Page:Adams ex rel. Kasper v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida (2020).pdf/7

 District has maintained a policy that, for restroom use, “boys go to boys’ rooms, [and] girls go to girls’ rooms.” The School District defines “boy” and “girl” based on “biological sex,” separating “biological boys” from “biological girls.” It administers this policy based on the sex indicated on a student’s enrollment documents. Because Mr. Adams enrolled in St. Johns County schools in the fourth grade as “female,” the School District’s policy considered him a “biological girl” who could not use the boys’ restroom, regardless of Mr. Adams’s updated legal documents or verified course of medical treatment. Students who fail to abide by the School District’s bathroom policy can be disciplined for violating the student code of conduct.

School administrators were not wholly unprepared for Mr. Adams’s plea to use the boys’ restroom as a transgender boy. In 2012, the School District began to consider how to best accommodate its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (collectively, “LGBTQ”) students. Through research and consultation, the School District developed guidelines it considered to be “best practices” for faculty and staff encountering emerging LGBTQ issues raised by students. The School District implemented this LGBTQ best-practices policy in September 2015, at the same time Mr. Adams was directed to avoid the boys’ bathroom.

Among other provisions, the best-practices policy instructed educators to use LGBTQ students’ preferred names and pronouns; prohibit discriminatory bullying