Stigma in the Sunshine State: How the Eleventh Circuit Ignored Important Equal Protection Considerations and Contributed to the Panic Against the Transgender Community.

During the past ten years, courts have been at the forefront of increasing the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans. In 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board determined that a school district’s bathroom policy that prevented transgender students from using the bathroom that reflected their gender identity violated the Equal Protection Clause. However, in 2022, as the panic directed toward the transgender community ramped up, the Eleventh Circuit in Adams ex rel. Kasper v. School Board of St. Johns County determined that a Florida school district’s similar bathroom policy did not violate the Equal Protection Clause. In doing so, the Eleventh Circuit failed to consider the impact on the transgender litigant and community at large. This is inconsistent with the approach taken by the Supreme Court in some of the most important equal protection cases, notably Brown v. Board of Education and Obergefell v. Hodges, which prominently placed the stigma felt by marginalized communities in its reasoning. Accordingly, the Fourth Circuit in Grimm provides the best approach to an equal protection analysis, which remains faithful to this rationale and provides greater protection to the transgender community when their rights are under attack. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]