Goucester County School Board Continues War Against Transgender Students

Gloucester County School Board - a study in bigotry and cowardice.

Ironically, in the same issue of the Washington Post that has the piece cited in the prior post about the failure of evangelicals to police their own houses of worship, another story reports on how the Gloucester County, Virginia, school board - pressured no doubt by the same evangelical crowd who started the witch hunt in the first place - has opted to continue its war against transgender students.  Rather than do the right thing and abide by the recent federal court ruling that ordered the school board to protect the rights of transgender students, the board has filed an appeal to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals which, with luck, will render a legal form of bitch slapping to the board. Meanwhile, Gloucester County continues to enjoy a worldwide image of a bigoted backwater that ought to be avoided by progressive businesses and truly moral people.  Here are article highlights:

The Virginia school board that was sued by a transgender student over its bathroom rules said Friday it is appealing a federal judge’s decision.

Gavin Grimm, now 19, sued the Gloucester County School Board when he was a high school sophomore. Grimm, who is transgender, said the school board’s policy barring him from using the boys’ bathroom was discriminatory.

Late last month, a federal judge ruled in his favor, saying that the board’s policy violated Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in public schools, and the Equal Protection Clause, which assures parity under the law.

In a brief filed Friday, the board’s attorney, David P. Corrigan, challenged the ruling. Corrigan argued that Title IX does not protect the right of transgender students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. He said the board’s policy, which requires students to use bathrooms according to their “biological sex,” is constitutional.

Grimm had the backing of the Obama administration, which filed briefs in his favor and argued the bathroom rule violated Title IX. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, sided with Grimm in 2016, deferring to the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX.

Grimm’s case was appealed to the Supreme Court by the school board, and the court was set to hear it in spring 2017. But the Supreme Court sent Grimm’s case back to a lower federal court after the Trump administration reversed the guidance on transgender student rights.

Grimm’s attorney, Joshua Block of the ACLU, welcomed Friday’s appeal by the school district. Grimm is now a 19-year-old activist in Berkeley, Calif.

“The vast majority of courts have already made clear that these discriminatory and harmful policies violate Title IX,” Block said. “We’re confident that the 4th Circuit would agree.”

Gloucester County remains a place to be avoided.

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.

Gavin Grimm's Fight Isn't Over

Deirdre and Gavin Grimm

One of the things that I have enjoyed through my blog - and opportunities it has opened - and my activism is meeting wonderful people.  Be it my network of LGBT blogger friends who I first met in December 2008 at a Mircosoft/Progressive Insurance sponsored LGBT blogger summit in Washington, D.C., or friends that I have made through HRBOR, HR Pride, or friends first met through other activism, I have build an amazing circle of friends and activists who continue to work to create change for the better.  Two of this group of people are Gavin Grimm and his mother Deirdre Grimm who I first met at an event in our home.  The two have become true champions for equality for all Americans and had little idea of what they were going to experience when Gavin's saga began. Now, Deirdre has an op-ed in the Washington Post about the continuing efforts needed to move the clock forward.  Here are highlights:

We teach our children to be kind. We teach them to love and to live life to the fullest. We teach them countless things to help them become better people, because as parents we all want the best for our children. And we demand that these values be taught in our schools so that when our kids graduate, they are open, compassionate people who understand that we all bleed the same blood and that everyone deserves to be treated with equality, dignity and respect.

My son, Gavin, will graduate from high school on Saturday. But he did not get the opportunity to learn those values at school. Instead, he learned them despite his school board treating him with the opposite of those values.

By now, my son’s story has spread to communities all across this country, because he stood up for himself as a transgender boy who wanted only to fully participate in his high school. He fought a policy that singled him out by forcing him to use a restroom separate from his peers. That fight took him all the way to the Supreme Court. Along the way, he helped people learn about the importance of treating transgender people fairly and equally.

Time magazine named him one of the 100 Most Influential People of the year. During the Grammys, actress and activist Laverne Cox implored viewers to “Google ‘Gavin Grimm’ ” to learn about his fight. Countless people around the world began to #StandWithGavin on social media.

 

When Gavin came out as his true self, I honestly didn’t even know what it meant to be transgender. I spent days and nights reading as much as I could. I read a study that said some 50 percent of transgender teenagers had seriously considered suicide. That was all I needed to know.

As a parent, you are terrified for your child’s safety. You expect there to be some tough times, especially in high school, but you tend to imagine it coming from other students. You don’t expect the parents to be the bullies.

These parents then attacked him at a public meeting, humiliating him and our family in front of our community. This led to the school board requiring Gavin to use a private restroom.

Some may think this was a reasonable compromise, but this fails to appreciate how difficult such stigmatizing treatment can be, even just on a practical level. My son faced being late to class because he had to use a restroom on the other side of the building. 

So, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, we sued. It hasn’t been an easy fight, but it eventually brought us all the way to the steps of the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately, just weeks before Gavin’s case was to be heard, the Trump administration withdrew the Obama administration guidance that had clarified that Title IX protects trans kids. The Supreme Court sent Gavin’s case back to the lower courts to be reargued in light of this new reality.

Make no mistake: Gavin’s fight is not over. We are about to have the case reheard. No administration has the ability to change the meaning of Title IX. I look forward to seeing the rights of my son and other trans people recognized.

But the fact that we did not settle this while Gavin was still in school will be like an asterisk on his graduation. He won’t be able to remember his high school experience the way his classmates will, but he doesn’t think about that. Instead, he thinks about all the trans kids still out there who are being treated as less than everyone else. Gavin knows that this fight is about much more than him, just as it is about much more than restrooms. It’s about dignity and respect.

Gavin wasn’t looking to be on the front lines of a major civil rights battle. But he had the courage to stand up — because he knew deep down that it was right. His bravery has made all of us better and stronger people. My kid is truly awesome.

This week, Gavin will cross the stage at his high school graduation. I will undoubtedly feel the same emotions that mothers throughout the country with graduating seniors will be feeling: pride, love, excitement and so much more. But I am also inspired. I’m inspired by my son’s unyielding courage and determination. And I’m so thankful for all those who stand with Gavin as his fight — our fight — continues.

Kudos to both Gavin and his parents who have had his back throughout this saga.  And shame on the parents - especially those who pretend to be "godly Christians" who have led the efforts to persecute Gavinn and other LGBT individuals.

Federal Judges Hail Gavin Grimm as Human Rights Leader

When I received my "Outstanding Virginia" award early in the month, I stood on the stage next to another honoree - Gavin Grimm, the truly amazing transgender teen from Gloucester County, Virginia.  Sadly, Gloucester has proven itself to be a bastion of backwardness and religious extremism that will do little to advance the county economically or socially.  In contrast, Grimm, whom I have known for several years now, shows the bravery and willingness to put one's self in the spotlight that is too often missing in today's society.  The consequence of such cowardice, as has always been the case, is that cowardice becomes complicity and bad things happen to people.  Some of the judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently noted Gavin Grimm's courage and unsought status as a civil rights leader.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

Federal appeals court judges on Friday hailed the Virginia transgender teen fighting to use the boy’s restroom at his high school as a courageous civil rights leader even as they lamented that the school year would end without a resolution of his case.

The praise for Gavin Grimm came from two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, who could have issued a short, unsigned order but instead chose to post a five-page memo.

The Supreme Court in March put off a ruling in Grimm’s case after the Trump administration revoked federal guidelines that directed schools to allow transgender students to use a bathroom consistent with their gender identity. The high court sent Grimm’s case back to the Richmond-based 4th Circuit. The appeals court earlier had sided with the teen and deferred to the federal guidelines on transgender rights that had been in place under the Obama administration.

The 4th Circuit announced Friday that Grimm’s case against the Gloucester County School Board would not be heard before he is scheduled to graduate. But Judge Andre M. Davis, a senior judge appointed by Barack Obama in 2009, used a separate court order issued the same day to passionately express his support for Grimm’s legal journey and state his dismay that the legal system sometimes lags behind the realities of people’s lives.

Grimm’s case “is about much more than bathrooms. It’s about a boy asking his school to treat him just like any other boy. It’s about protecting the rights of transgender people in public spaces and not forcing them to exist on the margins,” wrote Davis, who was joined by Judge Henry F. Floyd, another Obama appointee.

Davis said Grimm would be remembered alongside of other “brave individuals,” including Dred Scott, Fred Korematsu and Mildred and Richard Loving, who “refused to accept quietly the injustices that were perpetuated against them.”

“Today, hatred, intolerance, and discrimination persist — and are sometimes even promoted,” Davis wrote, referring to Grimm by his initials, G.G.

“But by challenging unjust policies rooted in invidious discrimination, G.G. takes his place among other modern-day human rights leaders who strive to ensure that, one day, equality will prevail, and that the core dignity of every one of our brothers and sisters is respected by lawmakers and others who wield power over their lives.”

An attorney for the school board, David Corrigan, declined to comment on the court’s order.

Grimm, who was on spring break this week, said he was honored to be compared to men and women whose names feature prominently in civil rights fights.

53 Corporation file Amicus Brief Supporting Gavin Grimm's Case at Supreme Court

The bigoted and spineless Gloucester County school board

Corporate America has increasingly supported LGBT rights in case ranging from Eddie Windsor's case challenging DOMA to the 2015 marriage equality case before the U.S. Supreme Court to now transgender rights in G.G. v. Gloucester County.  In the latter, 53 corporations - many are tech firms - joined in an amicus brief supporting Gavin Grimm's arguments.  Some are truly major players such as Apple, IBM Corporation, Microsoft and Massachusetts Mutual.   A piece in USA Today looks at the signories of the brief which can be found here:

The 53 mostly tech companies that signed an amicus brief in support of the case of Gavin Grimm, a Virginia high school student who sued after his school district denied him access to the restroom corresponding to his chosen gender.

1. Affirm, Inc. 2. Airbnb, Inc. 3. Amazon.com, Inc. 4. Apple 5. Asana, Inc. 6. Box, Inc. 7. Codecademy 8. Credo Mobile, Inc. 9. Dropbox, Inc. 10. eBay Inc. 11. Etsy 12. Fastly, Inc. 13. Flipboard, Inc. 14. Gap Inc. 15. General Assembly Space, Inc. 16. GitHub, Inc. 17. IBM Corporation 18. Intel Corporation 19. Kickstarter, PBC 20. Knotel, Inc. 21. LinkedIn Corporation, a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation 22. Lyft 23. M Booth 24. MAC Cosmetics Inc. 25. Mapbox, Inc. 26. Marin Software Incorporated 27. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance 28. Microsoft 29. Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams 30. MongoDB Inc. 31. NetApp, Inc. 32. Next Fifteen Communications Corporation 33. Nextdoor 34. Pandora Media, Inc. 35. PayPal Holdings, Inc. 36. Postmates Inc. 37. Replacements, Ltd. 38. RetailMeNot, Inc. 39. Salesforce 40. Shutterstock, Inc. 41. Slack Technologies, Inc. 42. Spotify 43. The OutCast Agency 44. The WhiteWave Foods Company 45. Tumblr, Inc. 46. Twilio Inc. 47. Twitter Inc. 48. Udacity, Inc. 49. Warby Parker 50. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. 51. Yahoo! Inc. 52. Yelp Inc. 53. Zendesk, Inc.

The companies joining in the brief stated their interest in the issue as follows:

Amici share core values of equality, respect and dignity for all people, regardless of their gender identity.  Amici support and defend public policies that protect civil rights and foster acceptance and equal treatment for all of their employees, their customers, and the families of both.
 Many amici employ and/or serve transgender people, and all amici are concerned about the stigmatizing and degrading effects of the policy adopted by the Gloucester County School Board (the “Policy”), which restricts access to public school restrooms for transgender youth. The Policy, and the policies and statutes of other government entities that would be permitted if the Policy is sustained, adversely affects amici ’s businesses, employees, and customers, and undermines amici ’s ability to build and maintain the diverse and inclusive workplaces that are essential to the success of their companies. 

Fifty-three significant companies and employers opposing the embrace of ignorance and discrimination juxtaposed against a spineless School Board that allowed one two bit right wing part time pastor to whip the local community into a frenzy of hatred.  It's little wonder that Gloucester county is a backwater and likely to remain one for a long. long time. 

Early Virginia Election Returns: Backward Areas Going for Trump

Many jurisdictions are not yet reporting, but among those that have reported there is a clear trend: backward, economic basket case, and racist (and anti-transgender in the case of Gloucester County) areas are going for Donald Trump.  In contrast, so far, every city and urban area - other than Lynchburg, Waynesboro and Chesapeake - with more educated and more racially diverse voters  are going for Clinton.  Hopefully, the so-called urban crescent will blow away the rural, KKK loving regions of the state. The irony, of course, is that the areas that are supporting Trump are economic basket cases largely because they are so bigoted and reactionary that most progressive businesses avoid them like the plague.   It is 2016, yet the Trump supporting regions of Virginia long for the 1950's and would probably support overturning not just the 2015 Obergefell  ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, but also Loving v. Virginia.   I sincerely hope that Hillary Clinton is victorious tonight and that these Trump supporting regions will have only accomplished making themselves even more attractive to progressive businesses.  Hate and bigotry and the celebratory embrace of ignorance need to carry a sever economic price. 

I will give updates as more results are turned in and posted by the Virginia Board of Elections.

Supreme Court Takes Transgender Case

An understaffed U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take the appeal of the spineless and bigoted Gloucester County School Board from the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth that struck down the school board ruling denying gender identity appropriate bathroom use to high school student, Gavin Grimm.  With the evenly split court, the ruling when it comes could be a tie and leave the lower court ruling as the binding law for the states within the 4th Circuit (which include North Carolina) while leaving the law unsettled across the rest of the nation.  One can only hope that a majority of the justices will rule in favor of Grimm and transgender individuals across the nation. It should also be noted that notwithstanding lies disseminated by Christofascist organizations (including the disingenuously named and stridently anti-LGBT Alliance Defending Freedom), there are ZERO instances of inappropriate behavior by transgender individuals in restrooms.  The same cannot be said for Republican  elected officials.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post.

The Supreme Court said Friday that it will decide whether the Obama administration may require public school systems to let transgender students use bathrooms that align with their gender identity, putting the court once again at the center of a divisive social issue.

School districts across the country are split on how to accommodate transgender students amid conflicting guidance from courts, the federal government and, in some cases, state legislatures that have passed laws requiring people to use public restrooms that match the sex on their birth certificates.

The justices accepted a petition from the School Board of Gloucester County, Va., seeking to overturn a lower court’s order that 17-year-old Gavin Grimm, who was born female but identifies as male, be allowed to use the boys’ restroom during his senior year of high school.

It is the most high-profile case the eight-member court has accepted since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. The case will not be heard until next year, and it is unclear whether Scalia’s seat will be filled by then.

In an interview Friday, Grimm said it was unfair that he will continue to be barred from the boys’ bathroom at Gloucester High until the case is decided. He said he tries to avoid going to the bathroom altogether at school but uses the nurse’s bathroom when necessary.

Grimm, referred to as G.G. in court papers, came out as a transgender boy in his freshman year of high school and, as a result of hormone therapy, has a deep voice and facial hair, his lawyers told the court.

“We’re prepared to make our case to the court and to make sure the Supreme Court and people in general see Gavin as who he is and see trans kids across the country for who they are,” said Grimm’s attorney, Joshua Block of the American Civil Liberties Union. Grimm “is not trying to dismantle sex-segregated restrooms. He’s just trying to use them.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit sided with him in April, ruling that his case could move forward. It deferred to the Obama administration’s position that Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in public schools, protects the rights of transgender students to use school bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
A month after the 4th Circuit decision, the U.S. Education Department issued that same guidance to the rest of the nation’s public schools.

The petition said the case provides the court an opportunity to reexamine a 1997 precedent, Auer v. Robbins, that affords deference to an agency’s interpretation of its regulations. It has been criticized by several conservative justices, but the court earlier this year turned down a chance to revisit it and did the same in accepting the Gloucester case.

“This is one of the most important days in the history of the transgender movement,” Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in a statement. “Whatever the court rules . . . may ensure that transgender people are accepted and included as equal members of our society, or it may relegate them to outsiders for decades to come.”

Remember that the entire issue arose in Gloucester County because of the insistence of a group of rabble rousing Christofascists who seek to inflict their belief system on all citizens.  It their view, only they have rights and everyone else must defer to their beliefs.  They represent, in my view, a toxic cancer on society.

Quote of the Day: Gavin Grimm - We Are Just People

As noted before, the husband and I are lucky enough to know Gavin Grimm and have hosted him in our home.  It is difficult to describe this articulate and thoughtful young man as anything short of amazing.  The same holds for his parents, especially his mother Deirdra, who have stood by their child unlike so many "godly Christians" who have thrown out their LGBT children as if they are inferior and akin to garbage.   It is also telling that Gavin's entire saga and the legal battle that now may be heard before the United States Supreme Court, in my opinion, stems solely from the desire of Christofascists in Gloucester County who seek to punish Gavin  - indeed, anyone who is LGBT - for failing to adhere to their poisonous religious beliefs and ignorant views on gender.  Gavin has a column in the Washington Post that explains his saga, but also notes the thing missed and/or ignored by the self-congratulatory "godly folk" - we are all just people, created by god, nature or whatever deity one believes in, who did not choose who we are. The self-satisfied and falsely pious crowd forget that they had NO role in deciding if they would be born white or black, Christian or Muslim, gay or straight or, like Gavin, transgender.  Here are to me the telling excerpts from Gavin's op-ed:

If you told me two years ago that the Supreme Court was going to have to approve whether I could use the school restroom, I would have thought you were joking. 

I was using men’s restrooms in restaurants and shopping malls, so I told the principal I would like to use the boys’ restrooms at school, too. I thought then, perhaps naively, that this common-sense “issue” would be resolved quietly and privately, as it should have been.

If only. Even though I used the restrooms for almost two months without any disturbance, a group of parents and community members heard that “a girl” was using the boys’ restroom and began complaining. Instead of supporting me and the decision of the school administrators, the school board convened two public meetings, inviting the community to discuss my genitals and restroom usage in front of reporters and television cameras.

What keeps me going is the knowledge that I am not the only transgender student out there, and I have the chance to make things better so other transgender kids do not have to go through what I am going through. With each step, my potential for positive impact has increased. First within my school district. Then within the federal courts, where a U.S. District Court ruling in my favor was stayed by the Supreme Court while it considers whether to take my case. And now potentially across the nation, depending on what the Supreme Court justices decide to do.

I did not choose to announce to the news media that I am transgender. My school board made that decision for me. But now that I am visible, I want to use my position to help the country see transgender people like me as real people just living our lives. We are not perverse. We are not broken. We are not sick. We are not freaks. We cannot change who we are. Our gender identities are as innate as anyone else’s.

If the Supreme Court does take up my case, I hope the justices can see me and the rest of the transgender community for who we are — just people — and rule accordingly.

In prior posts, I have identified the two-bit pastor who I believe put the entire issue into motion.  Like many of his ilk, he has no respect for the religious freedom rights of others and seeks to punish anyone who rejects his ignorance and bigotry based beliefs.  What I find so disturbing is that gutless and spineless elected officials continue to give deference to such people and their beliefs.  And as a side note, remember that if one scratches the surface of most of the leading :"family values" groups, you find a white supremacist lurking beneath the surface. These are not nice and decent people.  The sooner society as a whole recognizes this reality, the better off we will be as a nation.   

Gavin Grimm: I Just Wanted to Use the Bathroom

Baptist pastor involved in LGBT persecution

The Washington Post has a lengthy article on the legal battle being waged by and on behalf of Gavin Grimm, a 17 year old from Gloucester County, Virginia against the local school board and ultimately against the Christofascists who oppose any rights being granted to LGBT citizens.  I will admit that it is difficult for me to not get passionate on the issue since the husband and I know Grimm and his mother, who have been to our home.  While the piece doesn't fully identify the forces of "Christian" hate behind the agenda against Grimm, it does name one "godly" opponent, Ralph VanNess, a pastor at Calvary Baptist Church and a security guard at Gloucester High School. As regular readers know, in my view, religion, especially fundamentalist religion, is one of the greatest toxic evils in the world and is responsible for so many death and ruined lives over the centuries and today as well.  Here are article highlights:

There was nothing remarkable about Gavin Grimm’s first trip to the boys’ bathroom at Gloucester High School. It was a little more than a month into his sophomore year, when the transgender teenager had begun quietly reintroducing himself to the student body as a boy.

Grimm had used men’s restrooms at restaurants, stores and the local amusement park, and using the boys’ bathroom at his school felt like “the natural progression of things,” he said. Just like cutting his hair short, just like wearing baggy pants and graphic T-shirts, just like beginning testosterone shots. He started using the boys’ bathroom shortly after he got word from Principal Nate Collins that it would be okay.

But that decision to use the boys’ bathroom one fall day in 2014 clashed with this town’s sensibilities and led to an acrimonious public debate. Now, Grimm’s case has made this quiet, out-of-the-way community in Virginia’s Tidewater region the unlikely center of the national debate over how public schools should accommodate transgender students. And the case has made Grimm, an introspective teen who once was painfully shy, the standard-bearer in the fight for transgender student rights. He approaches the role with a mixture of pride and apprehension.

“I’m afraid to function as myself in my community sometimes,” Grimm said.

Grimm’s parents said it seems that many people forget there’s a kid involved.  “These people have no idea how they’ve hurt my child and how they continue to hurt my child,” said Deirdre Grimm, a nurse.

“We didn’t set out to do anything,” said David Grimm, a trades supervisor at a local shipyard. “Only thing we’ve done is try to protect our child. And that is what it means, and that takes whatever form it takes.”

[T]o some here, Grimm’s being transgender violates their basic sensibilities, some of which they say they draw from the Bible. They believe changing one’s gender is an affront to nature and to God.

“In my opinion, as a pastor, looking at this situation, I do not believe that God makes mistakes,” said Ralph VanNess, a security guard at the high school who is also the pastor at Calvary Baptist Church. “God puts us on this Earth as who we are.”

VanNess, who leads a school Bible club, spoke at a school board meeting in favor of banning Grimm from the boys’ bathroom in 2014. “It was a responsibility I had before God,” he said.

Parents soon caught wind of what was happening; some phoned the school, demanding to know whether a transgender student was using the boys’ bathroom. Their concerns quickly gained steam publicly — they raised the specter of bathroom sex and rape and expressed fears that their sons would be uncomfortable in the bathrooms.

The school board took up the issue, and Grimm pleaded with them at an open meeting.
“I am just a human. I am just a boy,” he said. “Please consider my rights when you make your decision.”

The board voted to require students to use bathrooms that aligned with their “biological gender.”

Many Gloucester High School students start the day with a prayer group, and some once vocally criticized a lesson on evolution as contrary to biblical teaching. Many students object on religious grounds to Grimm’s use of the boys’ bathroom; they still see him as a girl.

VanNess and those like him embody the Christofascist embrace of ignorance and a desire to force their ignorant beliefs on all citizens.  The motivation?  To then feel good about themselves and to harm others to please what blogger friend Bob Felton would describe as their "imaginary invisible friend in the sky."  Religion has no place in public schools or public policy - the bible club is one of the first things that needs to go to bring Gloucester County into the 21st century.  It's a backwater and people like VanNess will keep it that way. 

Gloucester County Asks Supreme Court to Deny Transgender Rights

The anti-LGBT Gloucester County school board - a study in ignorance, bigotry and cowardice

As noted in previous posts, Gloucester County, located on the periphery of the Hampton Roads area is for the most part an utter backwater where ignorance and bigotry flourish, especially among the members of the Gloucester County school board. Indeed, the ignorance of the board members is exceeded perhaps only by its spinelessness in the face of the demands of local Christofascist who seek to vilify anyone and anything that challenges (i) their ignorance based beliefs, and/or (ii) their ability to inflict their beliefs on all members of society.  Thankfully, Gloucester County is letting the world know that it is a place that decent people and progressive business should avoid through its war against Gavin Grimm, a transgender high school student.  After receiving a equivalent of a spanking from the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the school board has now petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take an appeal from the 4th Circuit.  BuzzFeed looks at the appeal.  Here are highlights:

The [Gloucester County] Virginia school district seeking to limit restroom use to people’s biological sex — effectively barring transgender students from using the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity — on Monday asked the US Supreme Court to hear its appeal.

The Gloucester County School Board asked the high court to take the case and reverse an appeals court decision that sided with a transgender student and the Obama administration.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court issued an order allowing the school to keep its policy in place while the justices decide whether to hear the appeal. If the justices agree to hear the appeal, per the earlier order, the court’s order allowing the policy to stay in place will remain in effect until the justices reach a decision in the case.

The student, Gavin Grimm, is represented by the ACLU. The Obama administration, through interpretation of existing laws and regulations, has determined that the sex discrimination ban in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 includes a ban on anti-transgender discrimination.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the administration’s interpretation was a permissible interpretation, leading the district court in Grimm’s case to issue an injunction against Gloucester schools. The Supreme Court’s order, however, stayed that injunction for the time being — meaning Grimm, and any other transgender student, could not use the restroom that accords with their gender identity.

The lawyers for the school district frame the case as one not about transgender rights, but rather one about “agency behavior” in setting policies such as the Title IX interpretation advanced by the Obama administration.

In addition to the Virginia lawyers from Harman, Claytor, Corrigan & Wellman — which has been representing the school district — the legal team representing Gloucester schools now has expanded to include some of the leading national lawyers fighting the administration’s pro-transgender policies. Kyle Duncan is listed as the counsel of record in the case, and he is joined on the brief by his law partner, Gene Schaerr, as well as St. Louis lawyers from the James Otis Law Group, Jonathan Mitchell and D. John Sauer.

Once briefs are filed responding to the school board’s Monday filing, the justices generally schedule a private vote on whether to hear the case.

The current composition of the Supreme Court — it has operated with only eight justices since Antonin Scalia’s death in February — could become a key factor in what happens next with the case.

It takes four justices to grant the certiorari petition and hear an appeal. It takes five votes, however, to reach a majority opinion. If the court accepted the case, and split down ideological grounds 4–4, the lower court’s decision in favor of Grimm and the administration would be left in place — but no national precedent would be set by the case.
 

Anti-Transgender Gloucester County Appeals to SCOTUS

The anti-transgender Gloucester County School Board - the face of hate and ignorance

Having been rebuffed by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals three times now, the Gloucester County School Board has appealed its losses on the issue of the treatment of transgender students to the United States Supreme Court.  In addition, it has asked the high court to stay the 4th Circuit's ruling in favor of 17 year old Gavin Grimm pending the Court's decision of the case.  I'm hoping that SCOTUs both refuses the stay and refuses to take the case - a possibility heightened by the Court's current 8 justice membership.  The bottom line issue driving this case is the school board's desire to pander to Christofascists who began lobbying the board when it was learned that the board planned to accommodate Grimm's needs. Take away the religious extremists and the case would never have occurred.  The Washington Post looks at the board's latest effort at self-prostitution to the forces of hate.  Here are excerpts:

A school board that has been ordered to allow a transgender student to use the boys’ high school bathroom has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the order, arguing that it will cause “irreparable harm” and violate the privacy of students.

The Gloucester County, Va. School Board, which is being sued for passing a policy that barred a transgender student from the boys’ bathroom, said it hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on the matter. In the interim, it is asking the high court to allow it to continue banning the transgender boy from the boys’ room while attorneys prepare a writ of certiorari to the nation’s highest court. Currently, the court’s order would mean transgender students could use the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity when school returns for the coming academic year.

Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old rising senior at Gloucester High filed a lawsuit against the School Board last year after the board passed a policy requiring students to use bathrooms based on their “biological gender.” Grimm alleged that the policy barring him from the boys’ bathroom violated his civil rights and ran afoul of Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in public schools.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit sided with the teen in April, deferring to the Obama administration’s position that transgender students are entitled to use bathrooms that match their gender identity under Title IX. It was the highest court to rule on the question of how to accommodate transgender students in public schools. A federal judge later granted Grimm a preliminary injunction ordering the School Board to allow Grimm to use the boys’ bathroom while the case proceeds.

In a filing to the high court Wednesday, the School Board again asked for the case to be paused — and to keep Grimm out of the boys’ bathroom — until the case concludes.

Joshua Block, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, also has disputed the notion that allowing Grimm to use the boys’ bathroom would cause the sort of harm the school board describes.

“The only thing this injunction does is let Gavin use the boys’ restroom,” Block said last week. “The notion that simply allowing one boy to use the restroom during his senior year of high school would cause the sky to fall is impossible to take seriously.”

To the Christofascists the sky will fall because they will lose the ability to punish transgender students who fail to conform to the hate and ignorance based beliefs of the "godly folk." 

4th Circuit Bitch Slaps Gloucester County Yet Again

Gavin Grim

As this blog has noted on numerous occasions now at this point, the Gloucester County School Board is obsessed with prostituting itself to local Christofascist and squandering tax payer dollars in the process.  After losing twice before before U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the school board had the gall/idiocy to ask that court to stay its ruling against the school board and in favor of Gavin Grimm, a transgender high school student while the school board prepares to appeal the case to the United States Supreme Court.   Today, the 4th Circuit said no - basically, hell no.  Unless the U.S. Supreme Court (i) takes the appeal and (ii) stays the 4th Circuit order, come September, 2016, the Gloucester County schools must accommodate the restroom need of Gavin Grim and any other transgender students, like it or not. The summary ruling of the 4th circuit is here via Equality Case Files.

As noted previously, it is a shame that the school board members are not required to personally reimburse the school division for all of the taxpayer dollars squandered in this effort to grant special deference to the animus of Christofascists.  The entire episode demonstrates why Gloucester County, Virginia, remains a backwater where ignorance and bigotry are celebrated by far too many citizens. 

Gloucester County School Board Continues Self-Prostitution to Anti-LGBT Bigots

Click image to enlarge to better see the face of bigotry

There seemingly are no limits to the lengths that the self-prostituting members of the Gloucester County, Virginia school board (pictured above) will go to in order to appease anti-LGBT Christofascists in the battle to institutionalize the bullying of transgender students.   Having been smacked down twice by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and now under a District Court order compelling the school division to accommodate a transgender boy, the school board is now dishonestly claiming that such accommodations will cause other students to leave the school division.  My response? Good.  Good riddance.  Let them.  Remember, that there were no problems with accommodations until a local "holy man" - as Bob Felton would call such parasites - got wind of the situation and whipped the county simpletons into a furor. The Washington Post looks at the continued lies and batshitery from the board and its always sleazy counsel from Alliance Defending Freedom ("ADF"):

A Virginia school district claims that allowing one transgender student to use the boys’ bathroom would cause community uproar and could force some parents to pull their children out of school.

Gloucester County Public Schools is seeking to reverse a judge’s order that requires Gloucester High to let senior Gavin Grimm use the bathroom that matches his gender identity, rather than his biological sex.

If Grimm is allowed to use the boys’ bathroom, the district argued in a filing this week, “parents may decide to remove their children from the school system after reaching the understandable conclusion that the school has been stripped … of its authority to protect their children’s constitutionally guaranteed rights of bodily privacy.”

It was one of several arguments the school district made in the 14-page filing, part of an ongoing case regarding Grimm’s challenge of a school board policy that prevents transgender students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. A federal appeals court ordered a lower court to hear Grimm’s case, and the school district says it would like the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in. In the meantime, the courts have ordered the school district to let Grimm use the boys’ room while the case is pending.

Joshua Block, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Grimm, said that the fear of a negative reaction from some parents isn’t a legitimate reason to violate Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination, and that — according to the ACLU and guidance from the Obama administration — protects transgender students’ right to use facilities matching their gender identity.

The school system has said it plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, given the national interest in resolving questions about whether Title IX protects transgender students’ right to use bathrooms that match their gender identity.

In its June 28 motion, the school system asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to stay its earlier decision, arguing that Grimm can use a bathroom in the nurse’s office, or one of three other single-occupancy restrooms that are available to all students, while litigation proceeds.

It seems unlikely that the district court would reverse its own ruling. But the school system made clear in its filing that it intends to take the issue to the nation’s highest court.

The district says that within 10 days, it will ask the Supreme Court to rule on whether Gloucester High must let Grimm use the boys’ bathroom as the litigation unfolds — or whether it may keep him out.

Reading some of the comments to the Post story underscores something that have concluded for some time now:  few people are as foul and self-centered than the "godly folk."  Only their rights - and most importantly, their hate and fear based religious beliefs - matter and everyone else is supposed to forfeit their rights so that the knuckle draggers can continue to feel self-satisfied and  falsely pious.  It is far past time that they start being treated like the scum of the earth that they are.  Sexual orientation and gender identity are not a choice, but embracing ignorance, clinging to childish fairy tales and advocating bigotry are all choices these folks have made.  Let them begin to pay the consequences.  

As for ADF, Human Rights Campaign has accurately described ADF as follows:

ADF is one of the United States’ most dangerous organizations working to prevent equality for LGBT people across the globe.  An enthusiastic leader in defending the unconscionable “right” to discriminate against LGBT people, ADF is a worldwide exporter of hate. With offices in many places around the world, ADF uses their global reach and budget of over 54 million dollars to promote discriminatory legislation, and foster anti-LGBT initiatives. ADF bills itself as an “alliance-building legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith”—unless of course that faith contradicts with their own anti-LGBT version.

Federal Court Rules Against Anti-LGBT Gloucester County School Board

After squandering who knows how much taxpayer money and made their county look like a bigoted backwater to the rest of the nation and the world, the Gloucester County school board went down to final defeat in its war against transgender students.  Today, U.S. District Court judge Robert Doumar - who got a spanking himself by the U. D. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit - ordered the Gloucester County school board to allow transgender boy, Gavin Grimm to use the school system's male restrooms.  Would that the board members who proved spineless when confronted by spittle flecked cranks and Christofascists   had to personally reimburse taxpayers for the wasted funds which might just as well have been placed in a trash can and set afire. BuzzFeed looks at today's much deserved defeat,   Here are highlights:

In the country’s most watched case over transgender student rights, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Doumar ordered a Virginia school district to let a transgender boy use the boys restroom when he returns to high school classes in September.

 “I am elated to hear that I’ll be able to attend my senior year of high school with my full rights restored,” Gavin Grimm told BuzzFeed News in a statement. “After nearly two years of humiliation and intense struggle, equality has finally prevailed. Now hopefully other transgender individuals will not have to face this type of discrimination.”
 Grimm had sued the Gloucester County School Board in 2015, challenging a policy that bans transgender students from using school restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

Represented by the ACLU, Grimm alleged the rule violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
 Judge Doumar had initially thrown out the Title IX claim, despite the U.S. Education Department’s interpretation of the law — that Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination also applied to transgender discrimination. Overturning Doumar on that point, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Education Department has the authority to establish that interpretation of Title IX.
 [O]n Thursday, Doumar issued a preliminary injunction in Grimm’s favor, stating, “This Court, pursuant to Title IX, hereby ORDERS that Gloucester County School Board permit the plaintiff, G.G., to use the boys’ restroom at Gloucester High School until further order of this Court.”
 Joshua Block, a staff attorney for the ACLU who is representing Grimm, said of the injunction, “The writing is on the wall how this case will ultimately end in Gavin’s favor.”
 Lawyers for the school board did not immediately answer a question BuzzFeed News about whether they would attempt to appeal the preliminary injunction order.

No doubt we will hear the usual rants about judicial tyranny by ignorance embracing Christofascists even as they strive to force their beliefs on all of society.   Meanwhile, thinking Virginians are embracing the 21st century as opposed to wanting to live by a 12th century version of "natural law."