Page:Adams ex rel. Kasper v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida (2020).pdf/26

 traditional norms” (quoting Taylor Flynn,, 101 Colum. L. Rev. 392, 392 (2001))).

The School Board’s bathroom policy sought to enforce this gender stereotype. The School District administered the policy using students’ enrollment documents as a proxy for their sex at birth. The School Board says this was the best way to protect all students’ privacy in school restrooms. But this policy presumes every person deemed “male” at birth would act and identify as a “boy” and every person deemed “female” would act and identify as a “girl.” Based on these stereotypes, the School Board labeled Mr. Adams as a “girl” for purposes of his bathroom use, based solely on his sex assigned at birth. This label gives no regard to the fact that that Mr. Adams lives and presents as a boy and has been declared a boy by his family, the State of Florida, the federal government, and his medical providers. As far as the record shows, Mr. Adams was the only student in the School District with a “male” birth certificate and driver’s license who was not allowed to use the boys’ restroom. Nevertheless, the School Board’s bathroom policy relegated Mr. Adams to single-stall, gender-neutral bathrooms and exposed him to school discipline for using the restroom matching his gender identity. These hardships were imposed on Mr. Adams because he is transgender and did not act or present as female, the sex he was assigned at birth.