Transgender teen in Virginia wins school bathroom appeal

A gender inclusive bathroom.
(Image credit: YouTube.com/wochitnews)

A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 in favor of a Virginia transgender teenager on Tuesday, saying he can sue the Gloucester County school board for discrimination after it banned him from using the boys' bathroom.

The court said a lower court should have deferred to the U.S. Education Department's position that transgender students should be able to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity rather than their biological sex, and doing anything else is a Title IX violation. Gavin Grimm, a high school junior, came out to classmates as trans and started using the boys' bathroom during his sophomore year, The Washington Post reports. Several weeks later, angry parents went to the school board, which went on to pass a policy that forces trans students to use bathrooms corresponding with their "biological gender;" later, Grimm was told to use a unisex bathroom.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.