USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Date Filed: 07/14/2021 Page: 3 of 80
Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. After a bench trial, the District Court entered judgment in favor of Mr. Adams on both claims, awarding him injunctive relief and damages as well.
We affirm the District Court’s judgment. We conclude the School District’s policy barring Mr. Adams from the boys’ restroom violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, because the School District assigns students to sex-specific bathrooms in an arbitrary manner. We affirm the District Court’s award of damages because Mr. Adams undoubtedly suffered harm as a result of this violation.
I
The District Court developed a thorough factual record after a three-day bench trial of Mr. Adams’s claims. See Adams ex rel. Kasper v. Sch. Bd. of St. Johns Cnty., 318 F. Supp. 3d 1293, 1298–1310 (M.D. Fla. 2018). We recite those facts here, as necessary.
Drew Adams was born in 2000. At birth, doctors examined Mr. Adams and recorded his sex as female. That female designation vexed Mr. Adams throughout his young life. When Mr. Adams entered puberty, he suffered significant anxiety and depression about his developing body, and he sought the help of a therapist and a psychiatrist. In the eighth grade, Mr. Adams came out to his parents as transgender. He explained to his parents that he was a boy. At trial, his mother
3
