Reported by Nigel Boys
Nicole Maines, born Wyatt Maines, a 17-year-old transgender high school senior in Portland, Oregon, has finally been awarded compensation in a case which has been ongoing since 2009.
Believe it or not, Maines identified himself as a girl from the early age of two, according to his parents. Students and teachers started referring to Nicole as “she” when he was in the third grade. As a fifth-grade student at Asa Adams School in Orono, Maine, he was allowed to use the female bathroom until the guardian of another student at the school raised a complaint.
Consequently, the Orono school district decided that Nicole would have to use a staff bathroom which was uniseχ.
With the aid of the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and a Portland law firm named Berman Simmons, the transgender student sued the school district and won the case in January before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The court ruled that the school district had violated the Maine Human Rights Act but left the amount of compensation to be worked out in lower court by the respondents.
Last week a lower court awarded Maines $75,000 in a settlement of her discrimination lawsuit against the school district, which will go to pay for her legal costs, a donation to GLAD, and a considerable amount to herself.
According to GLAD spokeswoman Carisa Cunningham, the decision of the court was merely a technical conclusion of the case. Although she declined to say exactly how the $75,000 would be divided, she added that a significant portion of that amount would go to the Maines’ family.
Cunningham went on to say that the decision “sets an important precedent, and that it is a building block for similar cases nationally.”
A further order from the Penobscot County Superior Court dated November 25 states that the school district will not be allowed to “refuse transgender students to school restrooms that are consistent with their gender identity.”
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