An Ally In A High Place

A surprising trans ally has spoken up.

Judge compares transgender teen in Gloucester to civil rights icons
Richmond Times-Dispatch
By Alanna Durkin Richer The Associated Press
April 9, 2017

An appeals court judge has compared a Virginia teenager who sued his school board for the right to use the boys bathroom to civil and human activists throughout history who have “refused to accept quietly the injustices that were perpetrated against them.”

Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Andre M. Davis used an inconsequential ruling in Gavin Grimm’s case to pen an opinion hailing the 17-year-old as a champion for transgender rights, comparing him to such icons as the Virginia couple who fought to overturn the ban on interracial marriage.

“Today, G.G. adds his name to the list of plaintiffs whose struggle for justice has been delayed and rebuffed; as Dr. King has reminded us, however, ‘the arc of the moral universal is long but it bends toward justice.’ G.G.’s journey is delayed, but not finished,” Davis wrote Friday, referring to a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr

Wow! This is big. The judge realizes that our struggle is for our human rights.

But there was a loss that happened in the Grimm’s case,

The 4th Circuit on Friday denied Grimm’s request to hold oral arguments in May to facilitate a decision by his June graduation. It also formally vacated a preliminary injunction that ordered Grimm’s school to let him use the boys restroom.

That hurt.

When you look at the history of people’s struggled for human rights there are a number of similarities between them. When we demand our rights are called uppity, comeuppance, we face segregation (you can’t use this bathroom), and that we don’t know our place, also we face violence because of who we are. In addition, there is legislation that try to dehumanize us by banning where we can go, what facilities that we can use, and to allow people to legally discriminate against us.