US Supreme Court rejects case against bathroom access for transgender students

The US Supreme Court on December 7 brushed aside a lawsuit aimed at barring transgender students from bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. While the High Court had decided not to hear the case, aimed at ending an Oregon school district’s policy, the Supreme Court’s rejection of the appeal, on the other hand, is a win for civil rights groups, who believed that the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett would threaten LGBTQ equality. The nation’s highest court did not give any explanation as to why it declined to hear the argument of the parents contesting the policy, particularly on the grounds of religious arguments or the right to privacy. 

According to NBC News, Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice with the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project, said that the Supreme Court has once again said that “transgender youth are not a threat to other students”. The case had originated in Dallas, Oregon in 2017. Parents of high schoolers sued over the Dallas School District’s policy of allowing a transgender male student use the boy’s locker room and bathroom. Back then, a lawyer for the parent had indicated that cisgender boys would be embarrassed and ashamed to change in the same room as someone who was assigned female at birth. 

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In 2018, a lower court had then refused to block the district’s policy. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had also dismissed the lawsuit after it found the district’s plan sought to avoid discrimination and ensure the safety and well-being of transgender students. The court said that there is no 14th Amendment fundamental privacy right to avoid all risk of intimate exposure to or by a transgender person who was assigned the opposite biological sex at birth.  The court found that denying transgender students the ability to use the same facilities as other students would amount to illegal discrimination. 

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LGBTQ advocates praise SC’s decision 

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, several LGBTQ advocates praised the decision to reject the appeal. They hailed it as an “excellent news” and said that trans students deserve an educational environment that is safe, supportive and free from discrimination.

In a statement, Santiago had also said that the decision not take this case is an important and powerful message to trans and non-binary youth that they deserve to share space with and enjoy the benefits of the school alongside their non-transgender peers. 

Meanwhile, it is worth noting that President Barack Obama’s administration had issued landmark guidance in 2016 requiring public schools to let students use the bathrooms and locker rooms matching the gender with which they identify, rather than the one on their birth certificate. However, President Donald Trump’s administration overturned those rules in 2018, leaving the decision to local jurisdiction. Since then, while some conservative states passed laws forcing students to use the bathrooms corresponding with their birth sex, others, on the other hand, adopted the previous administration’s stance, including the Dallas school district in the state of Oregon. 

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