A Missouri school district has been ordered to pay one of its former students USD 4 million for not letting him use the boys’ toilets.

The jury in Jackson County, in the US state of Missouri, ruled on Monday 13th December, that the Blue Springs School District discriminated against a transgender student for not letting him use the boys’ toilets or locker rooms at several different schools.

The former student has been named as RJ Appleberry, who transitioned from female to male at the age of 9, and his family filed a lawsuit against the school district in 2014 after it repeatedly stopped him from using the boys’ toilets and told him that he should use the girls’ toilets instead.

The lawsuit brought by the family alleged that the student had been denied access to the boys’ toilets and locker rooms at several different schools, even after changing his birth certificate in 2014.

The jury awarded the student USD 175,000 (GBP 131,000) in compensation damages, as well as USD 4 million (GBP 3.0 million) in punitive damages.

A spokesperson for the Blue Springs School District, who has not been named, said that the school district will be seeking to appeal the decision.