http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013...-bathroom?lite

By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

A transgender 6-year-old who identifies as a female should be allowed to
use the girls' bathroom at her elementary school even though she was
born a male, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled on Sunday.
In a decision being hailed as a major victory by advocates for
transgender Americans, the division concluded that the Fountain-Fort
Carson School District created an unnecessarily hostile situation for
Coy Mathis when it made the female bathroom off limits.

By not allowing Coy to use the girls' restroom, the school "creates an
environment rife with harassment," Steven Chavez, the division director,
wrote in the decision.

The school district, about 15 miles south of Colorado Springs, Colo.,
also showed "a lack of understanding of the complexity of transgender
issues" by referring to Coy as a male or using quotes around "her"
throughout the litigation, Chavez wrote.

The school district could not be reached for comment on the ruling Sunday.

Coy was born a male, but began at an early age to identify as a girl
through toys and dress and started calling herself a girl between the
ages of 4 and 6, according to the summary of the division's ruling.

In August of 2011 she was enrolled in kindergarten as a boy, and when
other parents and teachers did not recognize Coy as a girl, she began
suffering from depression and anxiety that affected her ability to
learn, Chavez wrote.

Coy's parents asked the school district to treat their child as a girl,
and officials initially agreed, the ruling said. But when Coy got to
first grade, the district told the family she would no longer be able to
use the female bathroom and instead had to use a staff restroom or a
gender-neutral facility in the school's medical office.

Coy's parents pulled her from the school and filed a civil rights
complaint in February.

The Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, which worked with the
family, said in a statement Sunday that the ruling is the most
comprehensive ever in support of transgender people's access to
bathrooms without harassment.

“All we ever wanted was for Coy’s school to treat her the same as other
little girls. We are extremely happy that she now will be treated
equally,” Kathryn Mathis, Coy’s mother, said in statement on the group's
website.