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Update (2/12/20): The 9th Circuit issued its decision in favor of transgender students’ rights to be safe in schools. The Court correctly ruled that the Oregon school’s policy that allows transgender students, and all students, to use bathrooms consistent with their self-identified gender is to “avoid discrimination and ensure the safety and well-being of transgender students” and that this policy does not violate Title IX or other legal rights as claimed by a group of parents.
The National Women’s Law Center and firm partner DLA Piper, along with 50 additional organizations, filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit in support of transgender students on March 8th.
The case involves an appeal of a good court decision of an Oregon school district’s trans-supportive restroom and locker room policy. The district court decided the case in favor of transgender students and granted the school district’s motion to dismiss, holding, among other things, that the parents could not demonstrate a hostile environment under Title IX and that students had no constitutional privacy right not to share facilities with trans students. To the contrary, the court found that the parents’ requested relief—requiring transgender students to use facilities based on their sex assigned at birth would constitute sex discrimination in violation of Title IX. The school has appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit.
NWLC is leading this amicus brief to highlight that discrimination against transgender individuals is sex discrimination under federal law and to be in solidarity with LGBTQ communities in our collective fight against sex discrimination on all fronts.
For more information about this case and background, please read our blog.