Several months after the college District applied the best Practices Guidelines, the United States Departments of Education and Justice issued steering (“the 2016 Guidance”) that the time period “sex” below Title IX included gender identification. 146-47. She formed a job force which consulted with district directors, principals, attorneys, guidance counselors, mental health professionals, dad and mom, college students, members of the general public, and LGBTQ groups in St. Johns County and elsewhere. Id. at 3. In response, the varsity District issued a statement by way of its Superintendent that it disagreed with that steering and meant to proceed following its long-standing bathroom coverage as supplemented by the most effective Practices Guidelines, which it believed to be lawful and provided a reasonable accommodation. According to the college Board Attorney, and as affirmed by the college Board Chair, for so long as anyone can remember, the unwritten School District bathroom policy was that boys will use the boys’ restrooms at college and ladies will use the girls’ restrooms at school, using these terms as traditionally defined based on biological traits.

61-62. The school Board’s place is that this strategy reconciles the interests of transgender college students with out violating the school Board coverage of having separate bathrooms for boys and girls. As for the safety facet, the varsity Board seeks to guarantee that members of the alternative intercourse are usually not in an unsupervised bathroom together, citing for instance the dangers of danger posed to a feminine freshman pupil who would possibly find herself alone within the restroom with an 18-yr outdated male student. 161 at Tr. 248. The college Board Attorney defined that the bathroom policy comports with the Board’s general accountability for pupil welfare, which, in the case of bathrooms, principally includes issues for privateness and security. The retired Director of Student Services additionally expressed concern for the safety of transgender students, worrying that they is perhaps bullied or assaulted or ridiculed by other students if they’re in the bathroom that matches their gender identity. Id. at Tr. 69, 111, 115. A related concern raised by the retired Director of Student Services was that underneath a relaxed policy, a student-a soccer participant for example-could pose as being gender-fluid for the aim of gaining access to the girls’ restroom, however the varsity would don’t have any strategy to know whether his belief that he is gender-fluid is honest.

215-16. However, the duty force did not advocate that different for the St. Johns County School District due not less than partially to issues about how one can handle gender-fluid students (these whose gender adjustments between male and female) or these pretending to be gender-fluid, though the task drive had not heard of any such incidents. Id. at Tr. 62. The retired Director of Student Services also defined that one of the best Practices Guidelines accommodate gender-fluid students whereas defending in opposition to the possibility that college students might claim to be gender-fluid to realize entry to the bathroom of the other intercourse. Based on the college Board Attorney, the gender-neutral bathroom option was added to the guidelines and is now a part of the college coverage as an affordable alternative for transgender students in order that they would not be required to make use of the bathroom of their sex assigned at beginning. Incorporating each the lengthy-standing unwritten School Board bathroom coverage and the best Practices Guidelines, the current policy in St. Johns County public schools for grades 4 and up is that “biological boys” may solely use boys’ restrooms or gender-impartial single-stall bathrooms and “biological girls” might only use girls’ restrooms or gender-impartial single-stall bathrooms, with the terms “biological boys” and “biological girls” being defined by the student’s sex assigned at birth, as mirrored on the student’s enrollment documents.

75-78. In February 2017, the Departments of Education and Justice withdrew the 2016 Guidance, explaining that it had not undergone any formal public process and had been issued without intensive authorized evaluation or clarification as to how it was per Title IX. Id. at Tr. 131-32. An extra set is out there in the locker rooms for use by students while taking bodily training courses. Id. at Tr. 131. Discounting the locker room, there are a complete of ten bathroom stalls out there within the boys’ restrooms on the Nease campus. Id. at Tr. 133. All of the boys’ restrooms have a set of urinals and stalls with doorways. With regard to privacy, the school Board seeks to preserve the privateness of people utilizing the restroom amenities, but admits that the bathroom stall doors present privacy for anyone inside a stall. Id. at Tr. 248. The college Board Attorney additionally explained that allowing a transgender pupil to make use of a restroom that conformed to his or her gender identification may create alternatives for college students “with untoward intentions to do issues they ought to not do,” although the varsity Board has by no means obtained any complaints of untoward conduct involving a transgender pupil. Tr. 115, nor did the task force hear of any such incidents in different school districts involving transgender college students using the restroom that aligned with their gender id.