Washington D.C., Mar 6, 2017 / 10:43 am
The Supreme Court will not hear the case of a transgender student's demand to access public school single-sex bathrooms, instead sending it back to the lower courts for reconsideration.
Announced Monday, the decision to send the case back to a lower court was based on the Trump administration's recent announcement that it was withdrawing the Obama-era guidance which had stated that students should have access to the facilities of their self-perceived gender identification.
"The first duty of school districts is to protect the bodily privacy rights of all of the students who attend their schools and to respect the rights of parents who understandably don't want their children exposed in intimate changing areas like locker rooms and showers," Kerri Kupec, legal counsel for the group Alliance Defending Freedom, stated in response to the Court's decision.
The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled last April that Gavin Grimm, a transgender student in Virginia's Gloucester County School District, must be allowed access to public school single-sex male facilities. Grimm was born a girl but currently identifies as a boy, receiving hormone therapy and a name change.