North Carolina's university system must allow two transgender students and a transgender employee to use bathrooms matching their gender identity, a US judge ruled yesterday, in a partial victory for those fighting the state's restrictive restroom law.
Most transgender people in North Carolina, however, will still be bound by the law adopted in March that requires them to use bathrooms in government buildings and public schools that correspond with the sex on their birth certificate.
Bathroom access has become a flashpoint in the battle over transgender rights in the United States.
The North Carolina law has sparked boycotts of the state by corporations, entertainers and the National Basketball Association, which pulled its 2017 All-Star Game from the North Carolina city of Charlotte.
US District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder said three plaintiffs challenging the measure were likely to succeed at trial on their claim that it violates the 1972 Title IX Act, which prohibits sex-based discrimination by schools receiving federal funding.
"The individual transgender plaintiffs have clearly shown that they will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief," he wrote, noting their assertions that single-occupant bathrooms were generally unavailable at the University of North Carolina.
The judge said his order effectively returned all involved to the status quo before the law passed, "wherein public agencies accommodated the individual transgender plaintiffs on a case-by-case basis, rather than applying a blanket rule to all people in all facilities under all circumstances".
An estimated 0.6% of US adults identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. Debates about which public bathroom facilities they should use have divided courts, state legislatures and schools.
Chris Brook, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina said that the latest ruling means the students and university employee who sued North Carolina will, for now, no longer face the humiliation of being banned from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity.
