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Posts Tagged ‘US District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen’

Federal Court Permanently Enjoins Wisconsin Medicaid from Enforcing State Statutory Exclusion of Coverage for Gender Transition

Posted on: August 26th, 2019 by Art Leonard No Comments

Last year, U.S. District Judge William M. Conley granted a preliminary injunction to several named plaintiffs in a case challenging a 1996 amendment to Wisconsin’s Medicaid statute under which transgender Medicaid participants were denied coverage for their gender transitions.  At that time, the court had concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to win their case on the merits and that delaying their access to gender transition coverage pending a final ruling on the merits would cause them irreparable injury, far outweighing any harm to the state.  The court refused to stay its preliminary injunction pending a possible appeal.  On August 16, Judge Conley issued his final ruling on the merits in the case, having in the interim certified it as a class action extending to all transgender people in the state who relied on Medicaid for their health care coverage, and making the injunction permanent.  The judge ordered the parties to “meet and confer” within 14 days on the scope of relief and final wording of an injunction.  Flack v. Wisconsin Department of Health Services, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139388, 2019 WL 3858297 (W.D. Wis., Aug. 16, 2019).

Judge Conley premised his ruling on three sources of law: Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, the “Availability and Comparability” provisions of the Medicaid Act, and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.  Providing three independent and equal bases for the ruling makes it eminently defensible should the state decided to seek review at the 7th Circuit.  In this connection, the 7th Circuit has previously found thta government policies that disadvantage transgender people may violate the Equal Protection Clause, and it has adopted an interpretation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 that accepts the contention that a federal law banning sex discrimination would extend to gender identity discrimination, although this holding might be adversely affected by a Supreme Court ruling under Title VII in a pending case from the 6th Circuit, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC, to be argued on October 8.

Judge Conley accepted the plaintiffs’ contention that the standards of care for gender dysphoria published by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), most recently updated in 2011, as supplemented by clinical guidelines on hormone treatment for gender dysphoria published in 2017 by the Endocrine Society, represent a medical consensus recognized by numerous professional health care associations and many, many court decisions, defining the standard of care in the context of any dispute about medically necessary treatment for gender dysphoria.  There is near-unanimity among federal courts at this point that gender dysphoria can be a serious medical condition and that, depending on the symptoms of the individual transgender person, various forms of treatment involved in transition, including hormone therapy and gender confirmation surgery (GCS), may be medically necessary.  The published standards emphasize, as does Judge Conley, that not every person who identifies as transgender experiences gender dysphoria (a “disconnect” between their gender identity and their anatomy), and that there is a range of severity, so not every person with gender dysphoria will necessarily seek GCS.  The Medicaid program’s coverage should depend upon competent medical professionals diagnosing gender dysphoria in the individual case and determining that hormone therapy and or GCS are medically necessary for the individual in question.

A significant problem for the defendants in this case, who include various officials as well as the state’s health services department, was that the legislature, evidently for political reasons, voted in 1996 to forbid the use of state Medicaid funds for gender transition, even though the particular treatments and procedures involved remain covered for a variety of other medical conditions.  For example, somebody suffering a severe hormone deficiency could obtain hormone replacement therapy under Medicaid, and a woman with breast cancer would be covered for a mastectomy, while transgender people would be denied coverage for hormone therapy or mastectomies, even though there was a medical consensus that these treatments were necessary to deal with their gender dysphoria.  The legislature did not undertake any serious study of the expenses of providing such treatment or of the professional medical standards in effect for treating gender dysphoria at that time.  The state tried to defend the statute in this case by coming up with various post hoc arguments that were easily discredited by the court, which observed that the state had failed to present credible expert testimony that there was a sound medical reason to deny the specified procedures to individuals for whom it was medically necessary.

The bulk of Judge Conley’s opinion is devoted to describing the medical evidence in the case, much of it derived from expert testimony provided by the plaintiffs, whose two expert witnesses were experienced medical specialists who had treated hundreds of transgender individuals and who were well-recognized in their field.  The state’s response to this, from the point of view of litigation strategy, was pathetic.  It failed even to offer experts with facially relevant expertise to contest any of the medical evidence.  Indeed, officials of the Wisconsin Medicaid program conceded in their testimony that the WPATH standards describe safe and effective treatments for gender dysphoria in appropriate cases, and there was little dispute that the named plaintiffs qualified for these treatments but were denied coverage for them solely because of the statute.  The court also pointed out that the state had attempted to rely in its arguments on materials that could not have provided a basis for the statute when it was passed, because their publication post-dated it.  In addition, Judge Conley observed that scientific knowledge about gender identity had significantly moved on since the mid-1990s, making the treatments and procedures even safer and more effective today.

The defendants sought to rely on two decision from other circuits: Kosilek v. Spencer, 774 F.3d 63 (1st Cir. en banc, 2014), and Gibson v. Collier, 920 F.3d 212 (5th Cir. 2019), but Judge Conley concluded these rulings were not persuasive precedents for this case.

Kosilek culminated long-running litigation and was based on expert testimony presented to the trial court in 2006, predating the current WPATH and Endocrine Society standards.  Also, the en banc 1st Circuit, which was ruling on the question whether GCS was medically necessary in the 8th Amendment context of a state prisoner serving a life sentence for murder (and which, incidentally, was reversing a 3-judge panel decision in the plaintiff’s favor), was heavily influenced by prison security concerns raised by the state that are not relevant in to Medicaid.

As to Gibson, Judge Conley performed a total demolition job on the cock-eyed reasoning of the 5th Circuit panel, whose opinion was written by Trump appointee James Ho.  This was also a prisoner case, the issue being whether it violated the 8th Amendment for the state to maintain a categorical refusal to provide GCS to transgender inmates (unlike in Kosilek, where the court focused on the individual inmate rather than an explicitly categorical treatment ban).  Gibson was a pro se case at the trial level, where the unrepresented inmate was incapable of compiling a state-of-the-art record of expert medical testimony, leaving a factual record bare of the kind of detailed information available to Judge Conley in this case litigated by experience attorneys.  In the absence of such a record, Judge Ho invoked the 1st Circuit’s decision in Kosilek, with its reliance on out-of-date information.  Of course, unlike the present Medicaid case, a case involving a prison setting raises different issues.  On the other hand, Judge Conley’s opinion leaves little doubt that he found the 5th Circuit’s analysis unpersuasive on the key points in common: whether there is a medical consensus that GCS can be medically necessary and that it is a safe and effective treatment.

For the short Affordable Care Act portion of his analysis, Judge Conley refers the reader to his earlier preliminary injunction decision.  As to the Medicaid portion, he details the requirement under Medicaid to cover medically necessary treatments, and furthermore the specific ban on discriminating in coverage decisions depending on the diagnosis of the individual participant.  In the Equal Protection portion of the opinion, he explained that the parties agree that Equal Protection claims by transgender plaintiffs are subject to “some sort of heightened scrutiny,” requiring the state to take on the burden of proving that it has an “exceedingly persuasive” justification for carving out this particular exception from its Medicaid coverage.  The government’s justification, stated now in its defense of the 1996 enactment, was “containing costs and protecting public health in face of uncertainty.”  Conley found neither justification to be sufficient under heightened scrutiny.  For one thing, the state conceded that the legislature made no study prior to passing the statute, either of the costs involved in providing coverage or of the medical facts surrounding gender transition and available treatments.  The only cost projections introduced by the state now were undertaken in response to this litigation, two decades later, and showed that the additional cost to the state’s Medicaid budget on an annual basis amounted to little more than a rounding error.  And, the court observed, there was no credible evidence to support the contention that covering these procedures would endanger public health.

The court also rejected a “spending clause” constitutional argument raised for the first time in support of the state’s opposition to plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion: that it was somehow unfair to the state to impose this “new” burden on it as a matter of federal law when it wasn’t contemplated at the time the state agreed to expand the Medicaid program in response to the Affordable Care Act in 2014.   “Nonsense,” wrote the judge.  Too late, and too bad.

Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from McNally Peterson, S.C, Milwaukee; Dane & Colfax PLLC, Washington; Abigail Koelzer Coursolle of the National Health Law Program, Los Angeles; and Catherine Anne McKee of the National Health Law Program, Washington.

Federal Court Rules for Gavin Grimm in Long-Running Virginia Transgender Bathroom Case

Posted on: August 10th, 2019 by Art Leonard No Comments

After more than four years of litigation, there is finally a ruling on the merits in Gavin Grimm’s transgender rights lawsuit against the Gloucester County (Virginia) School Board.  On August 9, U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen granted Grimm’s motion for summary judgment, finding that the school district violated his rights under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by refusing to let the transgender boy use the boys’ restroom facilities while he was attending Gloucester High School and by refusing to update his official school transcript to conform to the “male” designation on his amended birth certificate.  Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, 2019 WL 3774118 (E.D. Va., Aug. 9, 2019).

In addition to awarding Grimm a symbolic damage recovery of $1.00, the court issued a permanent injunction requiring the School Board to update Grimm’s official records and provide “legitimate copies of such records” to Grimm by August 19.  Judge Wright Allen also ordered that the Board “shall pay Mr. Grimm’s reasonable costs and attorneys’ fees” in an amount to be determined.  In light of the length and complexity of this lawsuit, the fee award is likely to be substantial.

Grimm began his freshman year at Gloucester High School in 2013 listed as a girl on enrollment papers, consistent with his original birth certificate.  During spring of his freshman year, Grimm told his parents that he was transgender and he began therapy with Dr. Lisa Griffin, a psychologist experienced in transgender issues, who diagnosed gender dysphoria and put the diagnosis in a letter that Grimm later presented to school officials.  Also in 2014, Grimm legally changed his first name to Gavin and began using the mens’ restrooms “in public venues.”  Prior to the beginning of his sophomore year at Gloucester High, he and his mother met with a school guidance counselor, provided a copy of Dr. Griffin’s letter, and requested that Grimm be treated as a boy at school.

They agreed that Grimm would use the restroom in the nurse’s office, but he found it stigmatizing and inconvenient, making him late for classes.  After a few weeks of this, he met with the guidance counselor and sought permission to use the boys’ restrooms.  The request went up to the school’s principal, Nate Collins, who conferred with the Superintendent of Schools, Walter Clemons, “who offered to support Principal Collins’ final decision,” according to testimony in the court record.  Collins then gave Grimm the go-ahead to use the boys’ bathrooms, which he did for seven weeks without any incident.  Grimm had been given permission to complete his phys ed requirement through an on-line course and never used the boys’ locker room at school.

Word that a transgender boy was using the boys’ restrooms got out in the community and stirred up opposition from “adult members of the community,” who contacted school officials to demand that Grimm be barred from using the boys’ rooms.  The School Board devoted two meetings to the issue, finally voting in December 2014 to adopt a formal policy that the use of restroom and locker room facilities “shall be limited to the corresponding biological genders, and students with gender identity issues shall be provided an alternative appropriate private facility.”

The Board announced that it would construct some single-sex unisex restrooms in the high school, but until then Grimm would have to use the restroom in the nurse’s office.  There eventually were such unisex restrooms, but they were not conveniently located for use between classes and Grimm ended up not using them, finding a requirement to use them as stigmatizing.  Instead, he tried to avoid urinating at school and developed urinary tract infections, as well as suffering psychological trauma.

Meanwhile, at the end of his sophomore year in June 2015, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles issued Grimm a state ID card identifying him as male.  When he need brief hospitalization to deal with thoughts of suicide during his junior year, he was admitted to the boys’ ward at Virginia Commonwealth University’s hospital.  In June 2016, he had top surgery, and on September 9, 2016, the Gloucester County Circuit Court ordered the Health Department to issue him a new birth certificate listing him as male, referring to his surgery as “gender reassignment surgery” even though it did not involve genital alteration.  In October 2016, Grimm presented a photocopy of his new birth certificate to the school, but they refused to update his records to reflect male status, and his transcripts still identify him as female.

Grimm, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), filed his lawsuit on June 11, 2015, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk.  The case was assigned to Senior District Judge Robert G. Doumar, who quickly granted the school district’s motion to dismiss the Title IX claim and reserved judgment on Grimm’s constitutional claim while Grimm appealed the dismissal.  The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal, relying on an interpretation of Title IX endorsed by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice during the Obama Administration, and sent the case back to Judge Doumar, who issued a preliminary injunction on June 23, 2016, requiring the School Board to let Grimm use the boys’ restrooms.  Conveniently for the school board, this order came at the end of the school year, so they had several months of summer break to try to forestall having to let Grimm use the boys’ restroom when school resumed.  Although the 4th Circuit quickly turned down the Board’s motion to stay the injunction, an emergency application to the Supreme Court was granted on August 3, 2016, pending the filing of a petition for review by the School Board and guaranteeing that Grimm was unlikely to be able to use the boys’ restrooms during his senior year if review was granted by the Supreme Court.

Ultimately, the Board did filed its appeal, which was granted with argument set to take place in March 2017.  This timing would virtually guarantee that Grimm would not be able to use the boys’ restrooms at the high school before his graduation, since a case argued in March would not likely result in an opinion being issued until June.  Elections and fate intervened as well, as the new Trump Administration moved to “withdraw” the Obama Administration’s interpretation of Title IX, on which the 4th Circuit had relied.  The Solicitor General advised the Supreme Court of this withdrawal and the Court took the case off the hearing calendar and sent it back to the 4th Circuit, which in turn sent it back to the district court.  Judge Doumar having retired, the case was reassigned to Judge Wright Allen.

Since Grimm had graduated by then, the School Board argued that his request for injunctive relief was moot, as he would no longer be attending Gloucester High School. The ACLU countered that the question of the restroom policy’s lawfulness was not moot, that Grimm as an alumnus would be barred from using the boys’ restroom when he returned to the school for public events, that Grimm was still entitled to a ruling on his claim for damages.  The district court refused to dismiss the case, and discovery went forward.  Although the lawsuit had already been to the 4th Circuit twice and to the Supreme Court, there still had not been any ultimate ruling on the merits of the case at that point.

On May 22, 2018, Judge Wright Allen issued a ruling denying the School Board’s motion to dismiss the case as moot, and she ruled that Grimm had a viable claim of sex discrimination under Title IX.  She also ruled at that time that the constitutional equal protection claim would be decided using “intermediate scrutiny,” which puts to the government the burden to show that its policy substantially advances an important government interest.  On February 19, 2019, the court allowed Grimm to file a new amended complaint adding the issue of the School Board’s refusal to issue a corrected transcript.

On July 23, the court heard arguments on new motions for summary judgment filed by both parties.  These motions were decided by Judge Wright Allen’s August 9 ruling, which also rejected most of the School Board’s objections to various items of evidence offered by Grimm – mainly letters and medical records documenting his gender dysphoria diagnosis and subsequent treatment – which were incorrectly described by the School Board as “expert testimony” that was not admissible through discovery.  The court agreed to the school board’s argument that documents relating to failed settlement discussions should be excluded from consideration.

As to the merits of Grimm’s Title IX claim, the court found that Grimm had been excluded from participation in an education program on the basis of sex when the School Board adopted a policy that would bar him from using the boys’ restrooms at the high school, that the policy harmed Grimm both physically and psychologically, and that because the Gloucester schools receive federal financial assistance, they are subject to Title IX.   Consequently, summary judgment should be granted to Grimm on his Title IX claim.

As to the Equal Protection claim, the court relied on a Supreme Court ruling concerning the exclusion of girls from Virginia Military Institute, in which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that in a sex-discrimination case involving “intermediate scrutiny,” the defendant bears the burden of “demonstrating that its proffered justification for its use of the classification is ‘exceedingly persuasive.’”  In this case, the Board’s justification was “an interest in protecting the privacy rights of students, specifically privacy interests that students have in protecting their unclothed bodies.”

Judge Wright Allen found that the Board had made “no showing that the challenged policy is ‘substantially related’ to protection of student privacy.”  She referred to the lack of any student complaints during the seven-week period that Grimm used the boys’ restrooms during his sophomore year and, she wrote, “The Board’s privacy argument also ignores the practical realities of how transgender individuals use a restroom.”  Common sense prevailed, as the judge quoted another trans bathroom court opinion: “When he goes into a restroom, the transgender student enters a stall, closes the door, relieves himself, comes out of the stall, washes his hands, and leaves.”

The Board’s witness at the summary judgment hearing, conceding that there was no privacy concern for other students when a transgender student walks into a stall and shuts the door, testified that “privacy concerns are implicated when students use the urinal, use the toilet, or open their pants to tuck in their shirts.  When asked why the expanded stalls and urinal dividers could not fully address those situations,” wrote the judge, “Mr. Andersen responded that he ‘was sure’ the policy also protected privacy interests in other ways, but that he ‘couldn’t think of any other off the top of his head.’  This court is compelled to conclude that the Board’s privacy argument ‘is based upon sheer conjecture and abstraction,’” this time referring to the 7th Circuit ruling in Ash Whitaker’s trans bathroom case.

Judge Wright Allen also pointed out that although trans high school students have not had genital surgery, if they are taking hormones they are developing secondary sex characteristics of the gender with which they identify.  “If exposure to nudity were a real concern,” she wrote, “forcing such a transgender girl to use male restrooms could likely expose boys to viewing physical characteristics of the opposite sex. From this perspective, the Board’s privacy concerns fail to support the policy it implemented.”

The court concluded that the School Board’s policy must be found unconstitutional, pointing out, in addition, that the Board’s refusal to change the gender indication on Grimm’s school records “implicates no privacy concerns.”  The Board had contended that there were some doubts about the validity of the new birth certificate, because the photocopy they were provided was marked “Void.”  This was explained away by testimony from the government official responsible for issuing the documents.  It seems that all but the original would be marked “Void,” and that Grimm has a valid, authentic birth certificate identifying him as male, which the School Board should have honored.

Judge Wright Allen acknowledged the difficult task the School Board faced in deciding how to proceed during the fall of 2014.  She wrote, “The Board undertook the unenviable responsibility of trying to honor expressions of concern advanced by its constituency as it navigated the challenges represented by issues that barely could have been imagined or anticipated a generation ago.  This Court acknowledges the many expressions of concern arising from genuine love for our children and the fierce instinct to protect and raise our children safely in a society that is growing ever more complex.  There can be no doubt that all involved in this case have the best interests of the students at heart.”  However, this was no excuse for imposing a discriminatory and unconstitutional policy on Grimm.

“However well-intentioned some external challenges may have been,” Wright Allen continued, “and however sincere worries were about possible unknown consequences arising from a new school restroom protocol, the perpetuation of harm to a child stemming from unconstitutional conduct cannot be allowed to stand.  These acknowledgements are made in the hopes of making a positive difference to Mr. Grimm and to the everyday lives of our children who rely upon us to protect them compassionately and in ways that more perfectly respect the dignity of every person.”

Grimm had long since disclaimed any demand for financial compensation for the injuries he suffered in violation of his statutory and constitutional rights, so the court awarded only nominal (symbolic) damages of $1.00, but it directed that the School Board issue a new, corrected transcript in ten days, and the parties will now haggle about the size of the award of attorney’s fees and costs, which should be substantial.

Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen, nominated to the court by President Barack Obama, was the first female African-American judge to serve in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia after she was unanimously confirmed by the Senate (96-0) in May 2011.  She had previously been the top Federal Public Defender in the Eastern District of Virginia, and was a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and a military judge.  Prior to this ruling, her most noteworthy decision, issued in February 2014, declared Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

 

Federal Court Rejects Gloucester School District’s Motion to Dismiss Gavin Grimm’s Case

Posted on: May 23rd, 2018 by Art Leonard No Comments

Opening up a new chapter in the continuing battle of Gavin Grimm to vindicate his rights as a transgender man, U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen issued an Order on May 22 denying the Gloucester County (Virginia) School Board’s motion to dismiss the latest version of the case Grimm filed back in July 2015, prior to his sophomore year at Gloucester High School.

During the summer of 2014, Grimm’s transition had progressed to the point where he and his mother met with high school officials to tell them that he was a transgender boy and “would be attending school as a boy,” wrote Judge Allen.  They agreed to treat him as a boy, including allowing him to use the boys’ restrooms.  He did so for about seven weeks without any incident, until complaints by some parents led the school board to adopt a formal policy prohibiting Grimm from using the boys’ restrooms.  The school established some single-user restrooms that were theoretically open to all students, but Grimm was the only one who used them because they were not conveniently located to classrooms.

“Because using the single-user restrooms underscored his exclusion and left him physically isolated,” wrote Judge Allen, “Mr. Grimm refrained from using any restroom at school.  He developed a painful urinary tract infection and had difficulty concentrating in class because of his physical discomfort.”  During the summer after his sophomore year, he filed his lawsuit, alleging violations of Title IX – a federal statute that forbids schools from discriminating because of sex – and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Grimm had begun hormone therapy in December 2014, “which altered his bone and muscle structure, deepened his voice, and caused him to grow facial hair.”  In June 2015, he received a new Virginia identification car from the Motor Vehicles Department designated him as male.  During the summer of 2016, he had chest-reconstruction surgery, a necessary step to get the circuit court to issue an order changing his sex under Virginia law and directing the Health Department to issue him a birth certificate listing him as male.  He received the new birth certificate in October 2016.  Thus, as of that date, Grimm was male as a matter of Virginia law.

Yet, despite all these physical and legal changes, the School District clung to its contention that his “biological gender” was female and that he could not be allowed to use boys’ restrooms at the high school.  The school maintained this prohibition through the end of the school year, when Grimm graduated.

Meanwhile, his lawsuit was not standing still.  Senior U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar dismissed his Title IX claim in September 2015, denying his motion for a preliminary injunction, and holding his Equal Protection Claim in reserve while he appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond.  In the spring of 2016, the 4th Circuit sent the case back to the district court, issuing an opinion holding that the court should have deferred to the position advanced by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice, which opined that discrimination because of gender identity is sex discrimination and schools are required under Title IX to treat student consistent with their gender identity.

Judge Doumar then issued a preliminary injunction during the summer of 2016 ordering the School District to let Grimm use the boys’ restrooms, but the School District obtained a stay of that order from the Supreme Court, which subsequently granted the School’s petition to review the 4th Circuit’s “deference” ruling.  The Supreme Court scheduled the case for argument, but then the incoming Trump Administration “withdrew” the position that the Obama Administration had taken, knocking the props out from under the 4th Circuit “deference” ruling, and persuaded the Supreme Court to cancel the argument and send the case back to the 4th Circuit, which in turn sent it back to the district court.  And, by the time it got there, Grimm had graduated from Gloucester County High School.

The School District attempted to get rid of the case at that point, arguing that it was moot.  Grimm begged to differ, arguing that his Title IX and Equal Protection rights had been continuously violated by the School District from the time it adopted its exclusionary restroom policy through the time of his graduation.  In a newly amended complaint, Grimm sought a declaratory judgement as to the violation of his rights under both Title IX and the constitution and an end to the school’s exclusionary policy.

The School District moved to dismiss this new complaint, leading to the May 22 ruling by Judge Allen, to whom the case had been reassigned in the interim. Judge Doumar, who was born in 1930, was appointed to the court by President Reagan and is still serving as a part-time senior district judge.  Judge Allen was appointed to the court by President Obama in 2011.

Judge Allen’s opinion relies heavily on important judicial developments that have occurred since Judge Doumar’s initial dismissal of the Title IX claim back in 2015. The 4th Circuit has yet to issue a ruling on the merits of the question whether federal laws that forbid discrimination because of sex can be construed to apply to gender identity discrimination claims.  Since the Supreme Court has also avoided addressing that issue, it was open to Judge Allen to follow as “persuasive precedents” the lengthening list of rulings from other federal courts, including five different circuit courts of appeals and many district courts, holding that sex discrimination laws should be broadly construed to cover gender identity claims.

These decisions draw their authority from two important Supreme Court decision: Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins (1989) and Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services (1998). In Price Waterhouse, the Supreme Court accepted as evidence of intentional sex discrimination an accounting firm’s denial of a partnership to a woman who was deemed inadequately feminine by several partners who voted against her.  In Oncale, the Court ruled that Title VII, the federal law banning employment discrimination because of sex, could apply to a claim of hostile environment sexual harassment by a man who worked in an all-male workplace, commenting that even if this scenario was not contemplated by Congress when it passed Title VII in 1964, that statute could be applied to “comparable” situations.

Since the turn of the century, federal appeals courts have used those two cases to find that transgender people can seek relief from discrimination under the Gender-Motivated Violence Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, and the Equal Protection Clause. In addition, district courts have found such protection under the Fair Housing Act.  A consensus based on the gender stereotype theory has emerged, even in circuits that have generally been hostile to sexual minority discrimination claims.  And, most significantly, the 7th Circuit ruled last year in the case of Ashton Whitaker, a transgender boy, that Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause required a school district to allow him to use boys’ restroom and locker room facilities.  There is no material distinction between the Whitaker and Grimm cases.

Furthermore, and closer to home, on March 12 of this year U.S. District Judge George L. Russell, III, ruled in a case from Maryland (also in the 4th Circuit) that a school district had violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause by refusing to allow a transgender boy to use the boys’ locker room at his high school.  Judge Allen found Judge Russell’s analysis persuasive, as she did the recent cases from other courts.

Turning to Grimm’s constitutional claim, Judge Allen followed the precedents from other courts that have determined that discrimination against transgender people is subject to “heightened scrutiny” judicial review, similar to that used for sex discrimination cases. Under this standard, the challenged policy is presumed to be unconstitutional and the government bears the burden of showing that it substantially advances an important governmental interest.

The Gloucester School District argued that its interest in protecting the privacy of other students was sufficient to vindicate its policy, but Judge Allen disagreed, finding that “the policy at issue was not substantially related to protecting other students’ privacy rights. There were many other ways to protect privacy interests in a non-discriminatory and more effective manner than barring Mr. Grimm from using the boys’ restrooms.”  The school had created three single-user restrooms open to all students, so any student who sought to avoid using a common restroom with Mr. Grimm had only to use one of those.  She also noted that the School Board reacted to the controversy by taking steps “to give all students the option for even greater privacy by installing partitions between urinals and privacy strips for stall doors.”  Thus, any validity to privacy concerns raised when the controversy first arose had been substantially alleviated as a result of these renovations.

Having denied the School District’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint, Judge Allen directed the attorneys to contact the Courtroom Deputy for United States Magistrate Judges within thirty days to schedule a settlement conference. If the parties can’t work out a settlement with a magistrate judge, the district court will issue a final order dictating what the school district must do to be in compliance with Title IX and the Constitution.  And, because Grimm is the prevailing party in this long-running and hotly litigated civil rights case, one suspects that sometime down the road there will be a substantial attorneys’ fee award.

Grimm’s lawyer, Joshua Block of the ACLU LGBTQ Rights Project, indicated that their goal in the case at this point is the declaratory judgment and nominal damages for Grimm, and of course an end to the School Board’s discriminatory policy. Grimm now lives in Berkeley, California, and intends to begin college this fall in the Bay Area, according to the New York Times’ report on the case.

Of course, the School District may seek to appeal Judge Allen’s Order to the 4th Circuit.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a Memorandum last fall formally rejecting the Obama Administration’s position that federal sex discrimination laws forbid gender identity discrimination, so the School District could count on the Justice Department to support an appeal.  And Trump’s rapid pace in filling federal circuit court vacancies may slow or eventually halt the continuing trend of transgender-positive rulings from the other circuit courts, but that is not likely to be the case in the 4th Circuit for some time.  At present that court has an overwhelming majority of Democratic appointees (including six by Obama and four by Clinton on the 15 member court) with only one vacancy for Trump to fill.  The 4th Circuit was out front of the Supreme Court in 2014 in striking down state bans on same-sex marriage, and its 2016 opinion in Gavin Grimm’s case was notably transgender-friendly, so it is unlikely that an appeal by the School District will be successful in the 4th Circuit.  The Supreme Court, of course, may be a different matter.  Time will tell.