Judge recommends against banning transgender student from locker room
Trans advocates hope federal judge won't grant an injunction barring "Student A" from the girls' locker room
A judge has recommended that a transgender Illinois high school student not be barred from accessing the girl’s locker room.
In an 82-page decision, Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Gilbert sided with the Palatine-based Township High School District 211, whose new policy allows “Student A” to use the locker room consistent with her gender identity.
He opposed a group of parents who had been seeking to bar Student A from all gender-specific facilities designated for females.
“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 in the opinion.
He added that sharing spaces with transgender students “does not create a severe, pervasive, or objectively offensive hostile environment,” particularly given protections that the district has in place for students who wish for a greater degree of privacy.
The case now goes before U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso, who will review Gilbert’s recommendation and issue a final decision, The Chicago Tribune reports.
If Alonso affirms Gilbert’s judgment and refuses to issue the injunction, Student A will still be allowed to use the female locker room while the anti-transgender group known as Students and Parents for Privacy (SPP) proceeds with its lawsuit against the school district.
Township High School District 211’s initial policy on transgender students allowed them to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity, but not locker rooms.
Student A, with the help of the ACLU of Illinois, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, claiming that being barred from the girl’s locker room violated her rights under Title IX of U.S. Education Amendments of 1972.
In November 2015, the Department of Education ruled that the district’s policy on locker rooms constituted sex discrimination under Title IX.
Subsequently, the district amended its policy to allow Student A and other transgender students to access gender-appropriate locker rooms. But in May 2016, SPP, aided by Alliance Defending Freedom and the Thomas More Society, sued District 211 for that change.
In addition to asking for an injunction to bar Student A from the girls’ locker room, they also demanded that the district rescind its original policy on restrooms as well, which would have relegated all transgender students to either an alternative facility or the restroom of their biological sex at birth.
Lawyers for both sides ran to the media to establish their argument while they wait for Alonso’s decision.
“School policies should protect the privacy and safety of all students, no matter who they are,” Gary McCaleb, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, said in a statement. “Young students should not be not be forced into an intimate setting like a locker room with someone of the opposite sex.”
But the ACLU hailed Gilbert’s decision and hoped that Alonso would rule similarly.
“The Judge plainly recognized that the organizations who filed this case are unable to demonstrate any harm to their clients from sharing restrooms and locker rooms with students they perceive as different, while Student A and other transgender students would have been isolated and stigmatized if they were forced out of the appropriate restrooms and locker rooms after using the facilities without incident for several years,” the ACLU’s John Knight said in a statement.
“Barring Student A and other transgender students from the restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender challenges their basic identity and humanity, suggests that they should be ashamed of who they are, and puts them at serious risk of long-term emotional and psychological injury,” Knight added. “We are pleased that Judge Gilbert rejected specious arguments about privacy and protected the interests of all the students.”
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