Wednesday, June 01, 2016

4th Circuit Denies En Banc Review In Gavin Grimm Case!

Gavin Grimm
Good news for transkind from Richmond, VA.   Several hours ago the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Gloucester County Schools request to hold an en banc hearing in the Grimm vs Gloucester School Board case.   In an en banc review, all the active judges in the 4th Circuit court review the case, and there are currently 15 active judges in the 4th Circuit..

That means the favorable April ruling in the Grimm case stands, and the school board's only option is to take it to the US Supreme Court   The dissent in this ruling came from not surprisingly, Judge Paul Niemeyer (GHW Bush appointee) , who was on the dissenting end of the three judge panel that heard the Grimm case in April .

Of course, Grimm was ecstatic about yesterday's ruling from the 4th Circuit.

Now that the Fourth Circuit’s decision is final, I hope my school board will finally do the right thing and let me go back to using the boys’ restroom again,” said Gavin Grimm, the high school junior who is the plaintiff in the case. “Transgender kids should not have to sue their own school boards just for the ability to use the same restrooms as everyone else.”

Also happy about the ruling are the folks fighting Hate Bill 2 in North Carolina, since it is under the 4th Circuit's jurisdiction.  .Three cases to strike down HB2 are pending in federal court in addition to the lawsuit the Department of Justice filed against the state several weeks ago.    

We need to stay tuned to see what happens next in this case and if the Gloucester School Board wants to continue being on the wrong side of history and pushing this all the way to the Supreme Court.

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