+ Mission: Ahead + Upstarts + Work Transformed + Innovative Cities * Style -- * Meet Gavin Grimm, the transgender student at the center of bathroom debate Story By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter. Video by Alex -- Updated 1206 GMT (2006 HKT) September 8, 2016 At the center of the transgender bathroom debate At the center of the transgender bathroom debate JUST WATCHED At the center of the transgender bathroom debate Replay -- MUST WATCH At the center of the transgender bathroom debate 01:34 Story highlights -- * "I'm not a freak -- my very existence is not a perversion" Washington (CNN)For a brief period of time Gavin Grimm, the transgender male high school student at the center of a national debate on gender identity, was allowed to use the boys' bathroom at his school. -- uproar it has caused across the country. School districts that dealt with the issue for years under the radar on a case by case basis are now trying to balance rules concerning transgender bathroom access with the privacy concerns of critics. "I'm nothing particularly threatening or extraordinary, I'm just -- or dangerous, or warrants the kind of response I got from the community," he said. Courts leave transgender rules in limbo as school begins Courts leave transgender rules in limbo as school begins Courts leave transgender rules in limbo as school begins Before the community got involved, Grimm and his mother visited Gloucester High School in 2014 to tell officials that although his birth certificate recorded him as a female, he had transitioned to be male and legally changed his name. The school allowed him to use the boys' bathroom until a community -- "I felt very small in there, because I knew the majority of individuals who were in there were not very positive towards me," he said. Grimm believes it is based on a misunderstanding about who transgender people are, because most people don't have to think twice about their gender identity. Transgender people, Grimm says, "have a gender identity which is not consistent with our biological reality." It's called gender dysphoria, or as Grimm explains it, the feeling that -- Lawyers for the group sent a letter to the Gloucester County School Board, noting that only a "minuscule percentage" of individuals identify as transgender and that it was necessary for the school board to protect "other students' privacy and free exercise rights" as well as "parents' right to educate their children." -- year, he would be able to return to the boys' bathroom. He believes that his critics conflate an argument with indecency with the issue of bathroom use for transgender people. "You don't see other people's genitals in the bathroom unless you're looking, which is inappropriate in and of itself," he said, "If an individual was to behave incorrectly in the bathroom, their crime would be misconduct in a bathroom, it would not be existing while transgender." "The bottom line is I'm a boy like anybody else," he said. "I'm not a freak -- my very existence is not a perversion. I'm just a person who -- court ruling while the justices consider an appeal. If the high court takes up the case, it will be its first case concerning transgender identity. Kyl Duncan, a lawyer for the school board, argued in briefs submitted to the Supreme Court that the lower court was wrong to defer to the Obama administration's guidance. Duncan acknowledged that some believe that transgender restroom access could be "one of the great civil-rights issues of our time," but he said the administration had overstepped its bounds. -- + Mission: Ahead + Upstarts + Work Transformed + Innovative Cities * Style -- * CNN Store * Newsletters * Transcripts * License Footage * CNN Newsource