Page:Adams ex rel. Kasper v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida (2020).pdf/72

 possibilities but of statutory context … .”). Further, the only purportedly competing definition the district court found—that “sex” means “the character of being either male or female,” Sex, American College Dictionary (1970)—supports a biological meaning of sex. That dictionary defined “female” and “male” in physiological, reproductive terms. See Female, id. (“a human being of the sex which conceives and brings forth young; a woman or girl”); Male, id. (“belonging to the sex which begets young, or any division or group corresponding to it”). The district court had no reason to conclude that the term was ambiguous.

The decision to resolve the purported ambiguity as applied to transgender students with Price Waterhouse and Glenn fares no better. Like the majority, the district court erred by assuming that “sex” could have different meanings as applied to transgender and non-transgender persons. See Cochise Consultancy, 139 S. Ct. at 1512. Further, neither Price Waterhouse nor Glenn redefined the meaning of “sex.” They held only that when an employer acts against a member of one sex for failing to conform to stereotypes associated with that sex—for example, dressing like the opposite sex—that employer has acted because of sex. See Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 250 (holding that an employer discriminated on the basis of sex when he “act[ed] on the basis of a belief that a woman cannot be aggressive, or that she must not be”); Glenn, 663 F.3d at 1318–19 (“All persons, whether transgender or not, are protected from discrimination on the basis of gender