Sunday, October 30, 2016
SCOTUS TO HEAR N.C. TRANSGENDER CASE
In what should prove to be a much watched and written about case, the Supreme Court accepted for hearing the North Carolina case Gloucester County School Board v. GG. Gloucester was discussed earlier on this blog, when the case first appeared on the Supreme Court docket requesting a stay of implementation of the N.C. law that would have permitted high school students to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. We reported that Justice Breyer wrote at that time that his vote for a stay was a "courtesy". Befuddled at the time, it appears that we may discover the meaning of this "courtesy". The case involves, in part, a Department of Education's interpretation of Title IX that funding recipients must provide separate facilities and treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity.
This case will be significant in the LGBT journey to assign sexual identity suspect classification status.
In the meantime, an Illinois Federal court decided that Title IX protects transgender students in using locker and bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity. Of significance is the Judge's finding that "High school students do not have a constitutional right not to share restrooms or locker rooms with transgender students whose sex assigned at birth is different than theirs". This language may be important to SCOTUS' decision if constitutional claims are made.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/human_rights/2016/10/scotus-to-hear-nc-transgender-case-.html