Amid the cornfields and marinas dotting the conservative tidewater Virginia enclave of Gloucester, people are divided over what one local pastor calls “the civil rights issue of this generation” — how to deal with a transgender student’s demand to use the boys’ restrooms at the local high school.
“If they’re not fixed like a man, they should not use the men’s bathroom,” Gary Pilkinton, a 56-year-old movie special effects worker, told a reporter recently outside the local Wal-Mart.
Another shopper, Cheryl Walker, took the opposite view.
“I don’t care what bathroom he uses,” the 71-year-old retiree said. “Just don’t go potty on the hallway floor.”
Gavin Grimm, who was born female but identifies as male, sued school officials over a policy requiring him to use either the girls’ restrooms or a single-stall, unisex bathroom open to all students. The 16-year-old Gloucester High School junior claims it’s stigmatizing and discriminatory. Some classmates and their parents argue that his presence in boys’ bathrooms would be disruptive and a violation of privacy.
It’s a new and decidedly modern issue for this rural eastern Virginia county that dates to 1651, promotes itself as Daffodil Capital of the World and takes pride in its history: home of George Washington’s grandmother and the Indian princess Pocahontas.
But the dispute, which unfolded in heated school board meetings and spilled into federal court, is not unique to Gloucester. A transgender student’s use of the girls’ facilities in a Missouri high school triggered a late-August backlash by parents and a protest by nearly 200 students. Last year, Maine’s highest court ruled that a transgender fifth-grader could use the girls’ restroom.
Grimm, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, says in the lawsuit that he started refusing to wear girls’ clothes by age 6 and told his parents he was transgender in April 2014 — a year before Caitlin Jenner made an international splash by publicly divulging her transgender status.
Grimm’s parents helped him legally change his given name and took him to a psychologist who determined he has gender dysphoria, characterized by stress stemming from conflict between one’s gender identity and assigned sex at birth. Grimm began hormone treatment to deepen his voice and give him a more masculine appearance.
During the last school year, Grimm was allowed to use the boys’ restrooms and did so without incident until some parents complained. Amid the ensuing turmoil, the school board voted 6-1 for the policy restricting students with “transgender issues” to the single-stall facilities or those corresponding to their biological sex. Grimm complied, using a restroom in the school nurse’s office, but found the board’s solution unbearable.
“It’s humiliating, it’s ostracizing and I don’t want to take that walk of shame to the unisex bathroom and know that everyone who saw me go in there knows why I’m in there — because I’m different, and I’ve been marked different by my school and publicly. … I’m not comfortable with it whatsoever. I’m not an ‘other’ and I’m not unisex, I’m a boy,” Grimm said.
Some have used other words, including “it” and “freak,” Grimm said — dehumanizing insults that sting, even though he believes deep down that they stem from ignorance. He recoils at public discussion of his genitals and disputes suggestions that he is just seeking attention.
Gloucester, a community of about 37,000, voted nearly 2-1 for the Republican candidate in the last two presidential elections in a state won by Democrat Barack Obama. A recent random sampling of local opinion there yielded a variety of outlooks.
Some are mostly concerned about Grimm’s well-being.
“I think it’s a hard situation, especially for somebody so young,” said Marcella Randal, 68, during a smoke break on a bench outside the senior center on Main Street. “It could also be dangerous. You know those young boys in high school aren’t going to understand that.”
Kim Williams, owner of the Short Lane Ice Cream shop down the street from the high school, said she doesn’t hear much about the dispute from students who drop in. She wondered if the controversy could have been handled by letting the students decide.
Student Scott Williams told the school board that other teens who don’t want to run into Grimm in the restroom would speak up if not for the fear of being labeled intolerant.
“My friends and I are uncomfortable with co-ed bathrooms and locker rooms. Don’t we matter too? How is it fair to advance the rights of one by violating the rights of a thousand? The unisex restroom isn’t perfect, but it’s the best option,” he said.
Williams was among about three dozen residents who made impassioned two-minute pleas to the school board, whose meetings often draw no public comments at all.
Local pastor Ralph VanNess asked, “Where does it end?” He added, as the audience applauded, that the rights of “the other young men in Gloucester High School” should be respected.
Cheryl Walker sympathizes with Grimm’s plight, but isn’t ready to elevate it to that level.
“In Gloucester, we have so many issues,” she said outside the Wal-Mart, citing drugs as an example. “Let’s get on with more important stuff.”
“To respect the safety and privacy of all students, the School Board has had a long-standing practice of limiting the use of the restroom and locker room facilities to the corresponding biological sex of the students,” the board says, adding that it believes the policy “is in the best interests of all students.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article
Gavin said ” I don’t want to take that walk of shame to the unisex bathroom and know that everyone who saw me go in there knows why I’m in there — because I’m different, and I’ve been marked different by my school and publicly. ”
But that is EXACTLY why you are being allowed to go to the unisex bathroom in the first place instead of using the women’s bathroom — because you ARE different. You can complain about the treatment all you want, but you are already receiving special treatment and consideration above the masses. It is a completely acceptable viable decision.
To decide it is not enough, even though it does allow thoughtfulness and discretion for Gavin’s gender issue, is too bad. People don’t always get everything exactly the way they would like and it is such an childish attitude of entitlement and political correctness bullsquat that shows how ridiculous it is. As is suggested in the article, enough is enough — at what point does the rights of one person count for more than the rights of the remainder of the entire school? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
As far as I know you can’t change DNA, soooooooooo!
I am soooooooooooo tired of hearing about this. most of these kids have been pampered and indulged and now want to change their God given bodies. I blame the psychiatrists for changing the coding and not allowing good counseling so they can come to terms with who they are and not what they think they should be. No child unless couched at 6 knows anything about sex , gender or change. Come on folks, tolerance has gone to the dogs on this one. I bet these kids have been given trophies just for showing up! Not the way i was raised.!!! We need some John Wayne men to take these kids out in the wilderness for a month and teach them survival techniques. We need to go back to the days when women did female things and guys did the heavy duty muscle jobs. Girls don’t belong boxing or playing football, and boys don’t need to dress in frills. Granted the best chefs are men and women have shown they can manage companies but women should be women and proud of it and men should be men and proud of it. Do I sound like a dinasuar, yes I am and things were much easier when you knew what was expected of you and you did it.