An LGBTQ advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit against Tennessee earlier this week, challenging a bathroom bill that restricts transgender students’ use of school restrooms.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) filed the lawsuit in the District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee on behalf of two transgender children.
The lawsuit alleges that the Tennessee Accommodations for All Children Act (also known as the School Facilities Law), signed by Governor Bill Lee in May, “unfaily discriminates against transgender children.”
“By singling out transgender students for disfavored treatment and explicitly writing discrimination against transgender people into State law, the School Facilities Law violates the most basic guarantees of equal protection under the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit further argues that the law endangers the safety, privacy, security, and well-being of transgender students through “intentional and inherent discrimination.”
“The law invites potential harassment and assault of non-transgender students who may not fit gender expectations or stereotypes associated with their gender identity by giving private persons a right of action to sue under the Law, and thereby encouraging independent policing of everyone who uses a multi-occupancy restroom,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit seeks to block the state from enforcing the law, while requiring that the plaintiffs, along with other students, are allowed to use multi-occupancy restrooms matching their gender identity.
HRC president Alphonso David calls the law in question “morally reprehensible” and “devoid of any sound legal justification.”
“Courts have time-and-time again ruled against these dangerous and discriminatory laws and we are going to fight in court to strike down this one and protect the civil rights of transgender and non-binary young people,” David said in a press release. “With our representation of two transgender kids today, we are sending a strong message of support for all transgender and non-binary children across the country [that] you matter, and your legal rights should be respected.”
The law being challenged is one of five targeting transgender students signed into law this year in Tennessee. Together, the laws prevent transgender students from participating in high school and middle school sports, prevent physicians from prescribing hormone treatment for prepubertal transgender youth, require public schools to notify parents before offering any curriculum about sexual orientation and gender identity, and require businesses with bathrooms open to the public to post a notice at the entrance of each public restroom if the business allows transgender individuals to use the restrooms corresponding with their gender identity.
This is the second lawsuit filed in response to one of these laws. The first, filed in May by the American Civil Liberties Union, challenges the Business Bathroom Bill, which requires businesses to post signs if they allow transgender customers to use multi-occupancy restrooms. A federal judge has preliminarily blocked the law from being implemented.
