US District Judge Pamela Pepper on Monday rejected a motion by the Kenosha Unified School District to dismiss the case brought by Ashton Whitaker accusing the district of discriminating against him. On Tuesday Pepper issued a temporary restraining order barring the district from enforcing its policy prohibiting Whitaker from using the boys' restroom while the case is pending.

There's no question that Ash has already suffered harm and has had physical repercussions from the policy as well as emotional repercussions.

--Judge Pepper, who challenged the district's argument that its local school board — and not the courts or an individual student — should determine its own policies

I'm very excited to call Ash to tell him what the judge decided. The case is certainly not over, but we're happy she recognized that his harm is real.

--Joseph Wardenski, attorney for Ash and his mother

Ari Bowman is 12. He lives in the Wast Penn School District in Lehigh County, PA.

Ninth-grader Sigourney Coyle spoke to the School Board against allowing transgender students to use facilities matching their gender identity on August 24, declaring that her bodily privacy would be violeated is she were required to disrobe in the presence of transgender students.

During the East Penn School Board meeting, Coyle said she had been doing well in physical education in middle school last school year until she learned of the new federal directive. She subsequently refused to dress for gym in the girls locker room, and said Monday that she was given poor marks for failing to participate in the class.

I am a woman, and I identify as a woman, and you can't make me change in front of someone who I don't identify with — who is physically male.

--Coyle

Some parents are up in arms in Virginia Minnesota, so much so that they have contacted the so-called Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF has filed another lawsuit against a high school for repecting the needs of a transgender student.

But this one tops the plethora of similar cases ADF has pooped across the country.

In the face of adults in positions of responsibility who were questioning the wisdom of recently adopted guidelines meant to assure the safety and well-being of transgender students in Anne Arundel County, MD, a student rose to speak.

Scott Howarth is a student at Anne Arundel High School and current president of the Chesapeake Regional Association of Student Councils.

Christian Zsilavetz is a trans man living in Atlanta. He and his wife, Heather Hastings have opened an LGBTQ-affirming school in that city: Pride School Atlanta. Classes started last week.

The refusal of officials in Texas to accept the fact that some kids are transgender (and what that means to how they should be treated) is raising concerns as the school year rapidly approaches.

A FreeState Justice has filed a lawsuit in Federal court against Talbot County on behalf of a 14-year-old Maryland transgender boy accusing an Eastern Shore school system of violating Title IX by denying him access to locker rooms consistent with his gender identity.

The boy, who was not identified in the lawsuit, will be a ninth grader at St. Michaels Middle-High School, and wants to try out for soccer in August, according to Jer Welter, FreeState Justice's deputy director and managing attorney.

During last school year, the boy used a gender neutral restroom far from the gym and his classrooms.

This has been a problem. It is stigmatizing for him. It marks him as different from the other students.

--Welter

The US DoE's Office of Civil Rights yesterday announced that Dorchester County School District Two in South Carolina has entered into a voluntary agreement to stop discriminating against a transgender elementary school student. THE OCR had found that the district was in violation of Title IX's prohibition on sex-based discrimination.

I commend Dorchester County School District Two for committing to protect the civil rights of all students and ensuring that all students have equal access to education programs and activities.

--Catherine E. Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights

Currently I am working on an essay, and researching the literature on "sustainability" in preparation. And in all likelihood you could put most of that literature into the paper shredder, and delete most of its electronic files, and in the end you would be endangering neither the planetary ecosystems nor the people who live within them one bit.

Why?