Federal Appeals Court Ruling On Transgender School Bathroom Policy May Trigger SCOTUS Showdown

The decision by a federal appeals court Friday to uphold a Florida school district’s policy barring trans students from using the restroom corresponding to their chosen sex could set up a showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court over the contentious issue.

In a 7-4 decisionThe 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the St. Johns County School Board policy that barred a biological female who identifies as male from using a high school’s boys’ restroom violates neither the student’s constitutional right to equal protection nor Title IX, the federal law against discrimination by schools based on sex. The court’s ruling differs on substance from a 2020 decision by the 4th Circuit striking down a similar policy in Gloucester County, Virginia.

“Given the countervailing decision of the Fourth Circuit in G.G. v. Gloucester County, there is now a conflict in the circuits that could prompt a Supreme Court review,” Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law Professor

The court ruled 7-4 against a statutory and constitutional challenge of a transgender student to a district policy requiring students to use bathrooms corresponding to their biological sex… https://t.co/YppVW9Kius

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 31, 2022

In the decision handed down Friday, the court ruled against plaintiff Drew Adams, who was required to use a gender-neutral, single-stall bathroom or girls’ bathrooms while attending Nease High School. In the majority opinion, Judge Barbara Lagoa, an ex-Judge of the Florida State Supreme Court, stated that the policy was intended to protect students’ privacy.

“The school board’s bathroom policy is clearly related to — indeed, is almost a mirror of — its objective of protecting the privacy interests of students to use the bathroom away from the opposite sex and to shield their bodies from the opposite sex in the bathroom, which, like a locker room or shower facility, is one of the spaces in a school where such bodily exposure is most likely to occur,” Lagoa wrote.

The decision broke down on partisan lines as Republican appointees Chief Judge William Pryor and judges Elizabeth Branch, Andrew Brasher, Britt Grant, Robert Luck, and Kevin Newsom all joined Lagoa’s opinion. Democratic presidents appointed all four dissidents.

Judge Jill Pryor was one of the dissenting opinions. She wrote that Adams was meant by the policy. “was forced to endure a stigmatizing and humiliating walk of shame — past the boys’ bathrooms and into a single-stall ‘gender neutral’ bathroom.” She stated that the court majority was in her favor. “labels Adams as unfit for equal protection based on his transgender status.”

Pryor’s opinion was that Pryor believed the gender theory argument that biological sexuality and gender identity were not the same thing.

“To start, the majority opinion simply declares — without any basis — that a person’s ‘biological sex’ is comprised solely of chromosomal structure and birth-assigned sex,” Pryor wrote.

In a separate opinion, Judge Charles Wilson claimed that the policy was rooted within the “medically and scientifically flawed” idea that people can’t change their sex.

The school’s policy provided for a gender-neutral restroom and could also trans students who had documentation of their altered status prior to enrollment to use the restroom of their choice.

This ruling overturned an earlier one in the case brought by the United States District Court of the Middle District of Florida. A three-judge circuit court panel initially upheld the lower court’s decision over Pryor’s dissent, but then vacated that decision and held an en banc hearing, or one before the entire circuit.

The U.S. Supreme Court stated explicitly that it wasn’t addressing the transgender toilet issue in its 2020 decision. Bostock v. Clayton County. The majority of the judges in that case ruled that discriminating against someone on the basis their sexual orientation or gender identity was impossible without discriminating on the grounds of sex. Adams used that ruling to bring the case against the Florida school districts, even though it was not applicable to school restroom policies.

“We do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind,” Bostock was the subject of a ruling by the High Court. “The only question before us is whether an employer who fires someone simply for being homosexual or transgender has discharged or otherwise discriminated against that individual “because of such individual’s sex.”

The Florida majority said that Title IX allows the district to have separate restrooms for biological girls and boys, pointing out that the statute’s reference to “sex” It is not synonymous with “gender identity” Or “transgender status.”

“Affirming the district court’s order and adopting Adams’s definition of “sex” Title IX includes “gender identity” Or “transgender status” would have had repercussions far beyond the bathroom door,” Lagoa wrote.

Lagoa explained that students could use the bathroom of their choice if they have a policy. This would make it possible for them to access sports, living areas, showers, and locker room according to the same rules. This could negate one of the original goals of Title IX which was to provide girls with education.

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