gavin grimm aclu-01_320pFollowing is a prepared statement that Gloucester High School student Gavin Grimm delivered at a news conference today with his attorneys from the ACLU of Virginia and ACLU national. The conference was held immediately following oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth District in Gavin's sex discrimination case against his local school board. Watch the entire news conference below.
"Standing at the school board meeting last year was equal parts humiliating and terrifying.
"Humiliating because, at age 15, I had to witness adults of my community discuss in a public forum some rather intimate details of my anatomy. In plainer words, the anatomy of a 15-year-old was considered appropriate for public conversation by the Gloucester County School Board.
"For any kid that would be mortifying. However for a kid who is transgender, bringing to the forefront of people’s minds the very part of themselves that already makes them dysphoric is incomparably distressing.
"I sat by while people repeatedly called me a girl. "She." "Her." "Young lady." "Confused young lady." Even "freak." Bullying is already an enormous problem for high school aged youth, and especially transgender youth. To hear adults of my community treat me as if I was a creature for their ridicule and observation, or some oddity on a stage was incredibly dehumanizing to an extent I could not possibly convey.
"And of course, I was terrified. Firstly, because the school board had the power to bar me from the correct restroom for the rest of my time at Gloucester High School. Secondly, because I was in a room full of adults who thought it appropriate to have this sort of vulgar discussion, who would clap or cheer after every derogatory statement, of which there were many.
"After enduring all of that – twice – I felt as though I couldn't possibly take any more hits. But I did, because at the end of the school board meetings, my school board chose to enact a policy that would further alienate and stigmatize me by forcing me to use separate restrooms from all of the other students at school. For me, the thought of going into a separate restroom which might as well have been labeled "other" was just far too much to bear. The trek to the restroom in the nurse’s office each time it was necessary was similarly humiliating, similarly upsetting and othering and dysphoria-inducing. The only difference was that it was just slightly less conspicuous.
"I am fighting this fight because no kid should have to think so hard about performing a basic and private function of being alive. No kid struggling to be accepted, and struggling to accept themselves, should have to simultaneously battle for the right to use the correct bathroom. That is why I have come to this point. I hope that I will be one of the last kids that has to go through something like this, and I am going to do what I can to ensure that."

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