USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Document: 304-1 Date Filed: 12/30/2022 Page: 8 of 150
possessed the reproductive anatomy Adams was born with—that of a female.
On June 28, 2017, after Adams’s efforts to change the School Board’s bathroom policy failed, Adams filed suit against the School Board under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that its bathroom policy violated both the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX. After a three-day bench trial, the district court ruled in Adams’s favor on both counts. The district court enjoined the School Board from prohibiting Adams’s use of the male bathrooms and granted Adams $1,000 in compensatory damages.
The School Board timely appealed the district court’s order. Following oral argument, a divided panel of this Court affirmed the district court over a dissent. Adams ex rel. Kesper v. Sch. Bd. of St. Johns Cnty., 968 F.3d 1286, 1292 (11th Cir. 2020); id. at 1311 (Pryor, C.J., dissenting). After a member of this Court withheld the mandate, the panel majority sua sponte withdrew its initial opinion and issued a revised opinion, again affirming the district court over a revised dissent but on grounds that were neither substantively discussed in the initial panel opinion nor substantively made by any party before the district court or this Court.[1] Adams ex rel. Kesper
- ↑ Specifically, the revised opinion eschewed addressing Title IX. And, instead, the revised opinion sua sponte framed Adams’s Equal Protection Clause claim as a challenge to the School Board’s enrollment documents policy—i.e., the means by which the School Board determines biological sex upon a student’s entrance into the School District—and not as a challenge to the School Board’s
