US Supreme Court upholds transgender student’s right to use bathroom of choice

The US Supreme Court on Monday passed a decision to allow a transgender student to use the bathroom according to his gender identity. This is amid fears from the LGBTQ community that the top court would reverse a lower court decision. 

The Title IX case of Gavin Grim, a transgender high school student, started when he challenged his Virginia local school board’s order about using the restroom designated for his gender assigned at birth or a unisex one.

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“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 was quoted as saying by CNN on Monday.

The court upheld the opinion given by the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The order means that public school students in the areas under the jurisdiction of the 4th Circuit, as well as those governed by the 7th and the 11th Circuit, can use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. 

The case was filed as a Title IX violation in 2015 but the Supreme court wiped away the decision of the 4th circuit court as the subsequent Trump administration withdrew the Obama-era guidance.

A federal judge in Virginia ruled in favour of Grimm in 2019, saying that the board violated the student’s constitutional rights. 

The transgender bathroom debate is nothing new and has long been a bone of contention between conservatives and liberals and the 2020 Republican National Convention saw it being brought to the forefront by the Reverend Billy Graham’s granddaughter Cissie Graham Lynch. “Democrats pressured schools to allow boys to compete in girls’ sports and use girls’ locker rooms,” she said, according to CNN.

 25+ states in the country have some or the other bill or law that aim to curb the rights of transgender people.