Conversation during a work session Monday centered on a line added to the 2020 Title IX policy on sex nondiscrimination. School board attorney Crystal Davis recommended adding a line referencing Grimm v. Gloucester’s definition of sex, which includes gender identity.

Grimm v. Gloucester was a lawsuit filed in 2015 by a 16-year-old transgender boy (biologically female). He filed the lawsuit alleging that the Gloucester, Va., public school district denied him equal treatment and discriminated against him after the board of education adopted a policy barring him from the boys’ restroom, according to the school’s website US Department of Justice.

The US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Grimm v. Gloucester in August 2020. Davis said the court ruled that Title IX protects transgender students from school bathroom policies that prohibit them from asserting themselves the gender. Davis said it was unclear whether gender identity and sexual orientation were protected by Title IX until Grimm v. Gloucester.

Board member Michelle Teague asked if adding a line about Grimm v. Gloucester to the policy meant the board agreed to allow transgender (biologically male) girls into the girls’ restrooms.

Davis said not necessarily. “What you’re saying (is) you don’t discriminate on the basis of sex, and that sex includes sexual orientation and gender identity as specifically included in Grimm v. Gloucester,” she said.

Davis said she couldn’t stress enough how each situation regarding discrimination and student requests is on a case-by-case basis.

Teague disagreed with the addition.

“I’m very, very upset about it because I don’t agree with boys identifying as girls and going into girls’ bathrooms,” Teague said.

“You have a federal law that says you can’t discriminate against a transgender student based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” Davis said.

President Jeff Taylor added that not discriminating against a transgender student does not prevent administrators from making an accommodation for the student’s bathroom needs without exposing them to the larger female population.

Board member Tim Settlemyre said he wants transgender children to feel safe, but he also wants other children to feel safe. He later added that he has an 11-year-old daughter at school.

“(What) Grimm versus Gloucester does is give the school the same kind of freedom to be creative and find out what this student needs without necessarily saying you can just go to the girls’ bathroom,” Taylor said .

In the end, Taylor and board members Annette Richards, Leslie Barnette and Ronn Abernathy voted in favor of the changes. Teague, Settlemyre and board member Don Sigmon voted against the changes.

“Regardless of my personal feelings on an issue, I will never vote to knowingly violate federal law, be it case law or statute, and thereby expose the taxpayers of Catawba County to unnecessary legal damages ,” said Jeff Taylor in a subsequent conversation above.