The Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand a lower court’s ruling that said transgender students in an eastern Pennsylvania school district can use locker rooms and restrooms that match their gender identity. The court declined to review a Third Circuit Court decision in Doe v. Boyertown School District, which upheld the district’s policy. Had the Supreme Court taken it up for review, it would have marked the first time it heard a case that directly addresses the issue of transgender people’s rights. The case stemmed from a March 2017 complaint about an encounter between an unnamed student and a transgender student, in which “Joel Doe” allegedly saw a “member of the opposite sex changing with him in the locker room,” according to the complaint. “Joel Doe experienced immediate confusion, embarrassment, humiliation, and loss of dignity upon finding himself in this circumstance and quickly put his clothes on and left the locker room,” the complaint reads. The plaintiff argued that allowing a transgender student to use the same locker of his gender violated his rights to privacy.
