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The superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools issued an apology and a school board member resigned on Friday as the district faces mounting backlash over its response to two alleged sexual assaults, one of which was allegedly carried out by a skirt-wearing male student in a girls' bathroom. Superintendent Scott Ziegler apologized for saying during a June event that the Virginia district had no record of assaults taking place in its bathrooms. His comments came amid debate about policy changes related to self-identified transgender students. Ziegler said Friday that he misunderstood the question when he made the comment. Ziegler also...

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the issue of whether the nation's schools must allow students to use the bathroom that match their gender identities. The court declined, without comment, to hear the case of Gavin Grimm, who has been at the center of a long legal battle with the school board in Gloucester County, Virginia. Grimm was born female but identified as male after his freshman year in high school, legally changing his name and beginning hormone therapy.The principal at first gave him permission to use the boys' bathroom, but the school board later adopted a...

A federal court in Florida has ruled that it is unconstitutional for schools to ban transgender students from using the restroom that matches their gender identity. Judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit announced on Friday that they are affirming a lower court’s ruling on the matter because “a public school may not punish its students for gender conformity.” The case was centered around Drew Adams, a 19-year-old former student of Allen D. Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, Florida. Adams, who is transgender, used the boys’ restroom at Nease High School, and did so without...

Gender-neutral toilets in schools have left girls feeling unsafe and even put their health at risk, parents and teachers have warned. Girls who are menstruating are so anxious about sharing facilities with boys that some are staying at home for fear of being made to feel 'period shame'. With a growing number of both primary and secondary schools installing unisex toilets, some girls are risking infections by refusing to urinate all day. Others are so fearful they have stopped drinking liquids at school. The trend for single-sex toilets is driven by the wish to be more inclusive of children who...

Netflix has canceled plans to produce an upcoming series titled “OBX” in North Carolina after lingering concerns about the state’s trans bathroom law, a person familiar with the matter told TheWrap Friday. The network instead plans to host production in neighboring South Carolina, in a decision that was described as “final.” The series has not been officially announced by Netflix and the company declined to comment on the matter. TheWrap has confirmed that 10 episodes of the show have already been picked up by the network and shooting is expected to begin in the spring. The show is a creation...

No more separate restrooms for boys and girls, with rows of feet-showing stalls. The North Kansas City school district is going fully gender neutral at two new elementary schools, opening on Wednesday, as well as in a few renovated restrooms in North Kansas City High School and the sixth-grade centers. The bathrooms still have an open alcove area with a common trough sink, but the toilets are enclosed inside individual stalls with floor-to-ceiling walls and lockable doors.

On Sunday night, in a restroom at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, I was washing my hands when someone in a crimson ballgown swept past me toward the stalls. There was something about this person's energy that was different than that of other women who were milling around, redoing their lipstick, chatting about the Oscars show. I felt I knew this person in the crimson gown. Or had seen them somewhere before. So I left the bathroom and waited outside, in the lobby. And when this person left the ladies room, I stopped them to chat.

The University of Tours in central-west France has become the first in the country to offer gender-neutral toilets, in an effort to make transgender students feel more comfortable. As well as the new toilets, the university has also announced that starting from this year, it will recognize transgender students’ preferred names on their student ID cards, university email addresses, and on class registers. In France, legal name changes are often a long and complex process, which means many transgender students have a legal name which does not match their gender identity or outward appearance. The decision comes a year after...

A federal appeals court Tuesday issued a decision that could have far-reaching implications for transgender students, siding with a transgender boy whose Wisconsin school district had sought to bar him from the boys’ bathroom to protect the privacy of other students. High school senior Ash Whitaker sued Kenosha Unified School District No. 1 last summer, arguing that its bathroom policy violated his civil rights. In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction that temporarily stops the district from enforcing that policy while the case is tried.

Leftists smugly ask what they perceive to be THE “gotcha” question about trannies in restrooms: “So, are we going to have genital police?” To those smugsters, I ask, “How will you determine whether the burly, bearded, bulging-biceped person in the women’s restroom or locker room is a member of the “trans” cult or a predator pretending to be a member of the “trans” cult?” Please read this short blog post from liberal California mom Kristen Quintrall whose eyes were (partially) opened by an experience in the women’s restroom at Disneyland: I didn’t know if I was going to write this...

North Carolina legislators will repeal the contentious HB2 law that limited protections for LGBT people and led to an economic backlash, the state’s incoming governor said Monday. Gov.-elect Roy Cooper made the announcement shortly after the Charlotte City Council voted to repeal its own local ordinance enacted in early 2016. It was that ordinance that Republicans blamed for the statewide law. …

A new state law that prohibits discrimination against transgender people in public restrooms is “punishing” the protected religious speech of churches and pastors, a conservative Christian organization claims in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday. Alliance Defending Freedom, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, said it sued on behalf of four Massachusetts churches to protect their right to operate their facilities “in a manner that doesn’t violate their core religious beliefs.” The lawsuit names Democratic state Attorney General Maura Healey and members of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination as defendants. The law, which was signed by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker in July and...

Minneapolis — Target cut its profit and comparable-store sales outlook amid stiffer competition and its own stumbles in areas like grocery sales. The discounter’s second-quarter net income fell nearly 10%, though that was better than what most had expected. Sales at stores open at least a year fell 1.1%, reversing seven straight quarters of gains. Target shares were down more than 6% in mid-morning trading Wednesday. The quarter underscores challenges that Target and other retailers face from Amazon.com and shoppers who remain cautious about spending.

A Virginia school board must allow a transgender teen to use the boys restroom while the court considers the legal issues of his case, a federal district judge ruled Thursday. U.S. District Court Judge Robert G. Doumar’s order directs the Gloucester County School board to let Gavin Grimm use the bathroom that corresponds to his gender identity when he returns for his senior year of high school this fall. […] The order comes after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in April that the school board’s policy barring Grimm from using the boys restroom violated Title IX, the...

A federal appeals court in Richmond has ruled that a transgender high school student who was born as a female can sue his school board on discrimination grounds because it banned him from the boys’ bathroom. In backing high school junior Gavin Grimm, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit deferred to the U.S. Education Department’s position that transgender students should have access to the bathrooms that match their gender identities rather than being forced to use bathrooms that match their biological sex. The department has said that requiring transgender students to use a bathroom that corresponds with...

The interim director of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has resigned over the agency's support of the federal directive allowing public-school students to use the bathroom matching their gender identity. Maya Dillard Smith called it quits on Thursday, saying the transgender ruling comes at the expense of women's civil rights. "If our goal is to advance the rights of equality of transgender folk, how do we do that, and advance the rights of all people?" Dillard Smith said, according to 11alive.com. If we have all-gender restrooms which will accommodate trans folks, what do we do about...

The Kansas Senate is considering a resolution condemning a recent Obama administration decree that public schools allow transgender students to use the restrooms that match their gender identity, not their sex at birth. The nonbinding resolution comes less than a week after the state Supreme Court ruled that legislators failed to equitably fund the school’s 286 public school districts. […] Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce, a Hutchinson Republican, said President Barack Obama “overstepped his bounds” by issuing a decree on what should be a state-level decision. …

President Barack Obama issued a proclamation on Tuesday declaring June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month, and in the proclamation noted that “gay and bisexual men and transgender women of color are at particularly high risk of HIV,” the virus that causes AIDS. […] Obama credits the LGBT community and its supporters for “sweeping progress by changing hearts and minds and by demanding equal treatment — under our laws, from our courts, and in our politics,” the proclamation states. “This month, we recognize all they have done to bring us to this point, and we recommit to bending...

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) unveiled what he called the Republicans“ “policy agenda” for 2017 on Wednesday, including a plan to regain the legislative power granted to Congress in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. “Article One,” Ryan said at a pen and pad briefing with reporters at the Capitol, “this is something that our members are very animated about because this has gotten out of control. This is about the separation of powers, about the Constitution, and wresting control away from decades of executive overreach and giving it back to Congress,” he said. Ryan noted that President Barack Obama...

Texas and 10 other states are suing the Obama administration over a new directive about transgender students in public schools. The lawsuit announced Tuesday also includes Oklahoma, Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maine, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia. The challenge follows a federal directive to U.S. schools this month to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. …