Transgender SC teen in bathroom choice case left public school, lawyers say

The one transgender teenager legally allowed to use the bathroom of his choice in South Carolina has left public high school, according to his lawyer.

The Berkeley County ninth grader withdrew from his in-person public high because of discrimination and harassment from his staff and peers, according to Public Justice lawyer Alexandra Brodsky. The discrimination was based on the anonymous teenager’s gender identity, Brodsky wrote in an email.

The Berkeley County School District did not immediately respond to a call and emailed request to answer questions about Brodsky’s comments.

While the teenager, John Doe, and his family are still challenging a South Carolina budget rule in district court, it was dropped in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday. South Carolina and the plaintiff mutually agreed to drop the case, according to legal filings.

In 2024, South Carolina lawmakers included a one-year budget item that would remove some state funding for school districts that allow students to use multi-stalled bathrooms or changing rooms that don’t match their gender assigned at birth. The budget item was again implemented in 2025, so it went into effect again for the current school year. Doe and his family are challenging the legality of the budget provision.

Doe, now a ninth grader, left public middle school to take classes remotely after being punished for not using the women’s restroom after the budget rule went into effect. The family believed remote classes were inferior to in-person education, so they initially enrolled him in public high school for the current school year.

A federal court allowed Doe to use the bathroom of his gender identity in August while the case proceeded, one day before the school year began. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that decision in September, but it was not unanimous.

The family filed the class action complaint against the budget provision in federal court in November 2024, according to a legal filing. The defendants include the state, the Board of Education, the Department of Education and the Berkeley County School District. That case will continue in district court, but it is currently on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the merits of a similar case, B.P.J v. West Virginia. The state will continue to argue the case in district court, according to a spokesperson from the attorney general’s office.

In B.P.J., the highest court may decide whether local schools and colleges can ban transgender students from participating in teams that align with their gender.