The battle over transgender students’ access to bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity has created a circuit split and teed up a potential US Supreme Court showdown that could have implications in the employment context.

A recent en banc decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit against Florida transgender high school student Drew Adams has set the stage for a review by the justices, who have repeatedly declined in recent years to wade into similar disputes. But the posture of the case, combined with the high court’s current makeup, could keep that particular dispute at bay for the time being.

The Eleventh Circuit concluded that separating school bathrooms based on biological sex is constitutional and doesn’t violate Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, a federal law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex and gender identity in schools that receive federal funding. The country has a long tradition of separating sexes in certain situations, including in the use of public bathrooms, the majority said.

The majority rejected Adams’ reliance on the high court’s 2020 landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that the sex discrimination prohibitions in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act cover gender identity and sexual orientation.

Jackie Gharapour Wernz, a partner at Thompson &...

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