USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Document: 304-1 Date Filed: 12/30/2022 Page: 26 of 150
complaints about racial integration is the dissent able to discount the parties’ binding stipulation and claim that the School Board’s bathroom policy, which directly advances the important governmental objective of protecting students’ privacy interests in the bathroom, fails intermediate scrutiny.
Finally, we turn to the dissent’s contention that, despite all indications to the contrary, this case is not a case about “the legality of separating bathrooms by sex,” which is primarily advanced by Judge Jill Pryor’s dissent but also is discussed in Judge Jordan’s dissent. Jill Pryor Dis. Op. at 2; Jordan Dis. Op. at 11–12. As such, the dissent claims that this case is about the exclusion of Adams, as “a boy,” from the male bathrooms in which the School Board restricts access to “biological boys.”
The dissent’s argument relies on a misreading of the record and, in fact, contradicts the dissent’s own analysis. The district court explained that Adams “is transgender, meaning he ‘consistently, persistently, and insistently’ identifies as a boy, a gender that is different than the sex he was assigned at birth (female).” In its analysis of the Equal Protection Clause claim, the district court stated that “[t]he undisputed evidence is that [Adams] is a transgender boy and wants access to use the boys’ restroom.” (Emphasis added). And, in concluding that the bathroom policy violated the Equal Protection Clause, the district court explained that “[t]here is no evidence to suggest that [Adams’s] identity as a boy is any less consistent, persistent, and insistent than any other boy. Permitting [Adams] to use the boys’ restroom will not integrate the
