A federal court judge in Oklahoma City has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the families of three transgender students in 2022 to challenge a law regulating the use of school bathrooms based on biological sex. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
OKLAHOMA CITY – A lawsuit challenging an Oklahoma law affecting the use of school bathrooms by transgender students has been challenged after it was dismissed in federal court in Oklahoma City.
The families of three transgender students sued the Oklahoma State Department of Education in 2022 to overturn the case Senate Bill 615which they argue is unconstitutional and a violation of Title IX.
SB 615 required school restrooms to be used based on a person’s biological sex, not their gender identity. Alternatively, a single toilet should also be available.
On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma appealed U.S. District Judge Jodi W. Dishman’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit. Last month, Dishman dismissed the case entirely with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.
The dismissal was “somewhat surprising” because it means the judge not only disagreed, but also found the plaintiffs’ claims without merit, said Devraat Awasthi, an ACLU legal fellow who worked on the case.
The ACLU of Oklahoma appealed Dishman’s decision to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“SB 615 is a law that elevates the privacy and safety interests of cisgender students over those of transgender and non-binary students, and violates the Constitution’s promise of equality under the law,” Awasthi said. “That is a promise that all Oklahomans care about, and I believe we are delivering on that important promise by making this call.”
Dishman ruled in favor of the prosecution, which argued that treatment based on gender identity does not amount to sex discrimination under Title IX.
The three plaintiffs do not pose a danger to fellow students, the judge writes in her court order, but she concludes that scrapping the law could pose a safety problem.
“If the Court were to adopt Plaintiffs’ position, any biological male could claim to be transgender and then use the same restroom or changing area as girls,” Dishman wrote. “This is a major safety problem.
“However, if plaintiffs’ arguments were adopted, school officials would be placed in the position of having to either conduct a subjective analysis of the sincerity of an individual’s gender identity or simply take their word for it.”
The Public Prosecution Service did not want to comment on the case.
State Superintendent Ryan Walters speaks during an Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting on Aug. 24 in Oklahoma City. (Photo by Brent Fuchs/For Oklahoma Voice)
One of the defendants was state Superintendent Ryan Walters, the head of the state education department. He is one of the most vocal advocates of banning bathroom use in schools based on gender identity, saying it puts female students at risk.
“The (US) court was right to recognize the real physiological differences between men and women, and the real interest of parents in protecting their children,” Walters said in a statement. “Oklahomans strongly oppose the radical left that seeks to force young girls to share the bathroom with boys, and I will always fight to protect our students.”
Walters was also a supporter of Oklahoma laws that ban gender-affirming medical care for minors and prevent transgender girls from participating in women’s sports. He sought new rules at the Ministry of Education to prevent students from retroactively changing previous school records to match their gender identity.
Laws like these encourage bullies and endanger transgender students, Awasthi said.
He pointed to the death of Nex Benedict, a non-binary student from Owasso who had reported bullying. A medical examiner’s report found that 16-year-old Benedict committed suicide on Feb. 8, a day after the student got into a fight in a school bathroom.
“I think an important aspect of these kinds of laws in general is that they provide cover for bullies and bigots in our society because it makes them think that their kind of discriminatory intentions are supported by the state,” Awasthi said. “It almost gives permission for this kind of horrible treatment in our public schools.”
Walters called this argument surrounding Benedict’s death a “grotesquely twisted radical, progressive, Democratic narrative” in a Fox News op-ed he published Thursday. Walters’ editorial repeatedly referred to Benedict as a girl, despite the Benedict family saying that is an inaccurate description of who the student was.
About a dozen other states had passed similar bathroom laws by the time Oklahoma’s governor signed SB 615 into law. Legal challenges have succeeded in overturning similar legislation elsewhere in the country.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld two decisions by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld students’ right to use the restroom that matches their gender identity.
New rules introduced by the U.S. Department of Education on Friday include gender identity protections in Title IX.
A co-author of SB 615, Rep. Kevin West, R-Moore, said several Oklahoma lawmakers worked on the bill’s wording to “give that safety and that security to the children.” He said the authors of the legislation chose not to borrow the bill’s language from other states.
“I think this helped some people stand up in court because we had so many different eyes on it and so many people working on it,” West said.
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Postal case challenging Oklahoma’s transgender bathroom law appealed after federal judge dismissed it first appeared on Oklahoma Voice.
