In November 2017, Nova Maday and the ACLU of Illinois filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court against the Township High School District 211 in Palatine for denying Nova the use of the girls’ locker room during physical education class and separating her from other students because she is transgender. The goal of the suit is a court order requiring District 211 to treat transgender students the same as non-transgender students with respect to their use of the locker room and to stop segregating Nova and others because they are transgender.
On January 25, the Circuit Court denied Ms. Maday’s motion for a preliminary injunction requesting that she be allowed to use the locker rooms without being required to change in a segregated area.
Today, Ms. Maday’s lawyers announced that an appeal was filed on February 7, 2018 in response to this decision.
John Knight, LGBTQ & HIV Project Director and lead counsel in the case, made the announcement:
“We decided after speaking with our client to file our appeal of this decision yesterday. The Court’s ruling allows District 211 officials to treat Nova and other students who are transgender differently from their fellow students, simply because they are transgender. Moreover, the Court’s ruling hurts many other students who, under the current ruling, could face discrimination in their schools across this State because of who they are – because of their religion, race, sex, or because they have a disability. Students with disabilities could, for example, be segregated in a part of the cafeteria where other students could avoid associating with or seeing them. Our civil rights laws must not be weakened and undermined in this way.”
###