Florida banned trans & nonbinary teachers from using their correct pronouns. They’re suing.

Three Florida teachers are suing state officials over HB 1069, a law that forbids them from using pronouns that don’t match the sex they were assigned at birth.

The law says that any employee or contractor of K-12 public schools can’t tell students about their “preferred personal title or pronouns” if they do not match the sex they were assigned at birth. If they do, they could be suspended, investigated, fined, suspended, fired, have their teaching licenses revoked, and be placed on a list preventing them from having their licenses reinstated.

Related:

Florida school district requires parent permission for teachers to use students’ nicknames

If a young student named Ronald DeSantis wanted to be called “Ron,” he’d have to have his mommy fill out a permission slip.

One of the plaintiffs — identified as Ms. Wood, a transgender math teacher at Lennard High School — legally changed her name and gender on her government-issued identity documents. However, after HB 1069 became law, her principal told her she could no longer refer to herself as “Miss,” even though she had done so for years prior. Instead, the principal said she had to start referring to herself as “Teacher,” an awkward title that makes her feel stigmatized.

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Most students still call her “Ms. Wood,” while others call her “Teacher Wood.” She feels anxiety and distraction, knowing that she could lose her teaching license because her students still refer to her as “Miss.” If a student misgenders her, she’s forbidden by law from correcting them.

Another plaintiff — a nonbinary science and physics teacher named Mx. Schwandes — was fired from virtually teaching in October 2023 because she refused to stop using they/them pronouns and use “Ms., Mrs., and Miss” instead of “Mx.”

“Through [HB 1069] subsection 3, Florida has stigmatized Plaintiffs, threatened their psychological wellbeing, 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’ wellbeing on the line,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also says that HB 1069 unlawfully discriminates against the teachers based on sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision Bostock v. Clayton County, which ruled that anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination is a form of sex-based discrimination forbidden by federal laws.

The plaintiff’s lawyers point out that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his administration have said that HB 1069 is necessary to “protect children” from “indoctrination” and “woke gender ideology,” but neither legislators nor any provisions in the law explain how it advances those goals.

“Through all these laws, Florida intentionally sends the state-sanctioned, invidious, and false message that transgender and nonbinary people and their identities are inherently dangerous, especially to children,” the lawsuit states. “Florida’s goal behind these laws is to stigmatize and demonize transgender and nonbinary people and relegate them from public life altogether.”

The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction to stop the law’s enforcement as well as money for compensatory damages, back pay, court fees, and other relief.