USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Date Filed: 07/14/2021 Page: 51 of 80
our adversarial system of adjudication, we follow the principle of party presentation.”).
Adams was clear throughout the proceedings in the district court that the policy under review was the schools’ policy of separating bathrooms by sex, as opposed to by gender identity. Adams’s complaint represented that the lawsuit “challenge[d] … [the schools’] policy of excluding transgender students from the single-sex facilities that match their gender identity.” Adams employed that understanding of the complaint in later filings seeking to exclude the schools’ evidence as irrelevant, too, representing that “the issue in this case is narrow, limited solely to whether [the schools’] policy prohibiting transgender students … from using the restroom consistent with their gender identity is discriminatory,” and that the “actual case being tried” was about “whether [the schools’] policy excluding [Adams] … from using the restroom associated with his gender identity is discriminatory.” The joint pretrial statement likewise represented that Adams contended that the schools violated the law by not allowing transgender students to “access facilities that match their gender identity.” And after trial, Adams framed the issue in precisely the same way. Adams’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law again challenged the schools’ “policy [that] requires students to use restrooms that match their ‘biological sex’” and “bar[s] transgender students from the restrooms consistent with their gender identity.” And Adams argued the
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