South Carolina has asked the Supreme Court to pause a ruling from a federal appeals court that would require a public school to let a transgender-identifying student use a bathroom based on gender identity while a lawsuit brought by the student challenging the state’s bathroom law continues. The law requires students to use restrooms based on their biological sex.
“This case implicates a question fraught with emotions and differing perspectives. That is all the more reason to defer to state lawmakers pending appeal,” the state said in its filing. “The decision was the South Carolina legislature’s to make.”
The lawsuit was filed last year by the student, who argued that the law violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause as well as Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on August 12 that the school district must allow the student, identified in filings as John Doe, to use the boys’ restroom while the case proceeds. The appeals court relied on its 2020 decision in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, which determined that barring a transgender boy from using the boys’ restroom violated both equal protection and Title IX.
South Carolina, however, argued that Grimm is a “discredited outlier” and pointed to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Skrmetti, where six justices upheld Tennessee’s ban on certain transgender medical procedures for minors. State Deputy Solicitor General Joseph Spate said Skrmetti is “irreconcilable with Grimm.”
Unless the Supreme Court steps in, South Carolina argued, “the State, the school district, and its students are suffering actual, ongoing, material harms.” The state noted that if the 4th Circuit’s order were blocked, the student would still have access to girls’ restrooms and single-stall facilities at school.
