Appeals court says transgender students have constitutional right to use bathroom of choice

An appeals court has ruled that the Constitution and federal law guarantee transgender students the right to use the bathroom of their choice, a decision that upholds earlier court decisions and could be headed to the Supreme Court. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, ruled Wednesday that "equal protection and Title IX can protect transgender students from school bathroom policies that prohibit them from affirming their gender."

The case concerns that of Gavin Grimm, a biological female who now identifies as a male. 

Grimm, while a high school student, sued the Virginia's Gloucester County School Board over policies compelling students to use the bathrooms corresponding to their sex rather than their internal sense of "gender." 

The court had previously ruled in favor of Grimm, in 2016. The case was set to be heard before the Supreme Court but was remanded to a lower court after the Trump administration repealed guidance on transgender students originally passed by the Obama administration. 

The district court subsequently ruled in favor of Grimm, with the appeals court once again upholding that ruling this week. 

"The proudest moments of the federal judiciary have been when we affirm the burgeoning values of our bright youth, rather than preserve the prejudices of the past," the court said in the majority opinion, adding: "It is time to move forward."

Dissenting Judge Paul Niemeyer said Grimm "failed to state a claim on which relief can be granted."

"[J]udicial reasoning must not become an outcome-driven enterprise prompted by feelings of sympathy and personal views of the best policy," Niemeyer wrote, arguing that the high school, in permitting Grimm to use a separate private restroom, "comported with what both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause require."