Tag Archives: transgender

Transgender student asks U.S. high court to keep out of bathroom case

A sign protesting a recent North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access in Durham, North Carolina

By David Ingram

(Reuters) – Lawyers for a transgender high school student in Virginia asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to keep out of a legal dispute about bathroom rights, an issue that has emerged as an increasingly divisive one in the United States.

In court papers, lawyers for the student, Gavin Grimm, urged the Supreme Court to leave in place a lower court’s order in favor of Grimm while the litigation goes on.

The case is the first time the fight over transgender bathroom rights has reached the Supreme Court.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued on behalf of Grimm to challenge the Gloucester County School Board’s bathroom policy, which requires transgender students to use alternative restroom facilities.

Grimm, 17, was born a girl but now identifies as male.

A federal district court in June ordered the school board to allow Grimm to use the boys’ restroom for now, and this month the school board asked the Supreme Court for an emergency stay of that order.

Seeking to keep the order in place, ACLU lawyers wrote that no “irreparable harm” will occur if the Supreme Court keeps out of the case and Grimm uses the boys’ bathroom.

“In every context outside school, he uses the boys’ restrooms, just like any other boy would,” they wrote.

The school board’s application for a stay was directed to Chief Justice John Roberts, who has responsibility for emergency actions that arise from the appeals court that covers Virginia. Roberts could act alone or refer the matter to all eight justices. Five votes are needed to grant a stay application.

In court papers this month, the school board’s lawyers said the lower court wrongly deferred to President Barack Obama’s administration’s view that prohibitions on sex discrimination under federal law also apply to gender identity.

In May, the Obama administration directed public schools nationwide to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity or risk losing federal funding. So far, 23 states have sued to block the directive.

Separately, the Justice Department sued North Carolina over a state law requiring people to use public bathrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates.

An April ruling by the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of Grimm was the first by an appeals court to find that transgender students are protected under federal laws that bar sex-based discrimination.

(Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington)

Thirteen U.S. States ask court to halt transgender bathroom policy

A sign protesting a recent North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access is seen in the bathroom stalls at the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham, North Carolina

By Julia Harte

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Thirteen states that have sued the Obama administration over its policy on transgender access to bathrooms asked a federal court in Texas on Wednesday to prevent the administration from enforcing the policy while their lawsuit proceeds.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the motion in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on behalf of the state coalition.

“Schools are facing the potential loss of funding for simply exercising the authority to implement the policies that best protect their students,” Paxton said in a statement on Wednesday.

The 13-state coalition’s lawsuit is one of several state-based challenges to the federal government’s May directive that public schools must allow transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity or face the loss of federal funding.

The issue has thrown transgender rights into the national spotlight and enraged social conservatives who say federal civil rights protections encompass biological sex, not gender identity.

A Justice Department official told the states’ lawyers that the department opposed the motion, but agreed to respond to it faster than usual so that the matter could be resolved before the start of the 2016-17 school year, according to the injunction motion.

The Justice Department declined to comment, “due to pending litigation.” It must respond to the injunction request by July 27, according to the motion.

The lawsuit is expected to be heard by conservative judges at the district and appeals court levels, and could end up heading to the U.S. Supreme Court if the appeals court rules against the Obama administration.

The Justice Department is also battling North Carolina in federal court over a North Carolina state law approved in March that prohibits people from using public restrooms not corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates.

The Justice Department asked the court in that case to enjoin the North Carolina law late on Tuesday.

In June, a Virginia school board announced that it would seek Supreme Court review of a court ruling that gave a transgender high-school student access to the bathroom of his gender identity.

(Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Judge blocks Mississippi law allowing denial of services to LGBT people

Rainbow flag flying next to rainbow in the sky

(Reuters) – A day before it was due to come into effect, a federal judge has blocked a Mississippi law permitting those with religious objections to deny wedding services to same-sex couples and impose dress and bathroom restrictions on transgender people.

Mississippi is among a handful of southern U.S. states on the front lines of legal battles over equality, privacy and religious freedom after the U.S. Supreme Court last year legalized same-sex marriage.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves found on Thursday the wide-ranging law adopted this spring unconstitutionally discriminated against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and others who do not share the view that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Reeves issued an injunction blocking the law that was to take effect on Friday.

He agreed with opponents of the law who argued that it violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on making laws that establish religion.

Mississippi’s “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act” shields those believing that marriage involves a man and a woman, and sexual relations should occur within such marriages. It protects the belief that gender is defined by sex at birth.

The law allows people to refuse to provide wide-ranging services by citing the religious grounds, from baking a wedding cake for a same-sex couple to counseling and fertility services. It would also permit dress code and bathroom restrictions to be imposed on transgender people.

The law “does not honor that tradition of religion freedom, nor does it respect the equal dignity of all of Mississippi’s citizens,” Reeves wrote in his decision.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, a Republican, in April signed the measure into law. The state has defended it as a reasonable accommodation intended to protect businesses and individuals seeking to exercise their religious views.

His staff was unavailable for comment early on Friday.

Critics say the Mississippi law is so broad that it could apply to nearly anyone in a sexual relationship outside of heterosexual marriage, including single mothers. Several lawsuits have challenged various aspects of the law.

Earlier this week, Reeves addressed a provision allowing clerks to recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples based on religious beliefs, saying they had to fulfill their duties under the Supreme Court ruling.

His ruling on Thursday came after religious leaders, including an Episcopal vicar and a Jewish rabbi, last week testified in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi that the law did not reflect their religious views. He also heard about its harmful potential from members of the gay community.

“I am grateful that the court has blocked this divisive law. As a member of the LGBT community and as minister of the Gospel, I am thankful that justice prevailed,” said Rev. Susan Hrostowski, an Episcopal priest who is a plaintiff in the case.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Toby Chopra)

College dorms, new front in U.S. Battle over transgender rights

A gender neutral bathroom is seen at the University of California Irvine

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) – As lawmakers across the United States battle over whether to allow transgender Americans to use public restrooms that match their gender identities, universities are scrambling to ensure that dorms meet federal standards.

At a time of year when the nation’s 2,100 residential colleges and universities are sorting out student housing assignments, they also are poring over a May letter from the Obama administration that thrusts them into the national debate on transgender rights.

Known as the “dear colleague” letter, it makes clear that federal law protects transgender students’ right to live in housing that reflects their gender identity.

Schools that fail to provide adequate housing to transgender students could face lawsuits or the loss of any federal funding they rely on.

Although hundreds of universities had begun to offer gender-inclusive housing in response to student demand in recent years, many are now reviewing or expediting their plans so they can provide the option to incoming students for the first time this fall.

The policies are intended not only to accommodate transgender students, university officials say, but to help siblings, gay students who want to live with straight friends of the opposite gender or simply groups comfortable with mixed-gender housing.

The May letter from the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice invoked Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting gender discrimination at schools that receive federal funds.

“Title IX and the ‘dear colleague’ letters make all of us, all institutions, more accountable for students who may be on the margins,” said Darryl Holloman, dean of students at Georgia State University, which offered gender-inclusive housing options for the first time in the 2015-2016 academic year.

‘ONLY A MATTER OF TIME’

There are no official U.S. statistics on the number of colleges that offer gender-inclusive housing, although a count by Campus Pride, a non-profit that focuses on supporting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students in U.S. higher education, found it could be as low as one in 10.

The author of that study, Genny Beemyn, director of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Stonewall Center, acknowledged the count, which shows just 203 universities, may underestimate the number of schools that offer gender-inclusive housing.

“More and more schools are grappling with it,” Beemyn said. “It’s only a matter of time until this becomes a much bigger issue.”

Universities in the Northeast and along the West Coast have been quickest to allow gender-inclusive housing, with those in the South and religiously affiliated schools least likely to do so, according to observers, including Demoya Gordon, transgender rights project attorney with Lambda Legal, an LGBT rights advocacy group.

The Association of College and University Housing Officers-International has seen an increase in the number of questions it gets about transgender housing, said spokesman James Baumann.

“It is certainly something that has gained momentum,” Baumann said. “When I first started 10 years ago the questions was, ‘Should we?’ And now the question is, ‘How can we?'”

The same letter that has universities examining their transgender housing policies sparked a broader fight by telling U.S. public grammar and high schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that reflect their gender identities.

Thirteen U.S. states joined a lawsuit accusing the Obama administration of overreaching, attempting to add transgender protections to a 1972 law that never mentioned the subject.

LESS OPPOSITION

The university moves have been less controversial in part because the population affected is one of the segments of society most comfortable with transgender issues.

Some 57 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds told a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken April 14 through May 3 that they believed people should use public restrooms that match the gender with which they identify. That is a far higher percentage than the 40 percent of Americans of all ages who held that view. The poll included responses from 6,723 people and has a credibility interval of 1.4 percentage points.

Few students are choosing gender-inclusive housing. At Georgia Tech’s Atlanta campus, 42 out of some 4,100 students housed in dorms sought it last year.

When Johns Hopkins University first offered it in the 2014-2015 academic year, 30 out of some 2,500 students enrolled, a number that doubled to 60 the following year.

“There are certainly some transgender students for whom it matters a lot but if it’s a gay man whose best friend is a lesbian and they decide they want to live together, this is an option,” said Demere Woolway, director of LGBTQ life at the Baltimore university.

College officials interviewed also emphasized they have no plans to phase out traditional gender-segregated housing.

“We have students … who want to maintain spaces where they are with people who have the same gender identity,” said Elizabeth Lee Agosto, senior associate dean of student affairs at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, which has offered gender-inclusive housing since 2007. “It’s important to have the full spectrum.”

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Bill Trott)

U.S. to schools: Give transgender students bathroom rights

A gender-neutral bathroom is seen at the University of California, Irvine in Irvine, California September 30, 2014.

By Megan Cassella

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration told U.S. public school districts across the country on Friday to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity, rather than their gender at birth.

The new guidance comes as the Justice Department and North Carolina battle in federal court over a state law passed in March that prohibits people from using public restrooms not corresponding to their biological sex.

Officials from the Education and Justice departments told schools that while the new guidance does not carry legal weight, they are obligated not to discriminate against students, including based on their gender identity.

“Our guidance sends a clear message to transgender students across the country: here in America, you are safe, you are protected and you belong – just as you are,” Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement accompanying the letter sent to school districts nationwide.

The guidance contains an implicit threat that those not abiding by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid.

As a condition of receiving federal funds, the letter said, a school agrees that it will not treat any person in its educational programs or activities differently on the basis of sex.

It added that the administration’s interpretation of existing regulations means that a school cannot treat a transgender student differently from other students of the same gender identity.

The issue of access to bathrooms by transgender people flared into a national controversy after North Carolina passed a law in March that made it the first state in the country to ban people from using multiple occupancy restrooms or changing rooms in public buildings and schools that do not match the sex on their birth certificate.

The U.S. Justice Department this week asked a federal district court in North Carolina to declare that the state is violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act and order it to stop enforcing the ban.

North Carolina’s Republican governor, Pat McCrory, and the state’s secretary of public safety sued the agency in a different federal court in North Carolina, accusing it of “baseless and blatant overreach.”

(Reporting by Megan Cassella and Susan Heavey; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Frances Kerry)

North Carolina officials sue U.S. Justice Department over transgender ‘bathroom law’

A sign protesting a recent North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access adorns the bathroom stalls at the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham, North Carolina

By Colleen Jenkins

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) – North Carolina officials sued the U.S. Justice Department on Monday for challenging the state’s law on public restroom access, in the newest chapter of the fight over the rights of transgender Americans.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican, and the state’s secretary of public safety accused the agency of “baseless and blatant overreach.”

In March, North Carolina became the first state in the country to require transgender people to use restrooms in public buildings and schools that match the sex on their birth certificate instead of one that matches their gender identity.

The Justice Department’s top civil rights lawyer, Vanita Gupta, sent letters to North Carolina officials last week, saying the law was a civil rights violation and the state could face a federal lawsuit if it did not stop enforcing it by Monday.

The North Carolina officials are now suing Gupta as well as U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch for their “radical reinterpretation” of federal civil rights law in federal district court in North Carolina.

“We’re taking the Obama admin to court. They’re bypassing Congress, attempting to rewrite law & policies for the whole country, not just NC,” McCrory wrote on Twitter.

Justice Department officials declined to comment on Monday.

The so-called bathroom law has thrust North Carolina into the center of a national debate over equality, privacy and religious freedom in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that legalized same-sex marriage.

Prominent entertainers canceled performances in the state in protest of the law, associations relocated conventions and companies halted projects that would create jobs in the state.

AMERICANS DIVIDED

Americans are divided over how public restrooms should be used by transgender people, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, with 44 percent saying people should use them according to biological sex and 39 percent saying they should be used according to the gender with which they identify.

The Justice Department had previously declined to say whether it would take legal action if the state stands by the law, but last week’s letters suggested it was willing to do so, setting the stage for a potentially costly court battle.

North Carolina stands to lose $4.8 billion in funds, mainly educational grants, if it does not back down, according to an analysis by lawyers at the University of California, Los Angeles Law School.

McCrory said in a statement that he had filed the suit to ensure that North Carolina continues to receive federal funding until a court resolves the dispute.

He noted his office had sought additional time to respond to the Justice Department letters but said the request was refused “unless the state agreed to unrealistic terms.”

Officials at the University of North Carolina system, who also received a civil rights violation notification letter from the Justice Department last week, did not join the suit that McCrory filed on Monday. The university could not immediately be reached for comment.

The letters were “a statement that they clearly are ready to litigate” on behalf of transgender people in North Carolina, said Chai Feldblum, a commissioner at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The commission works with the Justice Department to investigate discrimination charges by public employees.

The Justice Department and McCrory squared off over the same issue last year in a case involving a similar bathroom rule at Virginia schools. The administration’s position was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the same court that would hear appeals in any future federal case over the North Carolina law.

The law is already being challenged in federal district court by critics including the American Civil Liberties Union.

(Writing by Julia Harte; Additional reporting by Julia Harte and Julia Edwards in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell)