Supreme Court Won’t Hear Major Case on Transgender Rights -
By ADAM LIPTAKMARCH 6, 2017
WASHINGTON — Prompted by the Trump administration’s reversal of the federal government’s position on transgender rights, the Supreme Court announced on Monday
that it would not decide whether a transgender boy in Virginia could use the boys’ bathroom at his high school.
A 1975 regulation adopted under Title IX allowed schools to provide “separate toilet, locker rooms and shower facilities on the basis of sex.” The Fourth Circuit said
that the rule was ambiguous and that the Education Department’s interpretation of it was entitled to “controlling weight.”
Both sides had hoped the Supreme Court would decide the case, Gloucester County School Board v.
16-273, even after the Trump administration withdrew its guidance on the meaning of the regulation.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Mr. Grimm, told the justices
that requiring Mr. Grimm to use a private bathroom had been humiliating and had, quoting him, “turned him into ‘a public spectacle’ before the entire community, ‘like a walking freak show.’”
After Mr. Grimm challenged the school board’s bathroom policy in court in 2015, a divided Fourth Circuit panel ruled the policy unlawful.
