Federal Court Tosses Transgender Student’s Challenge to Tennessee School Bathroom Law
Court: The Act and policy do not prefer one sex over the other, bestow benefits or burdens based on sex, or apply one rule for males and another for females.
Last month, in a little-reported case, a federal court upheld Tennessee’s law banning transgender public school students from opposite sex bathrooms.
The court’s decision comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is about to consider a similar case over Tennessee’s transgender care ban. As the amicus briefs from dozens of civil rights and other interest groups pour in, all eyes are on what promises to be a battle royale over transgender rights this term.
But while the school bathroom law controversy got less attention, this new Tennessee case may hint at how the high court could decide to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors later this year.
The federal district court’s ruling reflects a controlling consensus in the circuit that laws related to gender identity don’t discriminate based on sex when they treat both biological sexes equally.
Under Tennessee’s “Accommodations for All Children Act,” transgender students can ask the school to make a “reasonable accommodation” when they desire more privacy in the bathroom or locker room. However, a “reasonable accommodation” explicitly excludes access to facilities designated for the opposite biological sex.
Parents can take them to court if the school allows boys to be in the girls’ facilities. Under the Act, parents of a student who encounters a member of the opposite sex in the bathroom can sue the school for damages and attorneys’ fees.
The lawsuit against the school was brought by the parents of a nine-year-old transgender girl (i.e., a boy) because her elementary school wouldn’t allow her into the girls’ bathroom. Instead, to avoid potential liability created by the Act, the school required her to use its single-occupancy restroom.
But that made her feel singled out. She claimed it “isolated her” and “exacerbated the stress and anxiety she experienced while trying to fit in and avoid being stigmatized on the basis of her sex”—all in violation of her rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
When he first considered the case, Judge William Campbell allowed the student’s Equal Protection claim to go forward. But last month, he reconsidered and vacated his 2023 ruling, based on two cases decided by the Sixth Circuit in the interim.
Just a day after the court’s first decision, the federal Court of Appeals held that Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors didn’t discriminate based on sex, noting that “neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has recognized transgender status as a suspect class.” That question will likely be resolved this term when the Supreme Court decides whether the transgender care ban denies children equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment.
And, more recently, in another case we covered here, the Sixth Circuit upheld Tennessee’s policy preventing someone from changing a birth certificate to match their gender identity. The state has broad discretion as to how to keep its vital records, the court said, and there is no “deeply rooted right” to a birth certificate matching one’s gender identity.
Judge Campbell said Tennessee’s school bathroom law is analogous to the laws challenged in these two intervening cases:
Here, Plaintiff is not challenging Defendants’ policy of designating separate facilities based on biological sex. Instead, all parties appear to agree that Plaintiff is challenging her inability to use the restroom corresponding with her gender identity. In other words, although Plaintiff identifies as a girl, the Act prohibits her from using the facilities that correspond to her gender identity, while students who identify with their biological sex at birth are permitted to use such facilities. However, the Act and policy do not prefer one sex over the other, bestow benefits or burdens based on sex, or apply one rule for males and another for females.
Under the new controlling law in the circuit, the court applied “rational basis review” rather than heightened “strict scrutiny” to the school bathroom law—a law that treats both biological sexes equally. The court found that the governmental interests in privacy and safety were sufficient to pass a rational basis review.
Like the school bathroom law, Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban serves a government interest that should be reason enough to uphold it: it protects children from mutilating, irreversible, sterilizing sex transition treatments—treatments they could regret for the rest of their lives.
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Comments
lefty said
now where are we going to p???
One of many reasons why I’m from Washington and now live in Tennessee.
IMO, ultimately the common sense guideline of:
1. Male sex organs mean you use the boys/men’s room.
2. Breasts means you use the girls/women’s room.
3. Both means you must use the ‘trans’ room/facility.
4. ‘Trans’ identifying individuals but pre surgical can also use ‘trans’ facilities if they choose.
5. No trans surgery until one is 18 + either a HS diploma or GED. + all the appropriate medical and psychological checklists.
In sum this sort of common sense removes the issue from K-12, protects minor children from misguided surgical mutilation, eliminates any sort of ‘reward/validation’ and forces adults to fully embrace their belief they are born in the wrong sex by surgery. It puts the onus on those adults convinced they are ‘trans’ to continue to conform with traditional societal and cultural norms instead of the reverse while forcing minor expense (installation of trans facilities) on society at large.
Your suggestions are too logical and reasonable. The Woke crowd would have a hissy fit and shout you down. They want laws that are illogical and unreasonable.
You’ve just needlessly complicated Fat Albert’s life.
Good decision, consistent with all previous decisions that I’m aware of.
This case is structured differently than the previous cases that on the surface appear to have gone the other way. For example
1. My employer won’t let me come to work in a dress, only because I’m a man. If I were a woman they’d let me, so they’re discriminating against me because I’m a man. That’s discrimination on the basis of sex. Court says: Exactly so.
2. The state won’t let me marry a woman, only because I’m a woman. Men marry women all the time, so I’m being discriminated against because I’m a woman. Discrimination the basis of sex. The Obergefell court agrees.
But in this case the argument goes: “I have no objection to the existence of boys’ room and a girls’ room. But I want to go in the girls’ room, and the school won’t let me because I’m a…”
If you finish that sentence with “girl”, then it’s obvious nonsense, because the school lets girls use it all the time. If you finish it with “boy”, then the school says “exactly. You’re a boy, and that’s why you can’t use that room.” Sure, we’re discriminating against boys by not letting them use the girls’ room, but you’re explicitly and deliberately not challenging that policy, so the court can’t strike it down. You want the policy in place, but you want to be the only boy allowed to use the girls’ room; our refusal to agree is not discrimination on the grounds of sex. .
And if you were to challenge the policy of having single-sex toilets in the first place, we’d openly acknowledge that that is indeed discrimination on the grounds of sex, but all precedent says it’s a permitted discrimination, which is why you aren’t challenging it. So where’s your case?
This piece seems confused about its pronouns. If you’re writing about a 9 year old transgirl you should be saying him and he, not her and she.
His right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment doesn’t mean he has the right to intrude into female spaces.
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