Supreme Court to Hear Transgender-Rights Case
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday said it would take up a case involving the hot button issue of transgender rights, a surprising move given the court’s usual go-slow approach on controversial questions.
A school district in rural Virginia is urging the justices to rule that it cannot be ordered to let transgender students use bathrooms that match their gender identities.
The court’s decision will also affect the legal battle over transgender rights in North Carolina, where the state’s economy is suffering from boycotts in response to the bathroom law it adopted in March.
The school board in Gloucester County, on the Chesapeake Bay, is appealing a court order involving a high school senior, Gavin Grimm. Grimm was born female but began to identify as male after his freshman year. He legally changed his name and began hormone therapy.
The principal gave him permission to use the boys’ bathroom, but the school board adopted a policy saying restrooms were “limited to the corresponding biological genders.” Grimm and other transgender students were to be provided single-occupant restrooms, it said.
Grimm sued, claiming that the arrangement made him feel stigmatized and isolated, and a federal court ruled in his favor.
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