A 13-year-old transgender student in Berkeley County, South Carolina, was suspended from his middle school simply for using the boys' bathroom. When his family sued to secure his right to use facilities matching his gender identity, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit sided with him, granting a preliminary order that let him use the boys' restroom while the case moved forward. But winning in court didn't win him safety at school.

According to his attorneys at Public Justice and the Alliance for Full Acceptance, bullying from classmates and discrimination from staff only intensified once he reached high school. The harassment grew so severe that his family made the wrenching decision to leave South Carolina altogether, uprooting their lives and dropping the lawsuit rather than watch him suffer another day.

This didn't happen in a vacuum. South Carolina lawmakers threatened to strip Berkeley County of up to 25 percent of its state funding unless the district barred students from using bathrooms that matched their gender identity, a policy since written into state law. Berkeley County School District officials told the South Carolina Daily Gazette the district "is committed to preventing and correcting discrimination and harassment of any form," yet a family still had to flee the state to find that safety.

No student, and no family, should be forced out of their home because school officials and state lawmakers failed to stop bullying in the hallways. Berkeley County School District and South Carolina lawmakers must guarantee every student, including transgender students, a safe classroom, free from harassment, no matter their gender identity.

Sign the petition to demand Berkeley County schools protect every student from bullying, before another family is forced to flee.