That’s going away for gays and lesbians. Slowly, but more quickly than anyone would have predicted a decade ago.

Transgender people are the new primary targets of the ick factor. Peel away Mike Huckabee’s creepy “wish I coulda showered with the girls in high school, hyuk-hyuk” schtick and you have him shuddering in horror at the thought of someone not conforming to gender norms. A millimeter beneath parents’ loudly-expressed concerns about what might, possibly, conceivably happen in a school bathroom (assuming at least one despicable and dangerous person) is terror that their kid might not actually conform to gender norms. In short, “ick.”

School principals and school districts’ lawyers are merely hoping to fend off a lawsuit or two from transgender kids’ families rather than fight dozens of lawsuits filed by every Righty parent and pressure group in the state. Whether or not that’s a more appalling response than “ick,” I’m not sure.

Because of the ick factor, I’m not sanguine about this case’s chances before the Supremes. Still, as long as Gavin Grimm wants to fight, it’s a fight worth having.

Also, this right here—

“Treating a student adversely because the sex assigned to him at birth does not match his gender identity is literally discrimination ‘on the basis of sex,’” the administration lawyers wrote in the brief.

—is a thing of beauty.

–alopecia