Another Take On A Big Win!

This time in Trump’s backyard, Virginia.

This is another step forward, by finding that Title IX also applies to us, the judge joins a growing number of courts that are going against the Attorney General position that Title IX does not apply to us.

The ruling was on Gavin Grimm's lawsuit against the Gloucester County School Board, and now the case can move forward…

A Judge Just Ruled For A Transgender Student In A Major Case
The decision reanimates the nation’s most prominent case over transgender student restroom rights.
Buzzfeed
By Dominic Holden
May 22, 2018

A transgender teenager in Virginia who rose to national attention with a case that briefly reached the Supreme Court has gotten another chance to beat his high school in court.

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Gavin Grimm's lawsuit against the Gloucester County School Board could proceed — and signaled that his claims likely will succeed.

The decision puts the nation’s most prominent case over transgender student restroom rights back in the spotlight, while demonstrating — along with a handful of other cases — that transgender students can challenge their schools despite opposition from the Trump administration.

Judge Arenda Wright Allen’s decision found that Grimm had raised valid claims under the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

And get a load of what the judge said,

“After full consideration of the facts presented and the compelling scope of relevant legal analyses, the Court concludes that Mr. Grimm has sufficiently pled a Title IX claim of sex discrimination under a gender stereotyping theory,” Wright Allen found in a 31-page opinion, ordering the parties to arrange a settlement conference.

And her justification allowing the case to go forward was,

She cited Supreme Court cases from the 1980s and ’90s on sex stereotyping, and also noted that, since Grimm’s case began, both district and appeals courts have held that public schools must give transgender students access to facilities that match their gender identity.

The case she used a precedent was the Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins 1989 Supreme Court ruling.

This is not the end, the case has to be heard, this ruling was just on whether the case can proceed to trial. The judge urge them to settle out of court but my guess that they will not and this case will go to the Supreme Court.

The ACLU said that  plaintiff Gavin Grimm said,

“I feel an incredible sense of relief. After fighting this policy since I was 15 years old, I finally have a court decision saying that what the Gloucester County School Board did to me was wrong and it was against the law. I was determined not to give up because I didn’t want any other student to have to suffer the same experience that I had to go through.”

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I find all these headlines are terribly misleading on this case, it sounds like in many of the articles that the judge ruled the actual case but if you dig deep enough you see that it was just a ruling on the merits of the case. ThinkProgrss wrote…

Allen’s decision denied the school’s request for a dismissal and directed the parties to schedule a settlement conference. While it’s possible the school will consider settling the case, as the Wisconsin school did in a similar case, it has shown no interest in doing so before. The Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ hate group, is representing the district and may continue the fight all the way back to the Supreme Court, where it is currently representing Jack Phillips, the baker who refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple.

So to me it sounds like the case will now continue if the school district doesn't want to settle out of court.

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Today is another outreach, this time I am on a panel at a local Catholic hospital.

Yesterday's presentation was great! A lot of compliments after the talk and also I talked to an administrator at an assisted living facility who are getting their first trans resident and she wants training for her staff.