Grimm, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, says he started refusing to wear girls’ clothes by age 6 and told his parents he was transgender in April 2014 — a year before Caitlin Jenner made an international splash by publicly divulging her transgender status.
Grimm’s parents helped him legally change his given name and took him
to a psychologist who determined he has gender dysphoria, characterized
by stress stemming from conflict between one’s gender identity and assigned sex at birth. Grimm began hormone treatment to deepen his voice and give him a more masculine appearance.
During the last school year, Grimm was allowed to use the boys’
restrooms until some parents complained. Amid the ensuing turmoil, the
school board voted 6-1 for the policy restricting students with “transgender
issues” to the single-stall facilities or those corresponding to their
biological sex. Grimm complied, using a restroom in the school nurse’s
office, but found it unbearable.
“It’s humiliating, it’s ostracizing and I don’t want to take that
walk of shame to the unisex bathroom and know that everyone who saw me
go in there knows why I’m in there — because I’m different, and I’ve
been marked different by my school and publicly. … I’m not comfortable
with it whatsoever. I’m not an ‘other’ and I’m not unisex, I’m a boy,”
Grimm said.
Transgender student’s battle divides rural Virginia town – LGBTQ Nation
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