USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Date Filed: 07/14/2021 Page: 37 of 80
communal restrooms for a single-stall, gender-neutral restroom. It heightened the stigma he felt for being transgender.
Based on this evidence, the District Court found that Mr. Adams “suffered emotional damage, stigmatization and shame from not being permitted to use the boys’ restroom at school.” Adams, 318 F. Supp. 3d at 1327. The consequences Mr. Adams suffered are well-recognized as injurious. See Whitaker, 858 F.3d at 1045–47 (affirming a finding of irreparable harm because excluding a transgender student from the boys’ restroom “stigmatized” the student and caused him “significant psychological distress” including “depression and anxiety” (quotation marks omitted)); Dodds v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ., 845 F.3d 217, 221–22 (6th Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (affirming a finding of irreparable harm because excluding a young transgender student “from the girls’ restrooms has already had substantial and immediate adverse effects on the daily life of an eleven-year-old child (i.e. multiple suicide attempts prior to entry of the injunction)”).
V
This record demonstrates that the School Board has not met its “demanding” constitutional burden by showing a substantial relationship between its policy for excluding transgender students from certain restrooms and student privacy. See VMI, 518 U.S. at 533, 116 S. Ct. at 2275. We therefore affirm the District Court’s grant of relief to Mr. Adams under the Fourteenth Amendment.
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