Lacey, N.J. Transgender Student Wins Right To Use Boys Room

A transgender student in Lacey, N.J. who changed his female identity says his school will allow him to use the boys room.

Rubin Smyers was using the unisex bathroom at the Ocean County Vocational Technical School‘s Performing Arts Academy. But the 16-year-old took to social media to protest and received support from Garden State Equality, a gay rights group in New Jersey.

The advocacy group wrote a letter to the school saying Smyers’ rights were violated, according to SFGate.

Smyers said on his Facebook page that he had been called down to the principal’s office recently.

“She said she’d just gotten off the phone with the superintendent, who told her that I should be free to use whatever bathroom I feel comfortable in,” he wrote. ” Just like that, in an instant, everything has changed. I won.”

Smyers said he hopes in the future that the precedent set will be followed by school administration.

“And boy do I hope that if it’s not, the student being oppressed will speak up against these orders and cite my situation as support for theirs,“ he wrote.

Smyers thanked all those who supported and encouraged him.

“Without you, no one would have listened to me,“ he said. “Just remember, I am one student in one school in one school district. There are so many other kids out there in the same position as me, or even more discriminatory and damaging ones. We have won what is only one battle of the war. Now get out there, and keep advocating for equal rights for everyone!”

Smyers tells the Asbury Park Press he wasn’t as thrilled as he expected to be because the school gave him permission for something he should have been able to do already.

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