On Monday, a jury ruled that a school district in Missouri has to pay damages of up to $4 million after it refused to let a female student who identifies as “transgender” use the male restrooms and locker rooms, as reported by Fox News.
The Blue Springs School District was first sued in 2014 by the family of the female student, R.J. Appleberry, after Appleberry was refused access to the mens’ facilities. These restrictions remained in place at several locations throughout the district, including Delta Woods Middle School and the district’s Freshman Center. Appleberry was first put through the “transition” at the age of nine; her parents even had her birth certificate changed in 2014.
The jury ultimately awarded $175,000 in compensation to Appleberry, plus another $4 million in punitive damages, as well as a demand for the school district to cover Appleberry’s attorney fees.
A spokesperson for Blue Springs says that the district does not agree with the verdict, and thus will be “seeking appropriate relief from the trial court and court of appeals if necessary.”
The lawsuit had previously worked its way up to the Missouri Supreme Court, becoming the first such case involving “transgenderism” to do so. In 2019, after a Jackson County circuit judge initially dismissed the lawsuit, the state’s supreme court ruled that lawsuits alleging discrimination on the basis of “sex stereotypes,” such as the Appleberry lawsuit, are allowed to proceed.