A federal appeals court issued a landmark decision Friday for transgender students, declaring unconstitutional a Florida school district’s policy of requiring individuals to use the restroom that corresponds to their biological sex.
It was the first ruling of its kind by a federal appeals court and involved a student, Drew Adams, who was born female but identifies as male.
Nease High School in Florida gave Adams the option of using a single-stall gender-neutral bathroom or a multi-stall girls’ restroom. Adams, though, wanted to use the boys’ restroom, and sued in 2017, alleging violations of Title IX (1972) and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.
A district judge previously sided with Adams. On Friday, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court.
“A public school may not punish its students for gender nonconformity. Neither may a public school harm transgender students by establishing arbitrary, separate rules for their restroom use,” Judge Beverly Martin wrote for the majority.
Adams said he felt “alienated and humiliated” when he walked past the boys’ restroom to use the gender-neutral restroom.
Martin referenced this year’s Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the high court ruled employers cannot fire someone for being gay or transgender under federal law. That…
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