BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Maine's highest court heard arguments Wednesday over whether
transgender students can use the bathroom of their choice, and the
"girl" at the heart of the case said she hoped justices would recognize
the right of children to
attend school without being "bullied" by peers or administrators.
Nicole Maines, now 15, watched lawyers argue over whether her rights were violated when the Orono school district required her to use a staff bathroom after there was a complaint about her using the girls' bathroom.
Maines said after the hearing in Bangor that she hopes the Supreme Judicial Court will ensure no one else experiences what she went though.
"I hope they understood how important it is for students to be able to go to school and get an education and have fun and make friends,
and not have to worry about being bullied by students or the administration, and to be accepted for who they are," said Maines, who now attends a high school in southern Maine.
Her family and the Maine Human Rights Commission sued in 2009 over the school's actions, but a state judge ruled that the school district acted within its discretion. Maines is a biological male who from an early age identified as a girl.
School officials initially allowed Nicole Maines to use the girls' bathroom in her school, but the policy was altered after the grandfather of a fifth-grade boy complained to school officials. Maines' attorneys said she felt like she was singled out by having to use the staff bathroom.
"In her owns words, she said it was like being picked out of a crowd of students and being told, 'They're the normal students, and you're not,'" said Levi, who argued the case for the family.
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