Dive Brief:
- The Supreme Court has put a lower court’s ruling on transgender bathroom rights on hold, allowing a Virginia school to block a teen from using boys’ bathrooms, in accordance with his gender identity rather than biological sex.
- ABC News reports the 5-3 decision, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayer and Elena Kagan dissenting, merely offers a hold until the Supreme Court decides whether to intervene in the Gloucester County School Board’s case.
- The lower court said the school had to accommodate Gavin Grimm’s desire to use the boys’ bathroom in accordance with a U.S. Department of Education rule about Title IX’s application to transgender student rights.
Dive Insight:
States have been in an uproar over the Department of Education’s guidance relating to transgender student bathroom use as a Title IX issue. Nearly half the states are suing the department over the rule, saying it goes outside the scope of the anti-gender discrimination law.
In North Carolina, state legislation requires schools to limit individuals to bathrooms that correspond to their biological gender. The federal government has said that law violates Title IX and some districts and public universities in the state have refused to enforce it. Grimm’s case, however, could be the one that prompts a Supreme Court decision on the matter.