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

By 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.