On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court sent a case involving transgender youths’ use of public school bathrooms back to a lower court. University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law Professor Terry Kogan filed an amicus curie brief in Gloucester County School Board v. G.G. (transgender student/bathroom case) in the case on March 2.

The brief places interpretation of Title IX and its implementing regulation in historical context by challenging two fundamental assumptions that underlie arguments in support of the petitioner: Public restrooms are separated by sex because of anatomical differences between men and women; and public restrooms have been separated by sex throughout history.

For more than two decades, Kogan’s scholarship has explored the difficulties faced by transgender people in using sex-separated public restrooms. His recent work explores the history of laws in the United States mandating sex segregation in public restrooms. That scholarship reveals that such laws, first enacted in the late nineteenth century, were not based on anatomical differences between men and women, but rather on an archaic vision of women as weak, vulnerable and therefore in need of protective spaces whenever they entered the public realm. He is available to discuss the issues raised in the Supreme Court case.

The brief is available here.

Terry Kogan | professor of law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law | 801-581-7890 | terry.kogan@law.utah.edu