Fed Rules School Discriminated Against Transgender Student for Not Allowing Full Access to Girls’ Locker Room

This week the government found that a high school in suburban Chicago discriminated against a transgender student for not providing the student equal access to the girls’ locker room.

The complaint was brought by an unnamed student and the ACLU who felt the school was discriminating against the student by attempting to provide “a separate changing place” because that “subjected the student to stigma and different treatment”.

Via Newsweek:

In mid-October the school district, with five high schools and two alternative high schools west of Chicago, defied the government, continuing to deny full locker-room access for the transgendered student.

Assistant U.S. Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon said the high school was disobeying the law. “All students deserve the opportunity to participate equally in school programs and activities – this is a basic civil right,” she said in a statement.

Lhamon did not explain how the ruling upholds the rights of the other girls who are using the locker room.

The school not only provided separate changing areas, but it also installed privacy curtains on stalls in one of the girl’s locker rooms most used by the student, but that was still considered too discriminatory because it wasn’t “full access”.

The federal ruling clarifies and solidifies the federal stance on this issue.

The school district has one month to provide full access to the girls’ locker room or it will lose its federal funding.

According to an ACLU statement:

“This decision makes me extremely happy – because of what it means for me, personally, and for countless others,” the student said in a statement released by the ACLU. “The district’s policy stigmatized me, often making me feel like I was not a ‘normal person.'”