In F.F. v. Valley View Community Unit School District 365U, the parent of an 18-year-old trans female student an Illinois federal trial court dismissed a challenge to the district’s policy allowing transgender students to access restrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identity. The lawsuit arose after the student encountered a transgender girl in a girls’ restroom at Bolingbrook High School and claimed the experience caused anxiety, discomfort, and privacy concerns, despite alleging no actual viewing of her body or any improper conduct by the transgender student.
School administrators explained that the student’s restroom access was authorized pursuant to an individualized accommodation plan and consistent with guidance issued by the Illinois Department of Human Rights. The district also offered alternative restroom accommodations and later modified restroom stall partitions in response to concerns raised by the student’s father.
After the District denied the student’s internal Title IX complaint, the plaintiff filed suit alleging violations of the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX and sought injunctive relief requiring the district to adopt more restrictive standards governing transgender students’ access to sex-separated facilities.
The court denied the Parent’s request for temporary and preliminary injunctive relief before addressing the district’s motion to dismiss. Granting the motion, the court held that the District’s policy did not discriminate on the basis of sex because all students, regardless of sex or transgender status, were permitted to use facilities consistent with their gender identity. Relying heavily on Seventh Circuit precedent, including Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District and A.C. v. Martinsville, the court concluded that the plaintiff failed to allege unequal treatment, actual privacy invasions, or conduct sufficient to establish a hostile educational environment under Title IX. The court also rejected the plaintiff’s request to proceed anonymously after reaching adulthood, finding no exceptional circumstances warranting departure from the general rule of public judicial proceedings.
The Plaintiff’s subsequent appeal to the Seventh Circuit was dismissed in July on the grounds of mootness. This decision leaves intact, for now, the Seventh Circuit’s prior rulings in favor of transgender student access to the bathrooms of the gender they identify with. As we noted in a prior issue, however, the Seventh Circuit last year withdrew, on its own motion, its opinion in a similar case in favor of a school district in light of Supreme Court precedent. Accordingly, school district’s should move with care in this rapidly changing area of law.
Source:
F.F. v. Valley View Community Unit School District 365U, No. 1:25-CV-09112 (N.D. Ill. July 13, 2026).
Contact Michelle Todd with your inquiries. We will discuss the decision along with the full slate of transgender student rights decisions at our Fall Year in Review Conferences.
