Federal judge hears motions in Pine-Richland transgender student case
Students' lawyers ask to stop enforcing discriminatory policy, and the district asks to dismiss the case
Juliet Evancho and Elissa Ridenour just want everything to go back to the way it was before their decision to use the girls’ restroom became a political football.
“Every day I feel like I’m walking on eggshells when I come to school,” says Evancho. “It’s not right to be made to feel that way just for bring who I am.”
“Everything was fine at school, for years I was accepted for who I am, before some parents decided to make a fuss,” says Ridenour. “We just need it to go back to the way it was, when there was no problem.”
Evancho and Ridenour are at the center of an ongoing courtroom fight with the Pine-Richland School District in suburban Pittsburgh over the institution of a new restroom policy that limits them to using either the boys’ bathroom or one of 10 unisex bathrooms on Pine-Richland High School’s campus. On Thursday, the girls finally had their first of many days in court when U.S. District Judge Mark Hornak of the Western District of Pennsylvania heard opposing motions in the case.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Hornak spent five hours questioning lawyers for the opposing parties. The school district’s lawyers argue that they are trying to protect other students’ constitutional right to privacy, which will be abridged if cisgender students are “forced” to share the same bathroom with people who were designated as a different sex at birth, even if — as in Evancho’s case — their birth certificate lists the sex that matches their gender identity.
The district also argues that Evancho, Ridenour, and a transgender male student known as A.S. are able to use one of 10 different unisex restrooms on campus if they don’t feel comfortable using the bathroom of their biological sex at birth. As a result, they say, the lawsuit should be dismissed outright.
Lawyers for the three students, who are all high school seniors, argue that the newly adopted restroom policy is discriminatory and singles out their clients for disparate treatment. Lambda Legal, which is helping represent the three plaintiffs, has asked Hornak for a preliminary injunction that would prevent the school district from trying to enforce its policy while the case is being litigated. That means that the students would be allowed to use the restrooms of their respective gender identities while the court hears the underlying lawsuit.
The students’ legal team also notes that the new policy, approved in September, reversed longstanding protocol, which had previously enabled their clients to use the restroom of their gender identities without incident. But following federal guidance from the Obama administration arguing transgender students should be treated according to their gender identity in public schools across the nation, a group of concerned parents, bolstered by conservative interest groups, began railing against the policy. In order to appease these elements, the school district caved and decided to jam through a radical policy change.
“The passage of this fear-based policy sent a terrible message to the whole school community that marked Juliet, Elissa and A.S. as students who are different and somehow not worthy of a safe and equal learning environment,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal, said in a statement.
“Senior year only happens once,” Gonzalez-Pagan added. “Juliet. Elissa and A.S. only want to graduate knowing that their school respects them for who they are. Let them enjoy this year free from harassment, and the stigma of a discriminatory policy that is demeaning, degrading, and unlawful.”
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