Supreme Court to Hear School Case on Transgender Bathroom Rules | Sojourners

Supreme Court to Hear School Case on Transgender Bathroom Rules

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Next year, the Supreme Court will decide whether the federal government can require that public schools allow transgender students use bathrooms that align with their gender identity, according to the Washington Post. Again, the Supreme Court — short one justice, following Antonin Scalia's death in February and Congress' failure to confirm a new justice — finds itself at the center of a deeply divided social issue across our country.

ACLU lawyer Joshua Block argued for 17-year-old Gavin Grimm, who was born female but identifies as male, saying to the court:

“In every aspect of life outside school, G. is recognized as a boy…At school, however, G. is singled out from every other student and forced to use separate restrooms because his school board has concluded that G.’s mere presence in a restroom used by other boys is unacceptable.”

Twenty-three states have challenged President Obama's administration's right to interpret Title IX's mandate, one which bans sex discrimination in public schools, to extend to transgender students' rights to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. 

Read more here.