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(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Education’s Office of the General Council and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division filed a brief Wednesday evening in support of Gavin Grimm, a biological female who “identifies” as a male. Grimm filed a lawsuit in June against the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia for access to the boys’ restroom. “Prohibiting a transgender male student from using boys’ restrooms, when other non-transgender male students face no such restriction, deprives him not only of equal educational opportunity but also ‘of equal status, respect, and dignity,’” the DOE and DOJ attorneys argue in the brief. “Treating...

In what is likely to become a common occurrence in the near future, 150 Missouri high school students walked out of class Monday due to a disagreement as to whether or not a transgender student who was born male should be allowed to use the girls’ locker room. From KMOV 4 St. Louis: **The walkout lasted for about two hours. Roughly 30-40 people showed support for senior Lila Perry, who wants to use the girls’ locker room during gym class. Perry was born a male but said she has identified as a female since 13. **“There’s a lot of ignorance,...

Deputies are investigating the discovery of a hidden cell phone camera hiding inside the women’s restroom at a Starbucks in Lancaster, California. A woman, who asked not to be identified, told KTLA that her 5-year-old son found the cell phone around 10:30 a.m. at the Starbucks near Avenue K and 10th Street on Thursday, July 9th. “My son used the restroom first and I used the restroom after him. I noticed he was staring at the sink a little bit perplexed. I asked him what was wrong and he said, ‘Mommy, why is there a phone under there?'” said the...

f you have any business to conduct in Boston City Hall, you will be able to share the bathroom with people of the opposite sex or any sex for that matter. "Mayor Martin J. Walsh established gender-neutral bathrooms in Boston's City Hall Thursday, according to a statement from the city. The move comes during Boston's Pride Week, which celebrates the LGBT community and raises awareness of discrimination." USA Today explains the new bathrooms "can be used by anyone including individuals who may identify as transgender, caregivers helping someone of another gender and parents with small children."

If White House staffers feel compelled to visit a gender-neutral bathroom while at work, they now have that option, Politico reports.

13 March 2015 “We Just Need To Pee” Transgender Protest Do you have to be biologically male to be allowed in the men's room, or biologically female for the ladies loos? In several US states, as well as in Canada, the law governing public toilets is now a divisive issue. On one side are transgender people, who assert their right to use whichever restrooms they chose - no matter what their biological gender. On the other, conservatives who say a relaxation of the rules could leave members of the public vulnerable to traumatic or inappropriate situations, or even sexual harassment....

Officials with the city of Houston, Texas, who are defending a controversial ordinance that would allow men to use women’s restrooms now have demanded to see the sermons preached by several area pastors. The recent move came in a subpoena from the city to pastors for copies of their sermons and other communications in the city’s legal defense of a “non-discrimination” measure that allows “gender-confused” people to use public restrooms designated for the opposite sex. A lawsuit challenging Houston’s move alleges the city violated its own charter in its adoption of the Equal Rights Ordinance, which in May designated homosexuals...

VIDEO AT LINKIt’s now legal for men to use women’s bathrooms, showers, and dressing facilities – and vice-versa – thanks to the passing of the Equal Rights Ordinance in Houston, TX last Wednesday night. Mayor Parker, Houston’s first openly gay mayor, called it “most personally meaningful thing I will ever do as mayor.” The ordinance’s stated goal is to eliminate discrimination in housing and employment for gays, transgenders – 14-characteristics in total – including race, ethnicity, age, religion and disability. Opponents have 30 days to attain more than 17,000 petition signatures to appeal the decision. Careful next time you venture...

AKRON, Ohio -- Here's something that might send you dashing back to the washroom: Microbiologists at GOJO Industries and other institutions have discovered that a quarter of the soap in public restrooms is so contaminated that it leaves your hands filthier than before you washed them. In fact, some of the soap they tested contained so much fecal matter that you're almost better off washing your hands in the toilet after you flush it, said Charles P. Gerba, professor of microbiology in the University of Arizona's Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science. GOJO, the company that invented Purell hand...

A Swedish political party is taking a stand against upright urination. At a county council meeting Monday, the Left Party, or Vänsterpartiet, tabled a motion that would require office washrooms to be genderless with a sit-down-only requirement, reported the news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå.

A letter from the Department of Justice (DOJ) caused the University of Arkansas at Ft. Smith (UAFS) early this month to reverse policy and allow a 38-year old anatomically male-student permant use of women's bathrooms on campus despite opposition from female students.The university made the reversal on "advice of counsel" after receiving a letter the DOJ sent in response to a complaint that a single, self proclaimed "transgender" student filed with the DOJ's Civil Rights Division. "Because of the stance we took, the individual filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Justice," Mark Horn...

Democrat wants grants for women's restrooms in fire stationsBy Pete Kasperowicz - 12/26/11 10:50 AM ET Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) has proposed legislation that would let fire stations around the country apply for grants of up to $100,000 to build women's restrooms, showers and changing facilities. The Fairness in Restrooms Existing in Stations (FIRE Stations) Act, H.R. 3753, says these grants would help promote gender equity in fire houses. The findings of the legislation says most were built with a "single-gender workforce" in mind, that 50 percent of all fire departments do not have any women employees, and that women...

The father of a 7-year-old born a girl said the second-grader, prohibited from using the boys bathroom at school in McIntosh County, has never fit traditional gender roles. At 18 months, the child told Tommy Theollyn, 28, "I'm a boy." The child's father, who gave birth a year before beginning his own gender transition, said he wants school officials in this rural southeast Georgia county to view his son the way the child has always viewed himself. "I'm fighting to get a second grader back in school," said Theollyn, who pulled his son out of Todd Grant Elementary after his...

While such parks normally are bustling with people - and have facilities to serve them - the relative seclusion appears to have emboldened some to do their business along trails and other areas where no Minnesotan would normally dare to squat. "People are taking it upon themselves to go out in the woods and relieve themselves, and without the presence of employees and others, they're not picking up after themselves," Konrad said. "People are also having a tendency not to pick up after their pets."

WASHINGTON - When you have to go, you have to go, but exactly where some Metro train operators have been going is disturbing. Train operators have routinely been using "pocket tracks" as restrooms, according to a recent employee safety report by Metro's inspector general. Pocket tracks are sections of track just beyond certain stations where trains can be stopped and parked. According to the report, which looked at safety in Metro's office of track and structure systems maintenance: "This safety and health hazard is the result of inadequate time being allowed at the end of the line for train operators...

Waiting for a thrice-a-week Amtrak train should be slightly more comfortable by February. Travelers should find a nice, brick gabled roof and benches for seating. The open, modern design borrows from the train depots of yesterday. Just don't go there too far ahead of the train with a full bladder. The design for the new $1.2 million station near 11th and West Cedar streets lacks restrooms. The new Beaumont station - paid for with federal stimulus money - is a variation of the design other cities are getting, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said. Some of those designs have lavatories; others...

Vivian Y. Bright likes to watch her congressman at work, but she was glad when Rep. Edolphus Towns finally gaveled to a close a hearing on sexual disparity in federal restrooms -- because she had to find one. "Just now, we experienced it," she said. "We went to the ladies room. There's a line." The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Towns (D-N.Y.) chairs, heard testimony Wednesday on legislation to develop a more equitable sexual balance in the number of toilets in federal buildings.

The city council of Tampa, Fla., voted unanimously last week to include "gender identity and expression" as a protected class under the city's human rights ordinance, leading some to fear the council has opened the city's public bathroom doors to sexual predators masquerading as protected transsexuals.

Federal Appeals Court Rejects Demand of "Transsexuals" for Special Rights DENVER, September 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A federal appeals court has issued a significant ruling saying that an employer's concern over the use of restrooms by "transsexual" employees is legitimate, according to Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Brian Raum.  Raum explained further that the court ruled that "transsexuals" do not qualify as a protected class under Title VII. "The court delivered a significant legal punch to political special interest groups who are demanding that persons with Gender Identity Disorder be treated as though they were members of the opposite...

January 8, 2006 -- The Big Apple's "potty parity" law will be put into action for the first time. Wolfgang's Steakhouse, a 200-seat eatery at 407 Greenwich St., will be the first new establishment to open and be forced to comply with the new legislation. The result is that the eatery will have four stalls in the ladies room and two stalls and three urinals for the men. The law, designed to solve the age-old problem of overcrowded ladies' facilities, covers new or renovated public spaces, including stadiums, theaters, dance halls, convention centers and drinking establishments. It says that for...