## Facts

- Gavin Grimm, a transgender boy, attended Gloucester High School in Virginia and socially transitioned, using a male name and pronouns.
- Grimm used the boys’ restrooms at school for several weeks without reported incident.
- After parental complaints, the Gloucester County School Board adopted a policy limiting restroom and locker room use to “corresponding biological genders” and directing students with “gender identity issues” to alternative private facilities.
- Under the policy, Grimm was barred from the boys’ restrooms and required to use either the girls’ restroom or single-stall facilities.
- During the dispute, Grimm took medical and legal steps consistent with his gender identity, including obtaining state identification and legal documentation recognizing him as male under Virginia law, including an updated birth certificate.
- The Board maintained the policy and refused to update Grimm’s school records to reflect male sex, causing his transcript to list him as female for post-graduation use.

## Issues

1. Whether the restroom policy and refusal to update Grimm’s school records violated the Equal Protection Clause.
2. Whether the same actions constituted discrimination “on the basis of sex” under Title IX.
3. What level of scrutiny applied under Equal Protection, including whether transgender persons constitute a quasi-suspect class.
4. Whether asserted privacy and record-accuracy interests substantially justified the Board’s actions.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Grimm on both Equal Protection and Title IX claims.
- The court held the restroom policy was sex-based discrimination and also that transgender persons constitute a quasi-suspect class, triggering intermediate scrutiny.
- The court concluded the Board’s privacy rationale was important in the abstract but unsupported on the record and not substantially related to excluding Grimm from the boys’ restrooms.
- The court held the refusal to amend Grimm’s school records violated Equal Protection because it was not substantially related to maintaining accurate records given Grimm’s legal sex under Virginia law.
- The court held both the restroom policy and records refusal violated Title IX as discrimination on the basis of sex, and that Grimm suffered cognizable harm.
- A dissent would have treated the policy as based on biological sex and rejected the majority’s reading of Title IX and Equal Protection.

## Legal Principles

- A policy that conditions restroom access on sex classifications and excludes a transgender student from facilities consistent with gender identity constitutes sex-based discrimination for Equal Protection analysis.
- Transgender persons are treated as a quasi-suspect class in the Fourth Circuit; governmental classifications targeting them are subject to intermediate scrutiny.
- Under intermediate scrutiny, the government must show the challenged classification is substantially related to an important governmental interest; conjectural privacy concerns are insufficient.
- Discrimination against a transgender student can constitute discrimination “on the basis of sex” under Title IX, including where the student is treated differently than other students of the same gender identity.
- A school’s refusal to correct records can violate Equal Protection and Title IX where it perpetuates sex-based differential treatment and is not justified by record-accuracy interests in light of the student’s legal status.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit held that excluding a transgender boy from the boys’ restrooms and refusing to update his school records constituted unlawful sex-based discrimination under both the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX, and that the Board’s asserted privacy and administrative justifications did not meet intermediate scrutiny on the evidentiary record.


Grimm v. Gloucester Cnty. Sch. Bd., 972 F.3d 586 (4th Cir. 2020)