Around the country, high schools are increasingly confronting a thorny issue: Should transgender students be allowed into the locker room?
And increasingly, the federal government is stepping in to provide an answer: Schools must give trans students full locker room access.
On Monday, the Obama administration again weighed in on the issue with the release of a report slamming a suburban Chicago public school district for not providing a transgender student with access to the girls’ locker rooms.
The report, which caps a two-year investigation, found that Township High School District 211 in Palatine, Ill., unfairly denied the transgender teenager — who was undergoing hormone therapy but had not undergone gender reassignment surgery — access to school facilities in violation of Title IX, that bars discrimination in federally funded education programs, causing her “isolation,” “ostracism” and at least one “tearful breakdown.”
“The denial of access has also meant that, in order to satisfy her graduation requirements and receive a high school diploma, Student A has had no other option but to accept being treated differently than other students by the District,” according to the 14-page report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
The student, who has not been publicly named, rejoiced at the report’s release.
The federal ruling “makes clear that what my school did was wrong,” she said in a statement to the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which has backed her.
“This decision makes me extremely happy — because of what it means for me, personally, and for countless others,” she said. “The district’s policy stigmatized me, often making me feel like I was not a ‘normal person.’ ”
The school district now has 30 days to reach an agreement with authorities or risk losing up to $6 million in federal funding. The case could also be referred to the Department of Justice.
But district officials did not back down on Monday, insisting that they “remain strong in our belief that the District’s course of action … appropriately serves the dignity and privacy of all students in our educational environment.”