Faculty of Transgender Rights suing Florida for Pronoun Restrictions

Pushback against opposition has started, as is only natural.

POLITICO (teachers file a lawsuit against Florida for school word regulations ):

A new law prohibiting people from using adjectives in schools that are different from their sex at birth was challenged by three Florida professors on Wednesday in federal court.

The organization, which is represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, claims that Gov. They are at risk of losing their educator credentials or jobs for being” who they are” because Ron DeSantis earlier this year amounts to sex discrimination and violates their constitutional rights.

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Attorneys for the educators claimed in the lawsuit that “plaintiffs are current and former Florida public-school teachers who just wanted to teach mathematics, science, and their other college subjects of expertise.” However, Florida passed a new law earlier this year that threatened to do the same for the various plaintiffs—as well as for other transgender and intersex teachers in Florida—and forced one plaintiff out of their teaching job.

The lawsuit challenges a comprehensive state laws that controls the pronoun usage of both students and teachers.

The Florida Department of Education passed the legislation in August that forbade school staff from asking kids for their preferred pronouns and prohibited school employees from giving students their own if they “do not coincide” with their gender. A person with a word that “does not correlate to such child’s sex” is deemed “false” under this plan.

According to the problem, this new law has” stigmatized” transgender and non-binary teachers,” threatened their internal welfare,” and “upended the value that is owed to them as teachers.”

One claimant, Katie Wood, a transgender woman who transitioned in 2020 and has since used her nouns, including since she began working for the college district two years ago, is an example of this. Katie teaches mathematics at an elementary school in Hillsborough County. However, according to the new regulations, Wood was informed this year by school administrators that she would have to use titles like Mr., tutor, or coach instead of feminine pronouns. Additionally, according to the lawsuit, Wood is prohibited from correcting individuals who use pronouns like Mr. or he/him.

As a result, the party contends that Florida’s class pronoun law violates constitutional rights related to, among other things, equal safety clauses, free speech, and sexual discrimination. They assert that the plan is a part of broader conservative attacks on the LGBTQ+ group in Florida, which have also passed laws like restricting drag shows, banning gender-affirming care for minors, and regulating transgender people’s bathroom use.

According to the lawsuit, the legislation “discriminates against transgender and intersex people school employees and vendors on the basis of gender by prohibiting them from using the names and adjectives that express who they are.” Because they are not the names and pronouns that Florida prefers for the sex it considers them to be, it “requires” ( the teachers ) to shed them at the schoolhouse gate.

Given current Supreme Court views of civil rights laws, this scenario may appear to be a slam dunk.

Beyond that, it’s difficult to see how these rules would serve any reasonable common goal. The ridiculousness of making students handle a teacher who introduces herself as” Mr.” ( Or, for that matter, a math teacher can be perceived as an” coach.” Not to mention the teacher’s shame and degradation from having to put up with this as a requirement for work.

I am aware that a sizable portion of people view sexuality and transsexuals as repugnant, if not an aberration before their god, for religious and cultural reasons. However, it is not a right use of state authority to obliterate their life.