High court to weigh dispute over transgender restroom use

Justices take on issue despite vacancy

WASHINGTON — A short-handed Supreme Court on Friday entered the bathroom wars, as justices agreed to consider a transgender student’s access rights.

Taking on a volatile social issue, the high court agreed to hear a challenge from a Virginia school board that wants to limit which bathroom a transgender teenager can use. Potentially, this could become the new term’s blockbuster.

Gavin Grimm, the 17year-old high school student identified in court documents as “G.G.,” was born a biological female but identifies as a male and has been taking hormone therapy.

“I never thought that my restroom use would ever turn into any kind of national debate,” Gavin said in a statement Friday. “The only thing I ever asked for was the right to be treated like everyone else.”

The Supreme Court’s decision means the Gloucester County School Board and its conservative allies convinced at least four of the eight justices that their challenge deserved a full hearing.

The decision means as well that a nationwide standard could eventually guide political bodies that want to follow the Virginia school board’s lead in restricting transgender bathroom access. The Obama administration earlier this year told school districts that such restrictions put them in jeopardy of losing federal funding under Title IX of the federal Education Amendments Act of 1972, which requires equal treatment for male and female students.

“Events have left Missouri public schools in limbo as to the current state of the law,” a brief filed by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster stated, adding that “administrators must have definitive guidance as to what the law requires of them in order to maintain federal funding.”

The governors of North Carolina, where a state law governing transgender bathroom use has roiled the political scene all year, and Kentucky, as well as the attorneys general of 18 states had urged the Supreme Court to hear the Virginia case.

The court’s acceptance of the school board’s petition came despite the vacancy left by the February death of the late Justice Antonin Scalia and the refusal of Senate Republicans to consider a replacement.

To fill Justice Scalia’s seat, President Barack Obama in March nominated Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Until Friday, the justices had appeared to be avoiding incendiary issues while they await Justice Scalia’s replacement.