If Grimm is allowed to use the boys’ bathroom, the district argued in a filing this week, “parents may decide to remove their children from the school system after reaching the understandable conclusion that the school has been stripped … of its authority to protect their children’s constitutionally guaranteed rights of bodily privacy.”

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It was one of several arguments the school district made in the 14-page filing, part of an ongoing case regarding Grimm’s challenge of a school board policy that prevents transgender students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. A federal appeals court ordered a lower court to hear Grimm’s case, and the school district says it would like the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in. In the meantime, the courts have ordered the school district to let Grimm use the boys’ room while the case is pending.

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Joshua Block, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Grimm, said that the fear of a negative reaction from some parents isn’t a legitimate reason to violate Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination, and that — according to the ACLU and guidance from the Obama administration — protects transgender students’ right to use facilities matching their gender identity.

Block was skeptical that allowing one student to use the bathroom of his choice — the court’s order applies just to Grimm, not to any other transgender students — would cause such uproar.

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“This idea that the sky is going to fall if one student uses a restroom is really impossible to take seriously,” Block said.

An attorney for the school system declined to comment.

Grimm’s case has drawn widespread attention amid a national debate over transgender students’ access to bathrooms at school.

He sued in 2015 after he was forbidden from using the boys’ bathroom at Gloucester High. A federal district court dismissed his claims, but in April, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Grimm and directed the lower court to hear his case.

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The school system has said it plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, given the national interest in resolving questions about whether Title IX protects transgender students’ right to use bathrooms that match their gender identity.

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The lower court ruled last week that Gloucester High could not continue barring Grimm from the boys’ bathroom while it waits for a final ruling in the case. It must permit Grimm to use the boys’ bathroom when school begins in the fall.

Now the school system is trying to overturn that directive.

In its June 28 motion, the school system asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to stay its earlier decision, arguing that Grimm can use a bathroom in the nurse’s office, or one of three other single-occupancy restrooms that are available to all students, while litigation proceeds.

It seems unlikely that the district court would reverse its own ruling. But the school system made clear in its filing that it intends to take the issue to the nation’s highest court.