USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Document: 304-1 Date Filed: 12/30/2022 Page: 39 of 150
district court’s determination that a single dictionary, which is supposedly at variance from its peers, supports the conclusion that the word “sex” had an ambiguous meaning when Title IX was enacted is wrong ab initio. Moreover, even a cursory examination of the American College Dictionary’s definition of “sex” confirms that it, too, defines “sex” based on biology and reproductive function, as illustrated by its definitions of “female” and “male.” See Female, American College Dictionary (1970) (“[A] human being of the sex which conceives and brings forth young; a woman or girl.”); Male, American College Dictionary (1970) (“[B]elonging to the sex which begets young, or any division or group corresponding to it.”). The ambiguity purportedly found by the district court simply is not there.
But even if the district court’s reading of the American College Dictionary supported its finding of “sex” to be ambiguous, a statutory term is not deemed to be ambiguous simply because the statute does not explicitly define the term or a single dictionary provides a different meaning. See Perrin, 444 U.S. at 42 (“A fundamental canon of statutory construction is that, unless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.”). Indeed, “[a]mbiguity is a creature not of definitional possibilities but of statutory context.” Brown v. Gardner, 513 U.S. 115, 118 (1994). And reading in ambiguity to the term “sex” ignores the statutory context of Title IX.
For one, Title IX explicitly provides a statutory carve-out for “maintaining separate living facilities for the different sexes.”
