Supreme Court leaves intact policy that lets transgender high schoolers use restrooms matching their gender identities

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday left intact a policy allowing transgender students at a Pennsylvania high school to use restrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identities, Bloomberg reported.

The justices turned away an appeal by other students who contested the policy without comment, the outlet said.

What's the background?

Alliance Defending Freedom appealed to the high court on the students' behalf against Boyertown Area School District, saying the district "disregarded its students' bodily privacy rights when it opened its high school locker rooms and restrooms to students of the opposite sex based on those students' beliefs about their gender — and without informing students or parents of the policy change."

The battle started in March 2017 when a student at Boyertown Area High School sued the district after he said an administrator told him to "tolerate" changing in a locker room in front of girl who identifies as male.

The student alleged in the lawsuit that he was standing in his underwear while changing into gym clothes for physical education class and "suddenly realized there was a member of the opposite sex changing with him in the locker room, who was at the time wearing nothing but shorts and a bra."

The lawsuit said the plaintiff "quickly put his clothes on and left the locker room." After gym class, the plaintiff said he and other classmates informed assistant principal E. Wayne Foley about the encounter — but Foley replied that students who identify with the opposite sex could choose what locker room and restroom to use, and physical sex didn't matter, according to the lawsuit.

ADF noted that three students joined the suit in April 2017, and then a year later another Boyertown student, Alexis Lightcap, went public after she encountered a boy in her restroom, saying she was "shocked, afraid, and fled the restroom, but school officials refused to listen to her privacy concerns, either."

Here's a clip of Lightcap making her case:

Meet Alexis Lightcapyoutu.be

After lower courts allowed the district's policy to stand, the students bringing the lawsuit appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court last November, ADF said.