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Judge Sides With Student in Virginia Transgender Bathroom Discrimination Case

“There is no question that the Board’s policy discriminates against transgender students on the basis of their gender nonconformity,” the judge wrote.

A federal judge ruled Friday that a Virginia school board’s transgender bathroom ban discriminated against a former student. The Gloucester County School Board’s policy required the student, Gavin Grimm, to use either the girl’s restrooms or private restrooms instead of the boy’s bathroom. U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen in Norfolk, Virginia, ruled that Grimm’s rights were violated by the policy under the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause and under Title IX. “There is no question that the Board’s policy discriminates against transgender students on the basis of their gender nonconformity,” Allen wrote. “Transgender students are singled out, subjected to discriminatory treatment, and excluded from spaces where similarly situated students are permitted to go.” The AP reports that the ruling could have a wider impact if the case goes to an appeals court, which oversees southern states like West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Grimm, 20, has been been fighting the case since the end of his sophomore year at Gloucester High School.