Landmark decision rules transgender bathroom ban discriminatory

In a landmark decision, a US high court in Maine has deemed the barring of a transgender fifth-grader from using the girls' bathroom as discriminatory.

The family of student Nicole Maines and the Maine Human Rights Commission sued in 2009 after school officials required her to use a staff restroom.

However, the ruling by the highest court in Maine, which is believed to be the first of its kind, said the school's orders violated state anti-discrimination law.

Nicole Maines, a biological male identified as a girl from the age of two, was using the girls' bathroom in her elementary school until the grandfather of a fifth-grade boy complained to administrators.

The Orono school district determined that she should use a staff bathroom, but her parents said that amounted to discrimination.

"This is a momentous decision that marks a huge breakthrough for transgender young people," said Jennifer Levi, director of the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders' Transgender Rights Project (GLAD).

The court concluded that the Orono school district's orders violated the Maine Human Rights Act. The Act bans sexual-orientation discrimination.

Overturning a lower court's ruling that the district acted within its direction, the ruling is the first time a state high court concluded that a transgender person should use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify, according to GLAD.

The judgment is set to have rippling effects across the US. In California, efforts are continuing to try to repeal a law that allows public school students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their expressed genders.