Prompted by the Trump administration’s reversal of the federal government’s position on transgender rights, the Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would not decide whether a transgender boy in Virginia could use the boys’ bathroom at his high school.
The decision not to take his case, which came as the court is awaiting the appointment of a ninth member, means there will be no ruling on the highly charged issue of transgender rights this term. The issue will almost certainly return to the Supreme Court, probably in a year or two.
Until then, lawsuits in the lower courts will proceed, the political climate and public opinion may shift, and the court’s composition will almost certainly change.
Monday’s development was a setback for transgender rights advocates, who had hoped the Supreme Court, which established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage two years ago, would aid their cause.
Instead, in a one-sentence order on Monday, the Supreme Court vacated an appeals court decision in favor of the student, Gavin Grimm, and sent the case back for further consideration in light of the new guidance from the administration.
The Supreme Court had agreed in October to hear the case, and the justices were scheduled to hear arguments this month. The case would have been the court’s first encounter with transgender rights, and it would probably have been one of the biggest decisions of a fairly sleepy term.
The question in the Virginia case was whether Mr. Grimm, 17, could use the boys’ bathroom in his southeast Virginia high school. The Obama administration said yes, relying on its interpretation of a federal regulation under a 1972 law, Title IX, that bans discrimination “on the basis of sex” in schools that receive federal money.
The Department of Education said in 2015 that schools “generally must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity.” Last year, the department went further, saying that schools could lose federal money if they discriminated against transgender students.
Mr. Grimm attends Gloucester High School. For a time, school administrators allowed him to use the boys’ bathroom, but the local school board later adopted a policy that required students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms for their “corresponding biological genders.” The board added that “students with gender identity issues” would be allowed to use private bathrooms.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Mr. Grimm, told the justices that requiring Mr. Grimm to use a private bathroom had been humiliating and had, quoting him, “turned him into ‘a public spectacle’ before the entire community, ‘like a walking freak show.’”
Full story at The New York Times.
There are no transgenders; only people with a peculiar type of mental illness in which they believe their sex is the opposite of their biological sex or who wish to be the sex opposite what they actually are. As such, “transgenders” are not a special class of person entitled to protective rights in civil society because they don’t exist as an ontological category of human being distinct from others. There are males and females; that exhausts the natural ontological differentiation among human beings. The push for “transgender rights” and “homosexual rights” is symptomatic of a society that has gone off the deep end and become unmoored from objective reality.
I hope your children or grand children never have to confront gender identification issues.
Why? In truth, if Sawyer were presented with such a situation, it is entirely possible that his thoroughly Catholic stance would provide such a suffering child with the support necessary to carry his/her cross.
I hope the same thing, but if they did I would pray for them and assist them in getting the professional mental health help that would truly benefit them. Believing yourself to be something you are not would be profoundly disorienting.
Sawyer,
You are correct. There are no truly “trans-gender” people. There are people who may be confused about their own personal identity. To some extent I believe all humans go through a stage like that. We don’t know who we truly are and we struggle to discover that. It’s called “growing up”. To tell someone that it’s OK to stay confused and live a lie the rest of their life is not an act of love and compassion at all. It is an act of codependence which destroys the strength of the person and feeds a sickness. Imagine telling an alcoholic that he or she is truly one of those people who needs alcohol and that he or she has a right to live that way. Imagine telling someone who believes that he or she is really a misunderstood angel…
Amen …
There is no right to expose oneself to the opposite sex. Every major store has at least one gender neutral restroom that locks. Use it if you do not want to go into the restroom of your own gender. In fact many of the smaller stores and all hospitals in California went that way a long time ago for everyone. It is harder, though, in larger places, where many people will be using them, to not have larger restrooms for just men and just women. Nevertheless, there should always be at least one gender neutral place. I have used gender neutral restrooms many times. Some people go in them because they are quite often cleaner.
The Anonymous post March 8 at 5:54 pm was mine.
I need to make a correction. Most hospitals do have a lady’s room and a gentleman’s room, but all have gender neutral restrooms also that are one stall and lock, especially in the patient area.
This Pogrom was never about Bathrooms – but rather Misandry (Hatred of Men & Boys, Masculinity & Normal Heterosexuality) was the purpose from the start.
The Pogrom is to Force Each and Every One of Us to Deny Our Own Inherited Immutable Gender, and ‘admit’ (tacitly or sometimes openly – say to keep your job) something they know to be Not True
The Reality of Gender (Male XY & Female XX) is shown by All Human Life resulting from Joining Opposite Genders Together – even in unconventional ways.
Genetic or Gestational Birth Defects, need to be dealt with compassionately – but Not by Lying about the Binary Nature of Human Gender.
Exactly, Michael. Women do make reasonable exceptions for little boys as sometimes it safer for them to use a lady’s room if they are alone while their mother is shopping. One time I came out of a stall in a women’s restroom at a department store. The person in the stall next to me had already came out, and it was a little boy of about ten or eleven. He looked at me as if he thought I might say something, but I did not since he had been well behaved, done nothing wrong and might have been fearful to go to the men’s room alone. Common sense is the key.
anne, the same thing happens to me now and then, re ‘anonymous’ listing. i have found that it is always after i haved changed browsers of deeply changed my computer settings. it requires to re sign-up for the comment box as though you never had before.
Reality Optional.