What Me Worry?

As Alfred E. Neuman would have said regarding when courts get involved you never know what the outcome will be, a lot of times the verdict is based on the judge’s bias.

Federal law dooms transgender bathroom bans: Column
Punitive laws in North Carolina and other states defy logic, economics and federal protections.
USA Today
By Jillian T. Weiss
April 13, 2016

North Carolina recently became the first U.S. state to mandate discrimination against transgender people by statute, banning them from using bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity in government buildings and schools. The new law also guts protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Charlotte and nine other municipalities.
[…]
What makes state laws like these even more irrational is that transgender people are currently protected by federal law. They are protected in their use of gender-conforming bathrooms in schools by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The Occupational Safety and Health Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have been interpreted to cover gender-appropriate restrooms in the workplace. There are constitutional provisions requiring equal protection of the law and a due process right to privacy that apply to state laws restricting access to public accommodations. And the Affordable Care Act protects people in medical facilities.

But these rulings are only based on court’s interpreting what a law says and on previous rulings. None of the laws specifically say gender identity but instead specify sex discrimination instead the courts have said that sex discrimination also includes gender identity.

So many federal courts have specifically held that federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination also include sex discrimination against transgender people that such protections should be considered a given. For example, just this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, covering Georgia, Florida and Alabama, ruled in favor of my client Jennifer Chavez, reiterating that sex discrimination includes discrimination against a transgender person for gender non-conformity.

Washington Post reported on a case in Virginia that has been heard by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, the lower court rejected the claim that Title IX covers gender identity.

Judge denies transgender student’s request to use boys’ bathroom
By Julie Zauzmer
September 4, 2015

A federal judge has denied a transgender teenager’s request to allow him to use the same bathroom as his peers at his public school in Virginia.

Instead, the judge ruled Friday, the teenager must continue using a separate, private bathroom that he has said makes him feel “singled out and humiliated.”
[…]
But on Friday, Judge Robert G. Doumar of the Eastern District of Virginia denied Grimm’s request for a preliminary injunction, which would have allowed him to use the boys’ bathroom upon returning to school.

Judge Robert G. Doumar was appointed by President Reagan for his support of the Republican party, so when you leave it to the courts it can be a crapshoot and many times it boils down to the judges bias.