From Bilerico: http://www.bilerico.com/2013/02/title_ix_and_transgender_students.php?utm_source=front_page&utm_medium=top_story&utm_campaign=Top_Story
By Dr. Jillian T. Weiss
February 19, 2013
I’ve been invited this weekend to a symposium sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Law School’s Journal of Law, Gender and Society, on the subject of Transcending Gender Lines: Title IX and Transgender Rights. I thought I’d take a break from my recent series on filing employment discrimination complaints to talk about Title IX and transgender students.
There are a lot of other fabulous people coming, and the full line up is here.
My paper is entitled “Protecting Transgender Students: Application of Title IX to Gender Identity or Expression and the Constitutional Right to Gender Autonomy.” The bottom line of this paper? If you’re filing a case to protect transgender students’ rights to proper forms of address, dress codes, facilities usage and protection from invasive questioning, then you can’t count on Title IX alone. You should also file a claim under the U.S. Constitution for the right to gender autonomy.
You may remember me banging on about the “right to gender autonomy,” in a post right here on The Bilerico Project, some years ago when I was writing a law review article on it. That article eventually was published in the Touro Journal of Race, Gender and Ethnicity. Anyway, after the jump is my brief take on the application of this constitutional right to Title IX and transgender students. There are a few typos — it’s just a conference draft — but look for a much expanded and polished version this coming Fall in the Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender and Society.
Expression and the Constitutional Right to Gender Autonomy
Dr. Jillian T. Weiss, Professor of Law and Society, Ramapo College of New Jersey
Susan began her fifth-grade year in September, 2007. Her use of the girls’ restroom went smoothly until a male student followed her into the restroom on September 28 and called her a fag and again disrupted her use of the girls’ restroom on October 3. The male student entered the restroom at the instigation of his grandfather, his guardian, who told him that Susan was really a boy and shouldn’t be allowed to use the female restroom. The male student’s grandfather urged him to enter the girls’ restroom because he disagreed with the sexual orientation anti-discrimination law and told his grandson that if Susan could use the restroom as a boy, then the male student could use that restroom as well. The grandfather had a political or religious objection to the sexual orientation nondiscrimination law. The male student’s conduct was a violation of serious school policies. No other students expressed discomfort with or objected to Susan’s use of the girls’ restroom.
Continue reading at: http://www.bilerico.com/2013/02/title_ix_and_transgender_students.php?utm_source=front_page&utm_medium=top_story&utm_campaign=Top_Story
