Governor Matt Bevin is applauding a Supreme Court decision halting a federal judge’s ruling on bathroom policy for transgender students. The move could signal the high court’s interest in taking up a separate lawsuit joined by more than 20 states, including Kentucky.
The Supreme Court ruling is narrow in scope, only affecting one case at a high school in Virginia, but Kentucky’s governor is calling it a “good first step.” The transgender student in question, Gavin Grimm, is fighting for the right to use the boy’s bathroom. A court order had overturned a local school board policy mandating that students use the restrooms designated for their “corresponding biological genders," but the high court has temporarily blocked that decision.
The ruling comes as Kentucky and long list of other states are challenging an Obama administration guidance on transgender rights that threatened to withhold federal dollars from schools that don’t comply – a move Gov. Bevin dubbed an “absurd federal overreach.”
In a statement Friday, Bevin said the temporary hold on the Virginia decision paves the way for a “final ruling upholding the right of communities to maintain local control over their schools.”
Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing the court order allowing Grimm to use the boy’s bathroom did not amount to the kind of "irreparable harm that requires a stay."