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In November 2014, Gavin Grimm, then a high school sophomore, approached the lectern at a meeting of the school board in Gloucester County, Virginia. Standing with his hands in his pockets, he explained that as a transgender teen, being forced to use bathrooms at school besides the one that matched his gender was “alienating” and “humiliating.”
“All I want to do is be a normal child and use the restroom in peace,” he said, noting that no students had given him trouble about this, only adults. “I’m just a human. I am just a boy.”
Seven years later, Grimm won. The US Supreme Court released an order on Monday rejecting a petition from the school board to hear the case after Grimm prevailed in the lower courts; the order leaves in place a federal appeals court decision last summer finding the school board violated his constitutional rights. The justices usually don’t specify how they voted when they decline to hear a case, but Justices Samuel Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas noted that they would have agreed to take it up, a sign that they were open to the school board’s position.