Gavin Grimm, who sued his Va. school district over bathroom access, spoke at Montgomery County Public Schools' Pride Town Hall.
“When you’re getting into places like a school system with a lot of really well-meaning [supporters], people who are in that circle can feel really defensive or called out if you’re saying, ‘This is great, but you’re not doing enough,’” Grimm said.
His talk highlighted a gathering of about 300 students, parents and teachers designed, in part, to break through any such resistance. The Pride Town Hall at Walter Johnson High School included 11 workshop discussions ranging from “LGBTQ+ Inclusivity in 8th and 9th Grade American History” to “ACT to Fight Bias,” a session about how best to respond to bias against LGBTQ students.Among the attendees were a woman whose nephew has just come out, and another woman whose son’s friends had just come out. Sam Ross, a freshman at Montgomery Blair High School who’d come to the town hall, was heartened to see the women.The gathering took place amid the ongoing culture wars and the high-tension debate elsewhere in the nation at the intersection of public education and gender identification. When asked about Texas, for example, where the governor has likened gender-affirming medical treatments to child abuse, Grimm said the state shouldn’t be thought of as far away. “Texas is all of us,” Grimm said. “Even in this area, we have no idea that leadership won’t change, and the children in this school and the people in this school and in this community aren’t therefore in danger.” The events that propelled Grimm to a national voice on transgender issues began in 2014, after he had transitioned,But parental backlash prompted the school board to reverse course and require Grimm to use a special bathroom.Va. school board settles lawsuit over Gavin Grimm's demand to use boys' bathrooms The case made its way to a federal appeals court, which in a 2-to-1 panel decision said the school board had discriminated on the basis of sex and violated the 14th Amendment by prohibiting Grimm from using the bathroom that aligned with his gender identity. Judge Henry F. Floyd framed the case in historical terms. “The proudest moments of the federal judiciary have been when we affirm the burgeoning values of our bright youth, rather than preserve the prejudices of the past,” he wrote. “How shallow a promise of equal protection that would not protect Grimm from the fantastical fears and unfounded prejudices of his adult community. It is time to move forward.”“I am glad that my years-long fight to have my school see me for who I am is over,” Grimm said in a statement at the time, adding, “Trans youth deserve to use the bathroom in peace without being humiliated and stigmatized by their own school boards and elected officials.” At the Pride Town Hall on Saturday, Grimm began his keynote address by noting that Montgomery students enjoy a more accepting environment. “This was not my school experience,” he said, calling Montgomery an affirming space. “I was in a school system who was very comfortable dragging out a long and expensive legal battle for the wrong reasons.”“I didn’t do what I did because I was brave and because I was innately powerful,” he said. “I did what I did because, regardless of how I felt about myself, I believed in what I deserved. … My position was one of justice, not one of self-empowerment or confidence.”Virginia school board will pay $1.3 million in settlement to transgender student Gavin Grimm, who sued over bathroom policyWhen I transitioned, myself and my mother, we went to the school before the school year started and she said, ‘This is Gavin. He is a boy. This is not a negotiation. This is not a matter of opinion. What are you going to do to keep this child safe?’ And to his credit, at the time, my principal was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know, probably support him.’ And it was fine. For seven weeks I used the boys’ bathroom without incident and then the school board stepped in.” In response to a question about how all students could support LGBTQ students, Grimm got choked up speaking about his close friends from middle school. “They listened to me when I talked about my pronouns or whatever. They were very respectful, but they weren’t into queer politics,” he said. “All they really did was love me and support me and support my rights in my fight. And that is one of the best things you can do is be a positive, loving, supportive member of the community.”“Every single year we have more people and we have more excitement and we have more young people willing to demand what they know that they deserve,” he said, adding, “Even in the states where we’re having our agency, our personhood challenged and banned and restricted, people are not standing for this broadly. In every single corner of this country where these this legislation is being passed, you’ll find an ally mom or a couple of youth with a couple of signs. You’ll find somebody standing up and saying that it’s not right.”
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