Case 3:17-cv-00739-TJC-JBT Document 192 Filed 07/26/18 Page 56 of 70 PageID 10734
interpretation) are inapplicable.[1]
Citing Judge Niemeyer’s dissent from the affirmance of entry of a preliminary injunction in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board, 822 F.3d 709, 736 (4th Cir. 2016), vacated and remanded, 137 S. Ct. 1239 (2017), the School Board contends that contemporaneous dictionary definitions of the word “sex” at the time Congress passed Title IX reveal it was “universally understood as referring to the biological or physiological characteristics that constitute a person’s sex, and not an internal identification with one gender or the other.” Doc. 173-1 at 27. However, the majority in G.G. did not find the meaning to be so universally clear, noting, for example, that a 1970 dictionary defined “sex” as “the character of being either male or female.” G.G., 822 F.3d at 721 (quoting the American College Dictionary 1109 (1970)); see also Highland, 208 F. Supp. 3d at 866 (considering the parties’ debate about the dictionary definition of “sex” at the time Title IX was enacted, stating “dictionaries from that era defined ‘sex’ in myriad ways” and did not reflect “a uniform and unambiguous meaning of ‘sex’ as biological sex or sex assigned at birth”); Students and Parents for Privacy v. United States, No. 16-cv-4945, 2016 WL 6134121, at *17–18 (N.D. Ill. Oct.
- ↑ The first three of these arguments were initially raised in the School Board’s motion to dismiss (Doc. 54, adopted as to the amended complaint by notice, Doc. 64). The Court carried the motion with the case, determining that the evidence at trial on the Equal Protection claim would essentially be the same regardless of whether the Title IX claim remained, and that it would be preferable to decide the motion on a full record. For the reasons stated here, the motion is denied.
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