A federal appeals court has ruled in favour of a transgender male student in Virginia who challenged his school’s bathroom policy. The case could have major legal implications for the new North Carolina anti-LGBTI HB2 law that forces trans people to use the bathroom that matches the gender that they were assigned at birth. Gavin Grimm’s school has a bathroom policy that segregates trans students and requires them to use “alternative, private facilities”. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth District, which the school is in, determined that the federal law that bans discrimination on the basis of gender in public schools, also protects the rights of trans students to use sex segregated facilities that are consistent with their gender identity. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of North Carolina, and Lambda Legal said in a joint statement that the “Ruling makes plain that North Carolina’s House Bill 2 violates Title IX by discriminating against transgender students and forcing them to use the wrong restroom at school. “This mean-spirited law not only encourages discrimination and endangers transgender students – it puts at risk billions of dollars in federal funds that North Carolina receives for secondary and post-secondary schools.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 22nd April 2016 - 12:58pm