Transgender Bathroom Ban Doesn't Discriminate, Court Holds [View all]

[Polybius]

Source: Bloomberg Law

Separating school bathrooms based on biological sex is constitutional and doesn’t violate Title IX, an en banc Eleventh Circuit said Friday in a divided ruling that may have widespread consequences in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

A Florida school board didn’t violate transgender high school student Drew Adams’ equal protection rights when it prohibited him from using the boys’ bathrooms at Allen D. Nease High School, the court said, reversing a trial court.

The US has a long tradition of separating sexes in certain situations, especially when it comes to the use of public bathrooms, Judge Barbara Lagoa said for the seven-judge US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit majority. Such sex-based classifications have never necessarily run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause, she said.

St. Johns County School Board showed its policy restricting bathroom use by “biological sex” was constitutional because it significantly furthered the student privacy interest the board claimed, Lagoa said. That interest included allowing students to use the bathroom away from the opposite sex and to shield their bodies from the opposite sex—an interest courts have long deemed valid “in a variety of legal contexts,” Lagoa said.

Read more: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/transgender-florida-students-bathroom-access-undone-on-appeal