USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Date Filed: 07/14/2021 Page: 42 of 80
female at birth).” But the schools use “sex” in its ordinary, traditional sense, and they use “biological sex” as a synonym. See, e.g., Sex, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (New College ed. 1979) (“The property or quality by which organisms are classified according to their reproductive functions.”); Sex, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed. 2006) (similar); Sex, The Random House College Dictionary (rev. ed. 1980) (“either the male or female division of a species, esp. as differentiated with reference to the reproductive functions”); Sex, Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (6th ed. 2007) (“Either of the two main divisions (male and female) into which many organisms are placed on the basis of their reproductive functions or capacities”); see also Am. Psychiatric Ass’n, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 451 (5th ed. 2013) (“This chapter employs constructs and terms as they are widely used by clinicians from various disciplines with specialization in this area. In this chapter, sex and sexual refer to the biological indicators of male and female (understood in the context of reproductive capacity) … .”). I too use the word “sex” in its ordinary, traditional sense.
The majority’s linguistic sleight of hand plays into its second framing mistake. It misunderstands what the schools ascertain from enrollment documents. The schools determine students’ sex based on what the students report on their enrollment forms and on the supporting documentation the students submit in the
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