USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Date Filed: 07/14/2021 Page: 44 of 80
Even Adams admitted that the schools sought to sort students in this manner. In a state that allows a minor to conform legal documents to the minor’s gender identity, as Adams did, accepting updated documents would make the schools’ records less likely to reflect a student’s sex.
This correct understanding of the schools’ practices sweeps away the majority’s newfound concerns about how the schools determine the sex of their students. The majority first identifies a hypothetical situation that purportedly proves the schools arbitrarily treat some transgender students differently than other transgender students. It imagines that a student who identifies as a member of the opposite sex, and who has conformed his legal documents to that identity, could report his gender identity instead of his sex on the enrollment forms and could provide his legal documents as support. Majority Op. at 13–14. The schools acknowledged that if a student took this strategy, they would unwittingly allow the student to use the restrooms of the opposite sex without realizing the student was using the restroom of the opposite sex. But that hypothetical, minor shortcoming is far from fatal.
The possibility of evasion does not render unconstitutional the schools’ reliance on self-reporting and legal documentation to determine students’ sex. People can commit tax fraud, evade the draft, and report inaccurate information on the census without creating constitutional infirmities in those systems. And keep in
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