Gavin Grimm became a household name overnight, it seemed. The transgender teenage high school boy – now 20 years old – sued the Gloucester County, Virginia School Board in 2015, when he was a junior. One of his first wins came the following year, and another after he had already graduated, although he later had a setback at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Friday afternoon, Grimm won another major victory. A federal court ruled the Gloucester County School Board acted in a discriminatory manner and was wrong to ban him from using the boys’ restrooms in his high school, and was wrong to not have changed his school records to indicate he is a boy, and will have to pay his attorneys’ fees.
“The court ruled the board’s policies violated Grimm’s rights under both the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972,” WAVY reports.
Perhaps it was his comment to the press that he just wanted to be able to use the restroom like any other student, that struck a chord with many people across the country – just not with the Gloucester County School Board, who forced him to use a specially-devised “boys room” that had been converted from a janitor’s closet.
“The issue remains far from settled. A patchwork of differing policies governs the nation’s schools,” the AP reports Friday. And today’s “ruling will likely strengthen similar claims made by students in eastern Virginia. It could have a greater impact if the case goes to an appeals court that oversees Maryland, West Virginia and the Carolinas.”
In 2017 Grimm became the youngest person to make TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.
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