USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Document: 304-1 Date Filed: 12/30/2022 Page: 106 of 150
classes are located.[1] Id. at 26. As a result, Adams had to “walk past [the] men’s room” to the gender-neutral restroom in what he called “humiliating” “walk[s] of shame.” Doc. 160-1 at 117, 204. Even on days when there were “not very many people in the hallway,” Adams testified, it felt like “a thousand eyes” were watching him as he walked past the boys’ restroom to make his way to a gender-neutral restroom. Id. at 204. The experience of being forced to use the gender-neutral restrooms, Adams testified, sent the message that he was “[un]worthy of occupying the same space as [his] classmates.” Id. The School District’s enforcement of the policy against Adams made him feel inferior. In his words, it:
ma[de] a statement … to the rest of the people at the school that I’m somehow different or I’m somehow separate or I’m something that needs to be separate; that I’m something that needs to be put away and not in the commonplace and not in with the rest of the student body.
Id. at 117.
- ↑ As part of its fact-finding, the district court went onsite to examine the bathrooms at Nease High School. The court found “[t]here are four sets of multi-stall, sex-segregated bathrooms available” to Nease students. Doc. 192 at 23. The boys’ restrooms have both urinals and stalls with doors. In addition, Nease has 11 gender-neutral single-stall bathrooms which are open to any student or staff member. There is no gender-neutral bathroom near the cafeteria; a student who wishes to use a gender-neutral bathroom during lunch must ask permission to leave that area.
