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Judge Orders School to Allow Transgender Student to Use Restroom
A transgender student in Indiana was fighting for his right to use the men's restroom.
An Indiana judge has ordered a school district in Evansville, Ind., to accommodate to a 17-year-old transgender student's request to use restrooms in accordance to his identified gender days before the beginning of the school year, according to Courier & Press.
The student filed a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union after the school's superintendent claimed the student, recognized as J.A.W. in the lawsuit, would only be able to use the restroom so long as the student was able to change his assigned gender on his birth certificate.
ACLU attorney Ken Falk, who represented the J.A.W., noted the student was born outside of Indiana in a state that only accepts requests to change gender on birth certificates in the event of gender reassignment surgery.
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J.A.W. had not surgically transitioned, but was undergoing supervised hormone therapy before the lawsuit took place. He was also interrogated about his assigned gender appearing on his "driver's license and other legal documents" by the prosecution.
Falk argued the school district caused J.A.W. "harm and distress" when having to use the women's restroom, and that "J.A.W. is a young man and should be treated as such" after Judge William Lawrence ruled in favor of the student.
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