Case 3:17-cv-00739-TJC-JBT Document 192 Filed 07/26/18 Page 29 of 70 PageID 10707
gender identity. Id. at 16. Michaelle Valbrun-Pope, the Executive Director of the Student Support Initiatives for Broward County Public Schools (the sixth largest school district in the nation), testified that she is aware of nine other Florida school districts that have implemented some of their policies with regard to transgender students.[1] Doc. 161 at Tr. 65–66. Valbrun-Pope testified that Broward County Schools’ transgender bathroom policy, which has been in effect for about five years, has not caused any issues related to safety or privacy. Id. at Tr. 64–65. She testified that she has never heard of a transgender student exposing himself or herself in the restroom and that doing so would be inconsistent with aligning themselves with their gender identity and being accepted as that gender. Id. at Tr. 65.
Michelle Kefford, a principal at a high school in Broward County who also works district-wide answering questions about the district’s LGBTQ policies, has worked with about a dozen transgender students over the years, and her high school presently has two transgender students out of a population of about 2,600. Id. at 106, 109–110,
- ↑ At closing arguments, counsel for the School Board noted a few other counties within the Middle District whose school boards he believed have policies similar to St. Johns County’s, and remarked that the Volusia County School Board was involved in similar litigation. But apparently the Volusia County School Board accepts a birth certificate as proof of “sex” and, as the transgender plaintiff in that case has now obtained “an amended State of Florida birth certificate identifying his sex as male,” the Volusia County School Board now permits him to use the boys’ restrooms and locker rooms at his school. See Doe v. Volusia Cnty. Sch. Bd., No. 6:18-cv-102-Orl-37GRK, Doc. 57 at ¶ 2 (filed June 19, 2018).
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