CIVIL RIGHTS
Four Years On, Trans Youth Gavin Grimm Prevails
Former Virginia high schooler vindicated in Title IX, equal protection claims
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD
After more than four years of litigation,
Gavin Grimm has fi nally won a
favorable ruling on the merits of his
transgender rights lawsuit against
the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia.
On August 9, US District Judge Arenda L.
Wright Allen granted Grimm’s motion for summary
judgment, fi nding that the school district
violated his rights under Title IX of the 1972
federal education law and the 14th Amendment’s
Equal Protection Clause by refusing to
let the transgender boy use the boys’ restroom
facilities when he was attending Gloucester
High School and by refusing to update his offi
cial school transcript to conform to the “male”
designation on his amended birth certifi cate.
In addition to awarding Grimm a symbolic
damage recovery of $1, the court ordered the
district to update Grimm’s offi cial records
and provide them to him by August 19. Judge
Wright Allen also ordered that the district pay
Grimm’s reasonable costs and attorneys’ fees in
an amount to be determined. Given the length
and complexity of this lawsuit, the fee award is
likely to be substantial.
Grimm began his freshman year at Gloucester
High School in 2013 listed as a girl, consistent
with his original birth certifi cate. In the
spring of his freshman year, Grimm told his
parents he was transgender and began therapy
with a psychologist experienced in trans issues,
who provided him a letter with a diagnosis
of gender dysphoria. In 2014, Grimm legally
changed his fi rst name to Gavin and began using
the men’s restrooms in public venues. Prior
to the start of his sophomore year, he and his
mother met with a school guidance counselor,
provided a copy of the psychologist’s diagnosis,
and requested that Grimm be treated as a boy
at school.
After initially being required to use the restroom
in the nurse’s offi ce, Grimm, telling school
offi cials of the inconvenience involved, received
permission from the principal — who had the
blessing of the district’s superintendent — to
use the boys’ bathroom. He did so for seven
weeks without incident.
When word of this became widespread, however,
some parents complained and after two
school board meetings, the board voted in December
2014 to adopt a formal policy that restroom
and locker room facilities would be “limited
to the corresponding biological genders,
and students with gender identity issues shall
be provided an alternative appropriate private
facility.”
Gavin Grimm, here speaking to WVEC, the ABC affi liate in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2017 during his senior year in high school.
Grimm was then given the option to resume
use of the nurse’s offi ce restroom until unisex
restrooms could be constructed. The facilities
eventually put in place were inconveniently located
and Grimm also found the requirement
that he use only them stigmatizing. Instead, he
tried to avoid urinating at school and developed
urinary tract infections, as well as suffering
psychological trauma.
In June 2015, Grimm received a state ID card
identifying him as a male from the Department
of Motor Vehicles, and in his junior year, when
he was briefl y hospitalized because of suicidal
thoughts, he was placed in the boys’ ward. He
had top surgery in June 2016 and that September
a court ordered that he be issued a
new birth certifi cate listing him as male. When
Grimm presented the new birth certifi cate to
the school, offi cials refused to update his records
to refl ect his male status.
Represented by the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU), Grimm fi led his lawsuit in
June 2015, in the federal district court in Norfolk.
Senior District Judge Robert G. Doumar
quickly granted the school district’s motion to
dismiss the Title IX claim and reserved judgment
on Grimm’s equal protection claim while
he appealed the Title IX dismissal. The Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Doumar, relying
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on an interpretation of Title IX endorsed
by the Obama administration’s Departments
of Education and Justice. With the case sent
back to Doumar, he issued a preliminary injunction
in June 2016, requiring the school to
let Grimm use the boys’ restrooms. The school
district, however, had the summer break to
forestall Grimm from using the boys’ restroom
in his senior year.
Though the Fourth Circuit refused to stay
its injunction while the school board appealed,
the Supreme Court in August 2016 granted a
stay to give it time to fi le a petition for review.
That essentially guaranteed that Grimm would
be barred from the boys’ bathroom through
his fi nal year at Gloucester High since the
high court did not schedule arguments in the
case until March 2017. When the new Trump
administration advised the high court that it
was withdrawing the trans-affi rming Obama
interpretation on Title IX, the oral arguments
were canceled and the case was sent back to
the Fourth Circuit, which in turn sent it back
to the district court.
By this time, Judge Doumar had retired,
so the case was assigned to Judge Wright Allen.
And Grimm had already graduated, so
➤ GAVIN GRIMM PREVAILS, continued on p.5
August 15 - August 28, 2 4 019 | GayCityNews.com
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