Sex in the girls locker locker rooms to go

Township High School District in Palatine, Illinois responded recently to a discrimination claim brought by a transgender high school student on the basis of sex when the district denied her access to the girl's locker room. This student was born male and from a young age identified as a female. During the student's middle school years, she transitioned to living full-time as a young woman. She presented with a female appearance, completed a legal name change, and obtained a passport reflecting the gender change. During her 8th grade year, her family and the high school she would join the following school year communicated extensively about issues regarding the student's name change and registration as a female, as well as access to girl's locker room and her eligibility for girl's athletics.

Help us continue to fight human rights abuses. Please give now to support our work. When the state of North Carolina enacted a set of sweeping restrictions, the federal Department of Justice and Department of Education issued guidance clarifying that treating transgender students differently from other students constitutes sex discrimination under Title IX of the Education Amendments of On August 21, , a federal judge in Texas issued a preliminary injunction blocking the federal guidance from taking effect nationwide while the lawsuit proceeds. As these battles play out, transgender youth are struggling to meet basic physical needs in their school environments. For these students, being barred from facilities is not an abstract legal question, but a daily source of frustration and isolation.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Several cases working their way through the legal system have placed a national spotlight on the issue of transgender access to bathrooms. While some states have taken steps to allow access based on gender identity, many are considering legislation that restricts bathroom use by the sex assigned at birth.

Department of Education has announced that a suburban Chicago school district is violating the rights of a transgender student by refusing her access to the girls' locker room despite the fact that she identifies as a girl, according to a page letter to the district. The school district had been denying the trans girl's request to have unrestricted access to the girls' locker room, forcing her to change and shower in a separate facility that made her feel "stigmatized" and "not like a 'normal person,'" she said, according to a statement made by the ACLU of Illinois. The OCR found that such reasoning was discrimination "on the basis of sex," which violated Title IX , a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. Title IX is the same law that mandates parity between male and female athletic programs. The DOE's letter to the school added that to date, "efforts to resolve this complaint voluntarily with the District have not been successful.