USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Document: 304-1 Date Filed: 12/30/2022 Page: 6 of 150
“gather every bit of information” to “support [LGBTQ] children.” The Director also convened an LGBTQ task force, which met with “district administrators, … principals, … attorneys, … guidance counselors, [and] mental health therapists” to hear “every perspective” on emerging LGBTQ issues.
The School District’s review of LGBTQ student issues culminated in 2015 with the announcement of a set of “Guidelines for LGBTQ students – Follow Best Practices” (the “Best Practices Guidelines”). Under the Best Practices Guidelines, School District personnel, upon request, address students consistent with their gender identity pronouns. The guidelines also allow transgender students to dress in accordance with their gender identities and publicly express their gender identities. Finally, the guidelines formally note that: “Transgender students will be given access to a gender-neutral restroom and will not be required to use the restroom corresponding to their biological sex.”
The School Board’s decision to maintain the longstanding bathroom policy separating bathrooms based on biological sex, while providing sex-neutral bathroom accommodations for transgender students under the Best Practices Guidelines, was motivated, in part, by the issue of gender fluidity in which students may switch between genders with which they identify. Both the Best Practices Guidelines and the bathroom policy apply to all schools with communal bathrooms in the School District, not only to high schools like Nease.
