Federal Court Rules for Gavin Grimm

Gavin Grimm and his amazing mother - proud to know both of them.

It has been a long legal saga for Gavin Grimm and has family as they have fought the Gloucester County, Virginia, School Board which sought to discriminate against Gavin, an individual that we know personally, rather than stand up to a faction of LGBT hating Christofascists who forced that Board due to its cowardice to rescind the original policy applied to Grimm.  Gavin's mother noted on Facebook following the latest federal ruling as follows:

So 4 years ago the Gloucester County School Board chose to single out my son to discriminate against instead of doing the right thing by protecting his rights as a transgender boy and now once again the judge has said that he and all transgender kids ARE protected under Title IX of our constitution so let’s see if the school board will now change their policy and protect those that come after Gavin or if they will continue to discriminate against transgender people in our district. This case will be far reaching in this country so I think it is HIGH TIME this school board does what is right! My son had dedicated the last 4 years of his life to this cause and this school board ruined his high school experience!   

A press release by the ACLU looks at the court's ruling (which can be found here).  Here are excerpts:

A federal court today denied the Gloucester County School Board’s motion to dismiss a case brought by former student Gavin Grimm, holding that Title IX and the Constitution protect transgender students from being excluded from the common restrooms that align with their gender identity.

The court directed the parties to schedule a settlement conference within 30 days. The case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Virginia. 

Joshua Block, senior staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT &HIV Project, had this reaction:

"The district court’s ruling vindicates what Gavin has been saying from the beginning. Federal law protects Gavin and other students who are transgender from being stigmatized and excluded from using the same common restrooms that other boys and girls use. These sorts of discriminatory policies do nothing to protect privacy and only serve to harm and humiliate transgender students.”

Gavin Grimm had this reaction:

“I feel an incredible sense of relief. After fighting this policy since I was 15 years old, I finally have a court decision saying that what the Gloucester County School Board did to me was wrong and it was against the law. I was determined not to give up because I didn’t want any other student to have to suffer the same experience that I had to go through.”

Having wasted who knows how much taxpayer money and brought worldwide derision to Gloucester County, the Gloucester County School board needs to come into the 21st century and stop kissing the asses of local Christofascists.  

Interestingly enough, a piece in LGBTQ Nation reports on a new study led by a Belgian neurologist that found that transgender individuals how functional brain characteristics that are typical of their desired gender,” said Bakker. . . . .nd that brain activity in transgender people resembles that found in heterosexual individuals of their identifying gender more than their sex assigned at birth. . . . they show functional brain characteristics that are typical of their desired gender,” said Bakker.  Obviously, the study - and many others - exposes the arguments of anti-science, anti-knowledge Christofascists such as those in Gloucester County to be fraudulent and based on little more than bigotry and an embrace of ignorance.  Here are article excerpts:

Their brain scans were compared to people of comparable age who were not diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The study found that transgender boys’ brain activity resembled cisgender boys’, and transgender girls’ brains resembled cisgender girls’.

The researchers said that their technique could be used to help transgender children at an earlier age.

“Although more research is needed, we now have evidence that sexual differentiation of the brain differs in young people with GD, as they show functional brain characteristics that are typical of their desired gender,” said Bakker.

“We will then be better equipped to support these young people, instead of just sending them to a psychiatrist and hoping that their distress will disappear spontaneously.”

The study’s results, which were presented at the European Society of Endocrinology’s meeting, fall in line with previous neurological studies that showed that transgender adults have similar brain structures to cisgender people of their gender.

Again, the Gloucester County School Board needs to kick the Christofascists to the curb where they belong, embrace modern science and knowledge, and put in place the polices sought by Gavin Grimm.