long legal battle that has come to embody the debate over transgender student rights, an issue that is far from settled in the nation’s schools. Grimm, now 20, filed his lawsuit in 2015.
Grimm and the American Civil Liberties Union say the school board violated his rights under the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause as well as under Title IX, the federal policy that protects against gender-based discrimination.
The school board said it is protecting students’ privacy and has discriminated against no one.
School systems have fallen on either side of this debate, leaving a patchwork of policies across the country.
“Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times for transgender students really can depend on where you live and who your principal is,” said Harper Jean Tobin, policy director for the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Tobin said Grimm’s case will likely join the “steady drum beat” of recent court rulings favoring transgender students in states including Maryland , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin .
But Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the conservative Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom, said the overall issue is far from resolved.
McCaleb cited a federal discrimination complaint the ADF filed in June that says a Connecticut policy on transgender athletes is unfair because it allows transgender girls to consistently win track and field events. He also said a pending U.S. Supreme Court case involving a transgender woman who was fired by a Michigan funeral home could impact school bathroom policies.
McCaleb said that “no student’s right to privacy should be contingent on other students’ beliefs about their gender.”
The ACLU says Grimm’s mother notified school administrators that as a result of his medical treatment for gender dysphoria, he had transitioned to a boy at the start of his sophomore year at Gloucester High School, which is about 60 miles (95 kilometers) east of Richmond and near the Chesapeake Bay.
He was initially allowed to use the boys’ restroom. But after some parents complained, students were told their use of restrooms and locker rooms “shall be limited to the corresponding biological genders” or a private restroom.
A federal judge sided with the school board. But the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Grimm’s favor, citing a directive issued by the administration of President Barack Obama that said students can choose bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
Grimm drew more international attention when the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled a hearing for his case, but it was cancelled after the Trump Administration rescinded the Obama-era directive on bathrooms.
Grimm graduated in 2017 and moved to California, where he’s worked as an activist and educator and studied at a community college. But his case has continued in the lower courts.
In February, the school board appeared to consider settling the case and proposed ending its bathroom policy. But many residents spoke out against the suggested change. The board did not take a vote on it.