Imagine teaching in a high school and being unable to assert your preferred pronoun. Meanwhile, some LGBTQ+ folks get to insist that it’s their preferred pronoun or that the person addressing them is transphobic.
That is the scenario that three high school teachers in Florida are trying to paint through a recent lawsuit that they filed. The situation affects all teachers in Florida, but only these three are grabbing the bull’s horn.
One of the teachers involved in the lawsuit is Katie Wood, a math teacher at Ruskin’s Lennard High School, Hillsborough County, Florida. The teachers are suing Florida’s Department of Education for violating their civil rights, as enacted in 1964.
According to Wood, earlier in the year, she was accustomed to her students addressing her as “Ms Wood.” However, since the signing of the “Don’t Say Gay” law, a lot of changes have swept across Florida. For example, according to a statute in the new law, Wood can no longer affirm her pronouns. Wood claims some of her students now call her “Teacher Wood” and some daring ones “Mr Wood.”
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According to the Florida state statute, Wood cannot correct her students when they assign her a wrong gender label. This is unedging for Woods and feels like walking on eggs. Teachers who flout the statute may lose their jobs and may likewise lose their certification.
The controversial law, Florida Statute § 1000.071(3) (2023), states that “An employee or contractor of a public K-12 educational institution may not provide to a student his or her preferred personal title or pronouns if such preferred personal title or pronouns do not correspond to his or her sex.”
Legal analysts have explained that the statute disallows teachers from using any other pronouns besides those assigned at birth. Sam Boyd is an attorney from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), representing Wood and the other two teachers.
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In a public statement, Boyd explains that by trying to address a crisis, the administration of Florida is only creating more. By over-flogging the rights of a particular niche, we end up trampling on the rights of others.
According to the SPLC, the new law “prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in employment, and the Supreme Court has been very clear, if you’re telling a transgender woman that she can’t do something but you’re telling a cisgender woman that she can do that, that’s sex discrimination.”
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So far, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Ms Wood, Ms Doe, and Mx. Schwandes. The lawsuit is to restrain the employers of Wood and Doe from indicting them based on the new statute. Meanwhile, Schwandes, who their employer has fired, is demanding damages.
Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, not every Florida parent sees things through their lens. This category of parents see the “Don’t Say Gay” law as a win against queer indoctrination in the state. The outcome of this lawsuit might reveal a new dynamic in the enforcement of the anti-LGBTQ law in Florida.
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