The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a Virginia school board’s appeal to reinstate its transgender bathroom ban, leaving in place a lower court ruling which found the move unconstitutional.
The court declined the case without comment, handing former high school student Gavin Grimm a victory in a years-long legal battle against the Gloucester County, Virginia, school board.
Grimm, a trans student, filed a federal lawsuit in 2015 after he was told he could not use the boys’ bathroom at his public high school.
The school board’s policy required Grimm to use restrooms that corresponded with his biological sex – female – or private bathrooms. In a 2-1 ruling last August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit found that the policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as well as Title IX, which bans discrimination on the basis of sex.
“I am glad that my years-long fight to have my school see me for who I am is over,” Grimm said in a statement. “Being forced to use the nurse’s room, a private bathroom, and the girl’s room was humiliating for me, and having to go to out-of-the-way bathrooms severely interfered with my education.”
“Trans youth deserve to use the bathroom in peace without being humiliated and stigmatized by their own school boards and elected officials,” Grimm added.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas voted to take up the case.
