The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has ruled that a Jacksonville, Florida school district must give equal access to bathrooms for transgender students after a former high school student was told to use a gender-neutral bathroom.
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Former Allen D. Nease High School student Drew Adams,19, started using the boy’s bathroom in 2015 when he started his freshman year of high school with no issues. However, an anonymous tip was given to the school’s administration and he was told he would have to use a gender-neutral bathroom. As a result, Adams was separated from his peers and treated as unequal. Within two years, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit on behalf of Adams against the School Board of St. John’s county stating their policies did not afford the same right of privacy, respect, and protection to transgender students.
The 11th Circuit upheld the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida’s 2018 ruling on the school district’s bathroom policy as discriminatory and stated the district violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
Bostock confirmed that workplace discrimination against transgender people is contrary to law. Neither should this discrimination be tolerated in schools. The School Board’s bathroom policy, as applied to Mr. Adams, singled him out for different treatment because of his transgender status. A public school may not punish its students for gender nonconformity. Neither may a public school harm transgender students by establishing arbitrary, separate rules for their restroom use. The evidence at trial confirms that Mr. Adams suffered both these indignities. The record developed in the District Court shows that the School Board failed to honor Mr. Adams’s rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX.”
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Adams said he is happy with the outcome and hopes this can create more positive experiences for transgender students.
“High school is hard enough without having your school separate you from your peers and mark you as inferior. I hope this decision helps save other transgender students from having to go through that painful and humiliating experience.”
SOURCE: Lambda Legal