US Top Court Throws out Precedent-Setting Trans Rights Case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday scrapped plans to hear a major transgender rights case and threw out a lower court's ruling in favor of a transgender Virginia student after President Donald Trump rescinded a policy protecting such youths under federal law.

The justices sent the case involving transgender high school student Gavin Grimm back to the same U.S. appeals court that last year ruled in Grimm's favor, with the dispute centering on a federal anti-discrimination law, a constitutional issue and the Trump administration's Feb. 22 action.

The action came after Trump's administration retracted a directive by former President Barack Obama's administration telling public schools nationwide to let transgender students use bathrooms matching their gender identity.

Grimm, due to graduate from high school in June, sued the Gloucester County School Board to win the right to use the public school's boys' bathroom. Grimm argued the school's refusal violated a federal anti-discrimination law called Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The justices sidestepped what would have been the Supreme Court's first ruling on the issue of transgender rights and canceled arguments that had been scheduled for March 28.