A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va. declined to reconsider a high profile ruling it made in favor of a transgender student.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that it would not rehear a case brought by Gavin Grimm. A 16-year-old transgender boy, Grimm was granted the right by the court to sue his local school board for attempting to keep him out of the boys’ bathroom.
Grimm was born female but came out as a transgender male in high school. He was allowed to use the boys’ bathroom for weeks, until some parents objected. In response, the Gloucester County school board imposed bathroom policies forcing transgender students to use a “separate, unisex bathroom,” as The Washington Post had noted.
“Now that the Fourth Circuit’s decision is final, I hope my school board will finally do the right thing and let me go back to using the boys’ restroom again,” Grimm said on Tuesday. “Transgender kids should not have to sue their own school boards just for the ability to use the same restrooms as everyone else.”
The Fourth Circuit had sided with Grimm in April, but the school board challenged the decision by requesting an en banc hearing.
The French term refers to a legal procedure litigated before all judges on a court. Typically, three judges preside over cases on federal appellate circuits. En banc hearings are sometimes granted by a federal appeals court if the case “involves a question of exceptional importance.”
Judge Paul Niemeyer, in dissent, said Tuesday that “the issue deserves an open road to the Supreme Court.”
Relying heavily on social conservative mores, Niemeyer claimed that “virtually every civilization’s norms on this issue stand in protest.” He also wrote that “forcing a person of one biological sex to be exposed to persons of the opposite biological sex profoundly offends” the right to “bodily privacy.”
Appointed in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, Niemeyer penned a similar dissent after the Fourth Circuit first ruled in favor of Grimm.
Last month, the Obama administration issued a guidance warning schools that they cannot force students to use a bathroom assigned to a gender they do not identify with, citing Title IX civil rights rules on federal education funding. Eleven states sued the administration in response, charging the guidance was disruptive and without “basis in law.”
The Fourth Circuit’s multiple rulings in favor of Grimm, however, bring that claim into disrepute.
They also could impact another high profile legal battle between the Obama administration and anti-transgender policymakers on the state level.
Citing federal civil rights statutes, the Justice Department last month sued North Carolina for enacting a law to prevent transgender people from using bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity. The state is located within the Fourth Circuit, which stretches from South Carolina to Maryland.
