A federal appeals court handed a victory to transgender student Gavin Grimm in the four year battle against the Gloucester County School Board which made its way to SCOTUS before that court handed it back to the lower courts without considering it.
On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia denied the school board's motion to dismiss the case.
The U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia has denied the school board's motion to dismiss the case of Gavin Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board and held that Title IX and the Constitution protect transgender students from being excluded from the common restrooms that align with their gender identity. The court directed the parties to schedule a settlement conference within 30 days.
“I feel an incredible sense of relief,” said our client Gavin Grimm. “After fighting this policy since I was 15 years old, I finally have a court decision saying that what the Gloucester County School Board did to me was wrong and it was against the law. I was determined not to give up because I didn't want any other student to have to suffer the same experience that I had to go through.”
ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga issued the following statement on today's win: “The district court has upheld what Gavin argued all along, that trans students deserve the same protections under Title IX as any other student and can't be stigmatized and ostracized just because of who they are.”
Wrote Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen: “There were many other ways to protect privacy interests in a nondiscriminatory and more effective manner than barring Mr. Grimm from using the boys' restrooms. The Board's argument that the policy did not discriminate against any one class of students is resoundingly unpersuasive.”
