USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Document: 304-1 Date Filed: 12/30/2022 Page: 89 of 150
Nease High School. Fourth and finally, I provide the procedural background of this case.
A. Adams’s Status as a Transgender Boy
Before I discuss Adams’s status as a transgender boy, I note that this case comes to us after a bench trial, at which experts, School District officials, and Adams testified. The evidence introduced at trial is relevant to the issues on appeal and matters for the parties involved in this case. And the district court’s fact-findings based on the trial evidence are entitled to deference. Indeed, the majority opinion does not challenge these findings.
From as far back as he can remember, Adams has “liv[ed] basically as a boy.” Doc. 160-1 at 189.[1] At trial, he testified that he always engaged in what he thinks of as “masculine” behaviors. Id. at 88, 103. For example, as a child Adams played with race cars, airplanes, and dinosaurs. If he was “given a girls’ toy, it would stay primarily in its toy box.” Id. at 85. He refused to wear skirts and dresses. When he played sports as a child, he played “almost entirely” with boys. Id. at 88. Adams’s father testified, “You can go back through his whole childhood and see things like that.” Doc. 161 at 87. “[H]e just always wasn’t acting like a girl.” Id. at 87. Adams’s mother remembered his childhood the same way: “[H]e never clicked with any of the female things, the standard female stereotype things.” Doc. 160-1 at 218.
- ↑ “Doc.” refers to docket entries in the district court record.
