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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Supreme Court declines request from South Carolina to let it enforce | |
trans bathroom ban | |
By John Fritze, CNN | |
Updated: | |
4:33 PM EDT, Wed September 10, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined for now to let South Carolina | |
enforce a ban on transgender students using with their gender identity. | |
The court denied an emergency request from the state that sought to | |
block a decision from a federal appeals court that barred school | |
officials in a district outside of Charleston from enforcing the ban | |
against a transgender boy who was suspended from school for using the | |
boys’ bathroom. | |
Three conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil | |
Gorsuch – said they would have granted South Carolina’s request. | |
The court stressed in its unsigned order that the decision was “not a | |
ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the | |
litigation.” Rather, the court said, “it is based on the standards | |
applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this court.” | |
The court’s brief order dealt only with what happens with the student | |
in the short term while the case continues to work its way through | |
federal courts. | |
It was the latest of several legal cases involving LGBTQ Americans to | |
work its way up to the high court during a moment when transgender | |
Americans are facing political and cultural setbacks. Earlier this | |
year, for instance, a divided Supreme Court allowed President Donald | |
Trump’s administration to in the military. | |
Four years ago, the Supreme Court let stand a decision from the 4th US | |
Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed a to use a bathroom that | |
corresponded to his gender identity. Though the court’s decision to | |
not hear that case did not set nationwide precedent, the Grimm ruling | |
remains controlling precedent in the 4th Circuit – which covers South | |
Carolina. | |
In the new appeal, South Carolina officials pointed to the Supreme | |
Court’s high-profile opinion in late June that let stand a Tennessee | |
law that for minors seeking to transition to match their gender | |
identity. They also noted that the high court agreed this summer to | |
decide whether from playing on sports teams that align with their | |
gender identity. | |
The state argued that those two moves had undermined the outcome in | |
Grimm. | |
The South Carolina legislature approved the bathroom ban in a series of | |
budget bills, requiring that single-sex school bathrooms be used only | |
by students of that sex assigned at birth. | |
A student identified in court papers as John Doe, who was in eighth | |
grade when the ban was first enacted, sued along with his parents, | |
alleging that the provision violated federal law and the | |
Constitution’s equal protection clause. After the Supreme Court | |
agreed to hear the transgender sports case, a federal district court | |
put the bathroom litigation on hold. | |
On appeal, the 4th Circuit unanimously sided with the student and his | |
family, blocking the ban’s enforcement against him. | |
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