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Federal education authorities found Monday that an Illinois school district violated antidiscrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls’ sports team to change and shower in the girls’ locker room without restrictions. Instead, the student, who identifies as female but was born male, is required to change beyond privacy curtains in the girls’ locker room and to shower separately.

The student, who has not been publicly identified, has said she would probably use that curtain to change. But she and the federal government have insisted that she be allowed to make that decision voluntarily, and not because of requirements by the district.

Daniel Cates, the district superintendent, said that district officials had “worked long and hard” to develop a plan that the district believed would balance the rights of everyone involved. The Education Department, though, agrees that the school-imposed plan doesn’t meet the standard set by Title IX, a federal law that bans sex discrimination. “All students deserve the opportunity to participate equally in school programs and activities — this is a basic civil right,” Catherine Lhamon, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.

Dr. Cates said parents had made it resoundingly clear that they favored “maintaining some measure of privacy expectation” in the locker rooms. What is unclear is how that privacy expectation may be generally applied in a locker room setting, or what underlies it: Is it about biology, or is it about sex?

Read the full article, Illinois District Violated Transgender Student’s Rights, U.S. Says, and then tell us about your experience. How are bathrooms, locker rooms and showers used at your child’s school? Are you aware of a transgender child there? What are the rules set around bathrooms and locker rooms, and how have the conversations around that gone where you live? What do you think?