WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal challenging an Oregon public school district’s restroom and locker use policy, which allows students who identify as the opposite sex to use the facility that aligns with their gender identity.

Without comment, the court denied certiorari to the case of Parents for Privacy v. Barr, which pertained to Dallas School District No. 2 and its policy created to accommodate a female student who identified as a boy. The student has since graduated.

As previously reported, the coalition Parents for Privacy, which is comprised of current and former students and their parents, the group Parents’ Rights in Education, along with three individual plaintiffs, had filed a legal challenge against the school district and the Oregon Department of Education in November 2017 after the restroom policy was implemented.

According to reports, the policy was created for then-high school senior Elliot Yoder, so that she would be able to use the boys’ restrooms and locker rooms.

“These students have the sincere religious belief that they must not undress, or use the restroom, in the presence of the opposite biological sex, and also that they must not be in the presence of the opposite biological sex while the opposite biological sex is undressing or using the restroom,” the legal challenge from the plaintiffs read.

In July 2018, Judge Marco Hernandez dismissed the groups’ religious liberty and right to privacy infringement claims and instead ruled that not allowing students with gender dysphoria to use their preferred facilities would not only violate Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 but would also be “harmful” to “transgender” students.

“Forcing transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity would undoubtedly harm those students and prevent them from equally accessing educational opportunities and resources. Such an injunction or district policy would punish transgender students for their gender non-conformity and constitute a form of sex stereotyping,” he wrote.

Read Hernandez’ ruling in full here.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed Hernandez’ ruling in February 2020.

“We agree with the district court and hold that there is no Fourteenth Amendment fundamental privacy right to avoid all risk of intimate exposure to or by a transgender person who was assigned the opposite biological sex at birth,” wrote Judge A. Wallace Tashima, a Clinton appointee, on behalf of the three-judge panel.

“We also hold that a policy that treats all students equally does not discriminate based on sex in violation of Title IX, and that the normal use of privacy facilities does not constitute actionable sexual harassment under Title IX just because a person is transgender.”

Read the Ninth Circuit ruling here.

The plaintiffs therefore took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This Court has the opportunity to untie a Gordian knot of conflicting constitutional and statutory rights and provide critically needed
guidance to lower courts grappling with public school policies that seek to accommodate privacy facilities use requests by children who self-identify as something other than their biological sex,” their petition read.

“[T]his case presents the opportunity to clarify whether Title IX is violated when public schools re-label sex-separate privacy facilities as based on how a child identifies instead of biological sex, thus requiring children to expose themselves and be exposed in secluded
spaces to members of the opposite sex in states of full and partial undress,” it argued.

However, the court declined to take up the challenge on Monday, passing on the issue at this time.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had intervened in the case beginning in 2018 on behalf of the school district and Basic Rights Oregon.

Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, who represented Attorney General William Barr, argued in brevity to the Supreme Court that by the time the initial complaint was filed in 2017, “the government had ‘unequivocally withdrawn,’ and had ‘forbidden reliance on,’ the ‘only guidance on the issue,'” meaning that the Trump administration did not require restroom use accommodation in public schools, as opposed to the Obama administration. The federal government therefore did not need to be a defendant in the case.

As previously reported, while some view transgenderism and gender confusion as a medical condition, Christians believe the matter is also, at its root, a spiritual issue and a result of mankind’s fallen state.

The Bible teaches that all are born with the Adamic sin nature, having various inherent feelings and inclinations that are contrary to the law of God, and being utterly incapable of changing by themselves.

It is why Jesus came: to “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

Scripture outlines that Jesus came to be the propitiation for men’s sins (1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10), a doctrine in Christianity known as substitutionary atonement, and to save men from the wrath of God for their violations against His law (Romans 4:25, Romans 5:9, Romans 5:16), a doctrine known as justification.

The Bible also teaches about regeneration, as in addition to sparing guilty men from eternal punishment, Christ sent his Holy Spirit to make those who would repent and believe the gospel new creatures in the here and now, with new desires and an ability to do what is pleasing in the sight of God by His indwelling and empowerment (Ezekiel 11:19, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Titus 3:5).

Jesus said that men must be born again, and have their very nature transformed by the Spirit from being in Adam to being in Christ, or they cannot see the Kingdom of God (John 3:3-8).

The late preacher J.C. Ryle once explained, “Without conversion there is no salvation. We all need an entire change of nature. Left to ourselves we have neither faith, nor fear, nor love towards God. We must be born again. Left to ourselves we are utterly unfit for dwelling in God’s presence.”

“Heaven would be no heaven to us if we were not converted. It is true of all ranks, classes, and orders of mankind. All are born in sin and children of wrath, and all, without exception, need to be born again and made new creatures. A new heart must be given to us and a new spirit put within us. Old things must pass away, and all things must become new.”

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