Trans student appeals after state judges deny discrimination claim. Here’s why
After the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the denial of a $4 million jury award to a transgender student denied access to male-designated facilities in the Blue Springs School District, the former student’s legal team is seeking to keep his case in court in a motion that disputes the state’s definition of the term “sex.”
R.J. Appleberry, now 25, was denied access to male-designated facilities as a student at three Blue Springs schools between 8th and 12th grades.
Appleberry’s legal team filed a motion for rehearing last week, continuing the decade-long legal battle that began when Appleberry and his family sued the district in 2015, alleging that RJ was receiving separate and unequal treatment on the basis of his sex.
If granted, the appeal will be the Missouri Supreme Court’s third time hearing Appleberry’s case. The court granted an initial appeal that allowed Appleberry and his family to proceed to their jury trial in the first place, before its June 12 verdict affirming a Jackson County judge’s 2022 decision to toss out the trial verdict.
When the state verdict was released on June 12, Katherine Myers, an attorney for Appleberry, warned that it could have a “profound effect” on Missouri residents.
“The purpose of a motion for rehearing is to call attention to material matters of law or fact overlooked or misinterpreted by the court,” attorneys for Appleberry wrote in their June 25 motion for a rehearing. Multiple law firms are involved in the new appeal, including Edelman, Liesen and Myers in Kansas City; Missouri Kansas Queer Law in North Kansas City; and The Popham Law Firm in Kansas City.
Transgender student’s lawsuit in Blue Springs
When the jury trial was allowed to proceed in 2019, a Jackson County jury ruled in Appleberry’s favor, awarding him and his family $4 million from the Blue Springs School District along with $175,000 in legal fees.
The series of decisions reversing the jury award have focused on interpretations of the legal definitions of sex and gender in Missouri law, with county and state judges indicating that Appleberry’s sex should not legally be defined as male even though his gender was changed to male on his birth certificate in 2014.
The state Supreme Court in particular took the case as an opportunity to define the term “sex” in the eyes of the court, citing a dictionary entry from 2002 that described sex as “genetically controlled and associated with special sex chromosomes,” and discussing Appleberry’s genitalia at length.
The new motion for appeal argues that by redefining sex in a legal context in its ruling, the state Supreme Court did not base their decision against Appleberry on existing statutes as written and therefore did not have valid grounds for denying his last appeal.
“In interpreting “sex” to mean ‘biological sex’ the Opinion adds words to the statute under the auspices of interpretation,” the motion reads. “In so doing, it breaches one of this Court’s most fundamental roles—to interpret statutes, not to rewrite them.”
The state’s discrimination law, which Appleberry’s initial lawsuit relies on, does not include a definition for the word sex.
Defining sex in Missouri
After Appleberry’s jury trial in 2019, the Blue Springs School District argued that Appleberry’s attorneys “failed to establish his sex as male” and “failed to establish his male sex was a contributing factor in the School District’s decisions that Plaintiff asserts were unlawful discrimination,” according to court documents.
This was affirmed by the judge who overturned Appleberry’s jury award in 2022. However, attorneys for Appleberry argue that a post-trial difference in opinion and legal precedent over who is considered “male” in the eyes of the law should be grounds for a new jury trial.
“Because [the decision] creates an entirely new standard and framework which Appellant had no opportunity to meet at trial, Appellant should be provided the opportunity to meet his new burden and retry this case.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, Transgender Law Center and Lambda Legal filed a brief in support of Appleberry ahead of the recent state Supreme Court ruling, as did the National Employment Lawyers’ Association.
At the time the ruling was handed down, the Blue Springs School District told The Star that it “value[s] the Court’s clarification and guidance on this issue” and “will continue to create a school culture that respects and values all students.”
