Missouri Supreme Court hears case on transgender student's use of school bathrooms

Yahoo

11-02-2025

Missouri Supreme Court judges heard oral arguments Tuesday morning, including a case on a transgender student who was denied access to multi-stall bathrooms and locker rooms (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).
Missouri's highest court heard arguments Tuesday over whether a school district's denial of multi-stall bathrooms and locker rooms to a transgender student is a form of sex discrimination.
The case may decide if the Missouri Human Rights Act covers legal sex, such as when a birth certificate is amended after gender transition, or is limited to sex as assigned at birth. The MHRA makes it illegal to deny public accommodations on the basis of sex, among other restrictions.
The case was brought by a former student of the Blue Springs School District, referred to as his initials R.M.A. in court proceedings, who was barred from boys' bathrooms and locker rooms at his high school.
R.M.A. is transgender and has gotten his birth certificate amended to reflect his identity as a man.
The case has an extensive history, dating back to an original complaint to the Missouri Human Rights Commission in 2014.
The parties have already visited the Missouri Supreme Court once before, arguing over a trial court's dismissal of R.M.A.'s petition. The judges ruled that he had a right to a jury trial, and in 2021, a jury in Jackson County Circuit Court awarded R.M.A. over $4 million in damages.
Circuit Court Judge Cory Atkins threw out the jury's decision after the school district asked for him to overrule it. Atkins found 'the verdict to be against the weight of the evidence in that the sole and uncontradicted evidence at trial was the school district made its decisions based on genitalia, not sex.'
R.M.A. is appealing that decision, asking to revert to the jury's decision. He argues that being a man with female genitalia is covered under court precedent protecting sex characteristics, citing a 1989 case where a woman was denied a promotion because she was 'macho.'
The school district sees it differently, saying this argument would mean the MHRA protects transgender status. The Missouri Supreme Court ruling in 2019 acknowledged that R.M.A alleged discrimination on the basis of sex, not transgender status.
Another key difference between the two sides is understanding of R.M.A.'s sex. His doctor testified in prior proceedings that he is a male, as his amended birth certificate reflects. But the school district's attorney, Mark Katz, said definitions of sex, which look at reproductive organs and chromosomes, would label R.M.A. a female — regardless of his male gender identity.
Missouri Supreme Court Judge Zel Fischer, who wrote the dissenting opinion on the court's prior ruling favoring R.M.A., asked Tuesday about the distinction.
'Is the element that he is a male, is that a question of fact or question of law?' Fischer asked R.M.A.'s attorney, Alexander Edelman. 'What evidence is there that your client is a male?'
Edelman said the only expert testimony in trial court was R.M.A.'s doctor, who said he was a male.
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In Edelman's brief filed before oral arguments, he argues that the MHRA does not explicitly define sex as 'biological sex.'
'Even after (the district) was provided with an amended birth certificate stating that (R.M.A.) is male, it failed to stop discriminating against him,' he wrote.
Edelman said the school discriminated against him because he wasn't a stereotypical boy.
'It's very clear that the plaintiff's sex was the reason for this discrimination,' he said to the court. 'In that he was a male who was assigned female at birth and so he differed from other males.'
Katz told the court that there has to be a basis for determining who belongs in sex-designated spaces, like bathrooms.
'We have decided as a society that we will not allow girls in the boys' room and boys in the girls' room. That's why you have to prove that you belong in the room,' he said. 'In order to be in the boys' room, you have to be a boy.'
Judge Paul Wilson asked Katz about the sex stereotyping argument.
'His theory is that you have to be a boy but that you don't have to be the kind of boy (the district) likes,' Fischer said. 'It can be a different kind of boy, right?'
Katz said the definition of boy was misconstrued by the other side.
'When it comes to sex, it is our belief that you turn to the dictionary,' he said. 'The dictionary refers to biological and reproductive characteristics and traits, and those biological characteristics and traits are what makes a person a particular sex.'
He repeated an argument from the school district's brief that the school discriminated based on genitalia.
'The school district was going based on anatomy because that was its understanding of what was appropriate and best for its students and protection of students,' Katz said.
Edelman said no one has checked R.M.A. or other students to verify their anatomy. The birth certificate was the distinction, and Blue Springs School District had received a female birth certificate for R.M.A. prior.
If the court rules in R.M.A.'s favor and upholds the jury's verdict, he would be due the $4 million in punitive damages and $175,000 in compensatory damages. It could also set a precedent for other cases involving transgender students' use of school facilities.
UPDATE: This story was corrected at 2 p.m. to attribute a question about sex stereotyping to Judge Paul Wilson.