RICHMOND, Va. (BP) – A federal appellate court has “for the first time ever” held that a public high school may not provide separate restrooms and locker rooms for students on the basis of biological sex alone, according to dissenting judge’s opinion.
The fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., threw out a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit by a transgender student claiming the Gloucester County, Va., school board discriminated against her by not allowing her to use the boys’ restroom after she announced a supposed transition to being male. Title IX of the federal Education Amendments Act of 1972, the ruling stated, requires that schools receiving government funds prohibit gender-identity discrimination.
Rodney Autry, a Gloucester County pastor who joined an amicus brief supporting the school board, told Baptist Press the ruling could prove to be a “landmark decision.”
“This is a complete removal of time-honored precedent,” said Autry, pastor of Union Baptist Church in Hayes, Va. “… This is a rather sweeping kind of change in a short period of time,” he said, noting “just how short a period of time it’s been since this snowball began.”
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, classified the ruling as fruit of the sexual revolution.
“Separating men and women in restrooms isn’t discrimination,” Moore told BP in written comments. “It’s common sense policy that protects the vulnerable. Treating transgender students with respect doesn’t require sexualizing school locker rooms and restrooms. The sexual revolution presents a false choice between sexual nihilism and discrimination, a dichotomy we have to reject for everyone’s sake.”
The student who filed the lawsuit – identified in court documents only as G.G. – underwent hormone therapy, legally changed her name to a male name and asked to be treated as a male before her sophomore year of high school in 2014. She was allowed to use the boys’ restroom for “about seven weeks” before parents of other students complained, according to the ruling.