A federal magistrate judge recommended this week that a transgender girl at the center of a lawsuit over restroom and locker room access be able to use the girls’ locker room at her Illinois high school, writing that the Constitution doesn’t protect students against having to share such facilities with their transgender peers.
In an 82-page report, Magistrate Judge Jeffrey T. Gilbert sided against a group of students and parents who sought a preliminary injunction to force the girl to use the boys’ locker room or a private bathroom while the court moves forward with the case.
The case is one of many that challenge the Obama administration’s efforts to expand bathroom access for transgender students based on their gender identity rather than their birth certificates.
Gilbert wrote that a preliminary injunction was an ‘‘extraordinary remedy’’ and said the plaintiffs, who argued the policy violated their parental and privacy rights, were unlikely to succeed on the merits.
‘‘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,’’ Gilbert wrote.
‘‘A transgender person’s gender identity is an important factor to be considered in determining whether his or her needs, as well as those of cisgender people, can be accommodated in the course of allocating or regulating the use of restrooms and locker rooms,’’ he continued. ‘‘So, to frame the constitutional question in the sense of sex assigned at birth while ignoring gender identity frames it too narrowly.’’
The report now goes to US District Judge Jorge Alonso, who has the final say over whether to reject or grant the plaintiffs’ request to bar the student from the girls’ locker room while the case proceeds.
School bathrooms and locker rooms have become battlegrounds in the fight for LGBTQ rights in the months since the US Department of Education directed educational institutions receiving federal funds to allow transgender students to use facilities that match their gender identity.
The policy, which isn’t legally binding, prompted a series of lawsuits by opponents who argue, among other things, that the federal government trampled student privacy, encroached on states’ rights, and exceeded Obama’s constitutional authority.
Washington Post
