An Illinois appellate court ruled Nov. 30 that a trans student's appeal of a trial court's earlier ruling in favor of her high school is moot since the student has graduated.
The court noted that Nova Maday ( who, in late 2017, sued Township High School District 211 in the northwest suburbs ) still had legal recourse but the motion in questionan injunction granting her the right to use the girls' locker room facilities at the schoolwas no longer relevant since Maday graduated this past spring.
Maday alleges that the school discriminated against her by consigning her to inconvenient public-accommodations during her gym class. Her school was the subject of a high-profile legal battle when a different transgender girl sued for the same type of access. But the school allegedly only accommodated that specific student and did not alter its overall policies.
"The court's decision is very narrow," said John Knight, director of the LGBTQ Rights Project at the ACLU of Illinois and lead attorney for Maday's case, in a statement. "The court would not consider an appeal of a trial court judge's denial of a preliminary injunction because Nova graduated from high school in the spring of this year. At the same time, the court did recognize that Nova can continue to fight the school's restrictive policies, and we will continue that fight. Every school district in the state should see that segregation and isolation of students who are transgender is not permitted in our state under the Human Rights Act."