A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of an 11-year-old transgender girl in Wisconsin, affirming her right to use the girls’ bathroom at her middle school and blocking the Mukwonago Area School District from enforcing a discriminatory policy that would have forced her into the boys’ facilities at school or a separate, gender-neutral option.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision on Thursday, siding with a July 2023 ruling by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman that found the district’s policy likely violated the student’s rights under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. That policy, passed by the school board that summer, requires students to use restrooms and locker rooms that correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth.
The case was brought by the student, referred to in court records as D.P., and her mother after she was removed from class for using the girls’ restroom during a summer school session. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the student had used the girls’ bathroom without incident from first through fifth grade—until the district began fielding complaints from other parents in spring 2023. After the school board formally adopted the birth-sex bathroom policy in June, D.P. and her mother sued.
Adelman quickly issued a temporary restraining order, later converting it into a preliminary injunction, warning that the girl would suffer “irreparable harm” if forced to comply with the policy. The school district appealed, claiming it had been denied due process because the judge ruled without holding a hearing. But the appeals court rejected that argument.
“The school district neither requested a hearing nor identified material factual issues in need of resolution, so the judge reasonably dispensed with a hearing and moved directly to decision,” the court wrote. “With no factual disputes before him, the judge reasonably determined that a hearing was unnecessary.”
The panel also declined the district’s request to overturn two key precedents: Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District, a 2017 case involving a transgender boy’s right to access the boys’ restroom, and A.C. v. Martinsville, a 2023 case that reaffirmed those protections for middle school students. The court cited both rulings in concluding that D.P.’s case was “materially identical” and that her claims were likely to succeed.
Alexa Milton, an attorney representing the student, said the decision ensures that her client’s protections remain in place while the underlying case continues in the lower court.
“For this case, the ruling means that our client’s injunction remains in place while litigation continues, and the case now goes back to the lower court so that the case can move forward,” Milton told The Advocate. “More broadly, this ruling reaffirms that well-established law in the Seventh Circuit requires that schools in Wisconsin—and the other states covered by the Seventh Circuit—allow transgender students to use facilities corresponding to their gender identity.”
Milton also rejected the district’s procedural argument as baseless. “As the court recognized, the school district had every opportunity to ask for a hearing or present their own evidence, and chose not to,” she said. “We are pleased that the Seventh Circuit did not go along with the attempt to throw up manufactured procedural roadblocks.”
While the district has stated that it will continue to enforce the policy “for everyone else” while the case proceeds, the ruling ensures that D.P. can continue to use the girls’ bathroom without fear of discipline or exclusion.
In a brief but notable footnote, the court acknowledged that the U.S. Supreme Court’s forthcoming decision in United States v. Skrmetti—a case concerning whether states can ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors—“may affect the analysis” of D.P.’s claims. But, the court added, “for now our circuit precedent remains controlling.” In Skrmetti, the Supreme Court is expected to rule whether states can ban transgender minors from receiving the same care their cisgender peers could receive for conditions other than gender dysphoria.