Three educators have filed suit against Florida over a 2023 law permitting the decertification and termination of nonbinary and transgender teachers who use preferred pronouns and titles in the performance of their jobs.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and its partners filed the federal suit last month on behalf of one former and two current teachers. The litigation argues the ban on pronouns and titles known as Subsection 3 violates the U.S. Constitution and Civil Rights statues by subjecting the plaintiffs to discrimination based on sex and speech.
In announcing the action filed with the Tallahassee office of the U.S. District Court, SPLC blasted Florida for the law designed “to attack the existence of LGBTQ people, sending the state-sanctioned, inflammatory and false message that transgender and nonbinary people and their identities are inherently dangerous to children.”
This and other discriminatory Florida statutes are having a chilling effect in Florida schools, the organization claims. “Many teachers have already left their careers, the profession, and the state in response to discriminatory laws Florida passed to push LGBTQ people out of public life. … This is especially true for transgender and nonbinary children and adults in all aspects of life, including sports, books, entertainment, health care and even restrooms.”
The suit says the plaintiffs and other transgender and nonbinary teachers are defamed by the legislation, which has placed their livelihoods and emotional well-being at risk.
“Through Subsection 3, Florida has stigmatized plaintiffs, threatened their psychological well-being, upended the respect that is owed to them as educators and that is necessary for a safe workplace and functioning classroom, and put their professions and families’ well-being on the line,” the suit claims. “Florida’s statute must give way to the Constitution and laws of the United States and must not be enforced.”
Katie Wood
The litigation identifies Katie Wood and Jane Doe as current public school teachers and transgender women. Before the subsection became law, their school boards were supportive of their identities and allowed them to identify themselves to students and others with Ms. and she/her pronouns. But the new law required both to start identifying as males at work.
Going by titles and pronouns different from their identities causes emotional harm, potential risk of physical harm from others and is disruptive in the classroom, the suit asserts. “Avoiding titles and pronouns altogether would be impractical, disruptive and stigmatizing.”
The suit identifies A.V. Schwandes as a nonbinary former teacher fired from the Florida Virtual School in October for continuing to use Mx. and they/them pronouns while at work. Schwandes, whose sex at birth was female, has since filed an employment discrimination charge with the Florida Commission on Human Relations and the EEOC.
Wood said the litigation was filed to defend the fundamental right to freedom of expression and as a protection from a government that attacks citizens who disagree with it.
“Tolerance is a two-way street. Just as I respect the faith-based beliefs of others, my civil rights need to be respected because I am an American, and I do exist.”
“I am a transgender teacher, but I am a human being first. As a human being living in America, I demand to be treated with fairness and equity at work. Those who support and enforce this law are trying to take my voice away and bury my existence. But they will not. I can help hold Florida lawmakers accountable in a court of law. I will not be swept under the rug, I will not be silenced, and I will not budge for my Constitutional rights.”
Schwandes said the suit is a pushback against bigotry and a demand that LGBTQ people be given the rights other citizens enjoy.
“I lost my job, and maybe my career, because Florida lawmakers don’t want maturing young adults to know I exist. As a high school teacher, I should not have to pretend to be someone I’m not simply because I don’t ascribe to someone else’s rigid ideas of gender,” Schwandes said. “Tolerance is a two-way street. Just as I respect the faith-based beliefs of others, my civil rights need to be respected because I am an American, and I do exist.”
Educators serve best when they are provided safe working environments where they are valued, respected and allowed to be who they really are, attorneys for the plaintiffs said in a joint statement.
“Stigmatizing trans and nonbinary people not only undermines educators but also harms and isolates all students,” the statement says. “Teaching at a public school shouldn’t mean denying or contradicting core beliefs or, most importantly, losing oneself entirely. These unlawful statutes have distracted and harmed teachers who want to teach. Florida has only an invidious basis, not an exceedingly persuasive or rational one, for this discrimination.”