USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Document: 304-1 Date Filed: 12/30/2022 Page: 11 of 150
its core, Adams’s claim is relatively straightforward. According to Adams, the School Board’s bathroom policy facially discriminates between males and females. Adams, who identifies as a male, argues that the policy violates Adams’s rights because, as a transgender student, Adams cannot use the bathroom that corresponds to the sex with which Adams identifies. Which is to say, Adams argues that by facially discriminating between the two sexes, the School Board’s bathroom policy also necessarily discriminates against transgender students. We disagree with Adams’s theory that separation of bathrooms on the basis of biological sex necessarily discriminates against transgender students.[1]
- ↑ Adams also argues that the appeal of the district court’s order should be classified as an as-applied challenge to the School Board’s bathroom policy limited to Adams’s particular circumstances. But that does not help in our resolution of this appeal because “classifying a lawsuit as facial or as-applied … does not speak at all to the substantive rule of law necessary to establish a constitutional violation.” Bucklew v. Precythe, 139 S. Ct. 1112, 1127 (2019). Indeed, an as-applied challenge merely “affects the extent to which” a plaintiff must demonstrate “the invalidity of the challenged law” or constitutional violation and “the corresponding ‘breadth of the remedy.’” Id. (quoting Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310, 331 (2010)). But an alleged violation of one individual’s constitutional rights under the Equal Protection Clause would necessarily constitute a violation of the Equal Protection Clause and the Constitution at large, regardless of the individually-applied remedy. Further, as we discuss below, equating “sex” to “gender identity” or “transgender status” under Title IX, as Adams would have us do as a matter of statutory interpretation, would touch upon the interests of all Americans—not just Adams—who are students, as well as their parents or guardians, at institutions subject to the statute. We therefore do not find merit in Adams’s attempt to cabin the lawsuit to Adams’s particular circumstances.
