Transgender school bathroom case left for Supreme Court to decide

Rating: Transsupportive, IndyStar, August 3, 2023 (PDF archive) (HTML archive) (Video archive) (Take Action)

Content Summary

A federal court has upheld that three transgender students at two Indiana schools must have access to the bathrooms and locker rooms for their expressed gender identities.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday affirmed lower courts’ rulings that transgender students should be able to use those facilities. The judges who upheld the case said they’re waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and will therefore not revisit their decision.

“Litigation over transgender rights is occurring all over the country, and we assume that at some point the Supreme Court will step in with more guidance than it has furnished so far,” the judges wrote.

The lawsuits filed in December 2021 alleged Vigo County School Corporation and the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville did not provide several transgender students with access to the bathrooms reflective of their gender identity.

In Martinsville, a student at John R. Wooden Middle School was forced to use the girls’ bathroom or a unisex bathroom in the school’s health clinic, according to the complaint filed on behalf of the family by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

What happened in 2021: Lawsuit: Indiana school won’t let trans 7th-grader use boys’ bathroom, play soccer

According to the lawsuit, the school threatened to discipline the student, referred to as A.C. in court documents because he’s a minor, if he continued to use the boys’ bathrooms.

Following a 2022 preliminary injunction by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville was required to allow A.C., then a seventh grader, to use the boys’ bathrooms.

In a release after the injunction, Steve Pactor, an attorney for the ACLU of Indiana, said denying transgender students access to their bathroom is discrimination.

“We hope that public schools and legislators will take notice and forgo future challenges by providing equal treatment to all students,” Pactor said in the release.

The lawsuit also alleges that school staff and administrators regularly misused the boy’s pronouns.

The boy felt “isolated and punished” by the school, which impacted his academic performance, according to the complaint.

Vigo County Schools’ case was similar as two transgender boys from Terre Haute who socially transitioned at 11 were reprimanded by school administrators for using boys’ bathrooms during the 2021-22 school year.

The boys’ mother requested that they be allowed to change before and after gym class in the boys’ locker rooms. The school denied their request, according to the lawsuit.

The opinion requires both school districts to allow plaintiffs in the lawsuit to use their preferred bathrooms as the litigation continues.

Earlier this year, Indiana lawmakers passed two bills viewed as anti-transgender, one prohibiting gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors by the end of this year and the other, which has already taken effect, requiring parental notification for students who wish to change their pronouns.

IndyStar archives contributed to this report.

Contact the reporter at rfradette@gannett.com.

Action recommendation(s)

Donate to ACLU of Indiana for transgender discrimination legal cases.
Research school administrator names and contact information for Vigo County Schools and for Terre Haute to start letter writing campaign. (Let us know and we’ll post the campaign here and elsewhere on this website.)
Research/support/establish local Queer-Straight Alliance (QSA aka GSA) and Parents and Friends of Queers (PFQ aka PFLAG) chapters.

Gender Menace – Expanding Gender Identities Everywhere

Transgender school bathroom case left for Supreme Court to decide

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