A.C. is a fifteen-year-old transgender boy. He has identified as a boy since he was eight, using a male name and wearing traditionally male clothes. He legally changed both his name and the gender marker on his birth certificate when he was young. In 2021, when he started attending middle school, A.C. asked his school district to allow him to use the boys’ bathroom at school, but it refused. The school district’s policy took a toll. A.C. went from being a gifted and talented student to one who struggled in school. He suffered from depression and tried to avoid using the bathroom at school. After A.C. challenged the policy, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana entered a preliminary injunction, allowing A.C. to use the boys’ bathroom, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed. Throughout the rest of middle school, A.C. used the boys’ restroom without any student complaints, and he continued using the boys’ restroom in high school. Again, there were no problems. After the district court granted A.C.’s motion for partial summary judgment, the school district once again appealed to the Seventh Circuit. 

In September 2025, CAC filed an amicus brief in support of A.C. explaining that the School District’s policy constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex in violation of Title IX. Under Title IX, transgender people must be treated with equal dignity and given access to an educational environment where they can learn, thrive, and grow free from discrimination.  

Title IX broadly protects all persons, including transgender people, from gender discrimination in federally funded education. It closed a gap left by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ensuring that federal funds going to public and private schools were spent in accordance with the Equal Protection Clause’s prohibition on sex discrimination. The Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County further underscores why prohibiting students from using the bathroom consistent with their gender identity violates Title IX. There, the Court held that Title VII, which uses language virtually indistinguishable from that in Title IX, prohibits discrimination against transgender people.  

Nothing in United States v. Skrmetti changes this. There, the Supreme Court held that a Tennessee law prohibiting gender-affirming medical care for minors was not subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As we explain in our brief, nothing about the Court’s analysis requires the Seventh Circuit to overturn its decision recognizing that a school policy that prohibits transgender students from using a bathroom consistent with their gender identity is sex discrimination under Title IX.