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Corporations Show Support for Transgender Boy in Supreme Court Case

Gavin Grimm, center, a transgender boy who has sued the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia over restrictions on which bathrooms transgender students may use.Credit...Al Drago/The New York Times

Dozens of companies, including Amazon, Apple, IBM and Microsoft, have signed on to a Supreme Court brief supporting a transgender boy’s fight against his school district over which school bathrooms he may use.

The businesses, 53 in all, joined a brief that the Human Rights Campaign, a nonprofit organization supporting gay rights, planned to file on Thursday. The advocacy group is urging the Supreme Court to side with Gavin Grimm, a transgender student represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, in his case against the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia.

“These companies are sending a powerful message to transgender children and their families that America’s leading businesses have their backs,” Chad Griffin, the Human Rights Campaign’s president, said in a statement announcing the support.

With oral arguments scheduled for the end of the month, Mr. Grimm’s case is progressing at the Supreme Court as the rights of transgender youth face increased scrutiny nationwide. In January, the Boy Scouts of America reversed a century-old stance, opening the door to transgender members. Last week, President Trump rescinded rules put in place less than a year earlier allowing transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity. Mr. Grimm’s case could settle the bathroom issue once and for all.

The signatories of the Human Rights Campaign brief include a number of tech companies, like Airbnb, eBay, Intel, LinkedIn, PayPal, Salesforce, Twitter, Yahoo and Yelp. But businesses from several other industries have signed on, too. They include Gap, MAC Cosmetics, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, Warby Parker and Williams-Sonoma.

It is not the first time that big businesses have lent their support to the fight for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights. Last year, for example, the chief executives of dozens of major corporations wrote a letter to Pat McCrory, the North Carolina governor at the time, urging the state to repeal House Bill 2, which curbed legal protections for the gay community. A bipartisan effort has begun to repeal that bill.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: Tech Giants Back Teenager in Transgender Rights Case. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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