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NY Times, Feb. 24 2017
Bathroom Case Puts Transgender Student on National Stage
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON — The bespectacled teenager in the gray A.C.L.U. hoodie and
cargo pants stood, back pressed against a chain-link fence on
Pennsylvania Avenue, under a sign saying “No Trespassing, Authorized
Personnel Only.” The White House, illuminated at night, cast a glow over
well-wishers who, having just wrapped up a protest against President
Trump, waited in line to pay homage to 17-year-old Gavin Grimm.
Mr. Grimm looked a little flustered. “Absolutely humbled,” he pronounced
himself, as his admirers thanked him for being brave.
With Mr. Trump’s decision this week to rescind protections for
transgender students that allowed them to use bathrooms corresponding
with their gender identity, the next stop is the Supreme Court, where
Mr. Grimm — an engaging yet slightly awkward young man — is the lead
plaintiff in a case that could settle the contentious “bathroom debate.”
Amid a thicket of conflicting state laws and local school policies on
bathroom use, the suit, which pits Mr. Grimm against his school board in
Gloucester County, Va., could greatly expand transgender rights — or
roll them back.
Mr. Trump has portrayed the issue as one of states’ rights, and already
the country’s transgender students face differing realities depending on
their school. Some are restricted to the bathroom of the gender on their
birth certificate. Others are not. Then there are the students like Mr.
Grimm, who have had separate facilities set aside for them.
At issue in Mr. Grimm’s case is whether Title IX, a provision in a 1972
law that bans discrimination “on the basis of sex” in schools that
receive federal money, also bans discrimination based on gender
identity. President Barack Obama concluded that it did. Despite Mr.
Trump’s action, lawyers for both Mr. Grimm and the school board said
Thursday that they expected the case to go forward, with oral arguments
set for March 28 and school officials across the country awaiting the
result.
“No one was in a rush to bring this case to the Supreme Court,” said
Joshua Block, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which
represents Mr. Grimm. “Gavin didn’t choose this fight; this fight
happened to Gavin. But now that we are here, lives are at stake, and
they are at stake in a way that is even more acute because you don’t
have a federal government anymore to protect us.”
For Mr. Grimm, who said he knew he was a boy “as soon as I was aware of
the difference between boys and girls,” the case amounts to a crash
course in government and media relations. It bears his initials, G.G.,
because he is a minor, and the name of his mother, Deirdre.
At home in rural Gloucester, he is a kid with a pet pig named Esmeralda,
a geek’s love of Pokémon cards and 600-plus Facebook friends. He wears
$12 sneakers from Walmart and likes eating at Fuddruckers because the
name sounds funny. He is applying for college, but doesn’t want to talk
about it.
But here in the nation’s capital and in big cities around the country,
Mr. Grimm is now a hot property, the new face of the transgender rights
movement. Laverne Cox, the actress and activist, gave him a public
shout-out at the Grammys. (“Everyone, please Google ‘Gavin Grimm,’” she
said.) After his appearance here Wednesday night, he dashed off to New
York to appear Thursday morning on ABC’s “The View.”
At the protest here Wednesday night, he was the star speaker, besieged
with teary hugs and cellphone selfies. The mother of a transgender child
burst into tears when she saw him. A government lawyer shook his hand.
Activists posed for pictures.
Suddenly, he is hearing his name mentioned in the same breath as Norma
McCorvey, the eponymous plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case
that established a national right to abortion (and who died last week),
and Jim Obergefell, whose case led to the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Mr. Grimm looked awe-struck at the thought. “I just hope I do it
justice,” he said quietly.
When Mr. Grimm was about 12 or 13, he said, he was able to put a name to
what he was feeling and recognized himself as transgender. He came out
first to his friends, which was easier than telling his parents.
For the family, it was a jolt, his mother said. It made her question
preachers — she eventually left her church — but strengthened her faith.
“God gave me this child to open my heart and my mind,” Mrs. Grimm, a
nurse, said.
In 2014, when Mr. Grimm was 15 and starting his sophomore year, the
family told his school he was transgender. Administrators were
supportive at first and allowed him to use the boys’ bathroom.
But amid an uproar from some parents and students, and after two tense
school board meetings, the board barred Mr. Grimm from using the boys’
bathrooms and instead adopted a policy requiring transgender youth to
use separate “single user” restrooms. The school now has three such
restrooms, but two are in refurbished utility closets, said Mr. Block,
the A.C.L.U. lawyer.
Kyle Duncan, a lawyer for the school board, said the board “agonized” as
it sought a thoughtful way to accommodate Mr. Grimm while protecting
students who felt uncomfortable. “This is a sensitive and difficult
issue in which everyone’s privacy rights need to be respected,” he said.
But Mr. Block said that Mr. Grimm had been singled out for “classic sex
discrimination.”
Mrs. Grimm was more pointed: “This school board has targeted my child.”
Her son did not always have such aplomb. Before he began “living
authentically,” his mother said, he was introverted, often retreating to
his room. She winces at the times she tried to curl his hair and make
him wear dresses.
Mr. Grimm is, by all accounts, the perfect plaintiff, poised beyond his
years. He knows how to deflect unwanted lines of questioning (he will
not talk about his twin brother, friends or teachers) and is unfailingly
polite in replying to intimate queries about his bathroom habits (“If I
have to go, I go to the nurse’s restroom,” he told a local television
reporter on Wednesday night) and his emotions (“It’s incredibly
frustrating, it’s embarrassing, it’s very uncomfortable. I have this
neon sign above my head that says I’m different from my peers”).
But at heart, he is still a kid. Once, while touring the National
Archives here, Mr. Grimm excitedly played Pokémon Go in front of the
Declaration of Independence, as Bill Farrar, a spokesman for the
A.C.L.U.’s Virginia affiliate, patiently tried to remind him that he was
probably “the only person here who has a legal proceeding before the
Supreme Court.”
The two have bonded over hours of travel, including a dash from
Gloucester to Washington on Wednesday. Mr. Grimm stuffed his belongings
in a white trash bag, sticking in a dress shirt at the last minute,
which proved handy for “The View.”
Because Mr. Grimm is to graduate this year, it is unlikely that he will
benefit if the court finds in his favor. And legal experts say that is a
big if. The Supreme Court could rule narrowly, send the case back to the
appeals court for further review, or decide to wait until similar suits
percolate through the federal court system.
And with just eight justices on the court — confirmation hearings for
Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, Mr. Trump’s nominee for the ninth seat, are
scheduled to begin March 20 — the justices might be inclined to wait.
“There are many reasons not to resolve this issue now,” said Carl
Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, who has
followed the case.
But Vanita Gupta, who ran the Civil Rights Division in Mr. Obama’s
Justice Department and helped write the directive that Mr. Trump
rescinded, said the Grimm case had already advanced the cause of
transgender rights, just by raising awareness.
“There has been such social and cultural change in the hearts and minds
of people in this country,” she said, “and I think that’s only going to
grow, even if there is a legal setback.”
Whatever happens, Mr. Grimm appears destined for a life of advocacy. He
says he feels a heavy burden standing up for other transgender people,
knowing that everyone is different. He worries that other young people
will not have the support that he has had.
While he is not much on school (he is taking only the two courses he
needs to graduate), he would like to be a geneticist. He wants to know
how the brain works.
But asking him about his career plans brings a Gavin-like answer — wry
and pointed.
“I want to be,” he said, “someone who doesn’t have to talk about where
he is going to use the bathroom.”
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