Page:Adams ex rel. Kasper v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida (2022).pdf/98

 work, the taskforce researched the policies of other school districts concerning their treatment of transgender students. The taskforce learned that other school districts had policies in place permitting transgender students to use the restrooms consistent with their gender identity. The taskforce did not learn of a single negative consequence for any student resulting from transgender students’ use of the restroom matching their gender identity.

At trial, Adams put on evidence of other school districts’ bathroom policies that accommodated transgender students’ desire to use restrooms matching their gender identity. For example, in Florida’s Broward County Public Schools (“BCPS”), the sixth largest school district in the nation, “[s]tudents who identify as transgender … have access to the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity.” Doc. 151-8 at 49. BCPS’s policy provides that “[w]hen meeting with the transgender student … to discuss transgender safety and care, … the principal and student address [the] student’s access to the restroom, locker room[,] and changing facility” independently, customizing the student’s access to these facilities “based on the particular circumstances of the student and the school facilities.” Id.

Addressing BCPS’s experience with concerns like safety and privacy that are sometimes voiced in opposition to such policies, BCPS official Michaelle Valbrun-Pope testified that “with 271,000 students, 300 schools, and implementation over … five years, [BCPS] ha[s] not had issues related to safety in the restrooms that are specifically connected to transgender students.” Doc. 161 at 64.