Beyond Bathrooms, Transgender Youth, and Public Schools

The Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) came out with one of its rulings this week, which was not to take up the case of a Virginia school board that, after protests by parents, prohibited transgender students from using public school bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. This case is now over six years-old, when then-high school student Gavin Grimm filed a federal lawsuit over the Gloucester County school board's refusal to allow him to use the boys' bathroom.

By not taking up the case, SCOTUS allowed the lower court's ruling stand. In essence, Gloucester County school board was in the wrong. But here's the magnificent part of it: all public schools across the country now have to allow transgender young people to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. This is true even in North Carolina, which was well-known for its bathroom bill--HB2--about a decade ago. 

I know that the Oregon-Idaho United Methodist Church conference gave itself up until last year or this year to also make the move of providing at least one non-gender specific bathroom in each congregation. I'm not aware of a similar move in my Presbytery, the Presbytery of the Cascades, or the Presbyterian Church (USA) nationwide, if we have a similar policy. Nor am I aware of such a move and policy of having one non-gender specific bathroom in the churches of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the United Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, or the Episcopal Church. 

It is interesting to note that this is where we are since the Stonewall Inn riots of 1969, over 50 years ago, which marked the beginning of the LGBTQIA+ civil rights movement. We are still working on bills and laws surrounding bathrooms in the US, along with the rights of LGBTQIA+ people to adopt children or be foster parents, healthcare policies for transgender people, equal housing and employment protections and retirement benefit programs for LGBTQIA+ people in the US.

Meanwhile, many of our churches are still stuck at the thought of LGBTQIA+ people being open and ordained--for example, UMC, Southern Baptists, Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Churches--let alone anti-discrimination policies that protect LGBTQIA+ people when looking for called-installed positions in our respective denominations.

In 2022, when we come around to Pride Month again, may we all be talking and worrying about more than who can use which bathroom where (porta-potty manufacturers and users who attend general public events have already figured it out), and focused on changing actions, bringing about the radical goal of true equality across the land and in our churches between LGBTQIA+ and non-LGBTQIA+ people. 


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