A Maryland high school’s policy blocking a transgender student from using the boys’ locker room singles him out for discrimination and “harms his health and well-being,” a federal judge in Baltimore has ruled.

Max Brennan, a transgender teen from the Eastern Shore, was required to use a separate, gender-neutral restroom to dress for gym class, making him choose at times between being late or being penalized for not changing.

U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III is the latest judge, and the first in Maryland, to find that the right of a transgender student to use restrooms and locker rooms matching his or her gender identity is protected by federal and state law.

The policy barring Brennan from the boys’ locker room “does not apply to anyone else at the high school, and marks him as different for being transgender,” the judge wrote in a 40-page opinion issued this week that allows Brennan’s lawsuit to move forward. Read more via Washington Post