USCA11 Case: 18-13592 Document: 304-1 Date Filed: 12/30/2022 Page: 86 of 150
Jill Pryor, Circuit Judge, dissenting, in which Rosenbaum, Circuit Judge, joins as to Parts I, II, III.A, III.B, III.D, and IV:
Each time teenager Andrew Adams needed to use the bathroom at his school, Allen D. Nease High School, he was forced to endure a stigmatizing and humiliating walk of shame—past the boys’ bathrooms and into a single-stall “gender neutral” bathroom. The experience left him feeling unworthy, like “something that needs to be put away.” The reason he was prevented from using the boys’ bathroom like other boys? He is a transgender boy.
Seeking to be treated as equal to his cisgender boy classmates, Adams sued, arguing that his assignment to the gender neutral bathrooms and not to the boys’ bathrooms violated the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. He prevailed in the district court, and a panel of this Court, of which I was a member, affirmed. Today, a majority of my colleagues labels Adams as unfit for equal protection based on his transgender status.
To start, the majority opinion simply declares—without any basis—that a person’s “biological sex” is comprised solely of chromosomal structure and birth-assigned sex. So, the majority opinion concludes, a person’s gender identity has no bearing on this case about equal protection for a transgender boy. The majority opinion does so in disregard of the record evidence—evidence the majority does not contest—which demonstrates that gender identity is an immutable, biological component of a person’s sex.
