Transgender Bathroom Rights in the Time of Trump

On May 13, 2016, the Obama Administration issued a guidance document entitled “Dear Colleague Letter on Transgender Students,” which interpreted federal law as requiring that transgender students be permitted to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity in schools receiving federal funding. Considerable litigation ensued. Less than a year later, on February 22, 2017, the Trump Administration rescinded this guidance document. The Trump Administration asserts that it should be up to individual states to decide what bathrooms transgender children may use in schools.

This article addresses where transgender bathroom rights stand now that Obama’s Dear Colleague Letter has been rescinded, as well as what the decision of the Supreme Court should be in the pending transgender bathroom case, Gloucester County School Board v. Grimm. This Article concludes that, even though the student in the case has now graduated, the Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court should issue a decision in the Gloucester County School Board case, and should hold that federal law requires that transgender students have access to bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.