iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court is expected to rule on a case involving school bathroom rules for transgender students sometime next year.
The high court will hear the case of Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old transgender student at Gloucester High School in Virginia. Grimm was born female, but identifies as male and has requested to use the boys’ bathroom at school.
A lower court ordered the Gloucester County school board to accomodate the teen, based on the Obama administration’s legal guidance pointing to a federal law that bans sex discrimination in public schools.
The Supreme Court voted in August to put the order on hold while deciding whether to hear the appeal of the school board.
“I continue to suffer daily because of the school board’s decision to make my bathroom use a matter of public debate,” Grimm said in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
The high court will hear the appeal of the Gloucester County school board in 2017. It could lead to a 4-4 decision if the seat of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is not filled by then.
Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.