School board member who had sex with another woman rejects new LGBTQ+ protections

Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler forced the Florida school board on which she serves to vote to reject new federal protections for LGBTQ+ students this week.

On Tuesday evening, the Sarasota County School Board approved the resolution, which Ziegler introduced, by a 4–1 vote, risking millions in federal funds.

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Last month, the Biden administration announced its long-awaited new Title IX rules mandating anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students. The new rules interpret Title IX, which bans discrimination on the basis of sex in education, as a legal protection against anti-LGBTQ+ school policies in that it is impossible to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity without taking sex into account. That legal argument takes as its precedent the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton Co. ruling with respect to job discrimination.

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Under the administration’s new rules, a school that receives federal funding will no longer be able to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students. This could affect states and school districts with policies to out LGBTQ+ students to their parents or ban trans students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender. The new rules could also give students who face discrimination recourse in federal courts.

Since the Biden administration’s April announcement, 14 states have filed lawsuits challenging the new rules.  

Last week, Ziegler announced her own intention to bring forward a resolution to reject the new rules in a Facebook post. “Title IX was established to protect opportunities for women and girls. This includes giving girls a chance to excel at sports, use the restroom in safety, and change in the locker room in privacy,” she wrote. “Any weakening of the Title IX protections for women is a direct attack on our women and girls. A true War on Women.”

Out Sarasota County School Board member Tom Edwards was the lone vote against Ziegler’s resolution, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports.

“I view this resolution as no more than what Mrs. Ziegler said: ‘Game on.’ And that’s politics 100 percent of the time,” Edwards said during Tuesday’s five-hour meeting. “So pass it if you will.”

As the Herald-Tribune notes, the district risks losing about $50 million in annual federal funding by rejecting the new Title IX rules — funding that goes toward free and reduced lunch programs and other services for schools serving low-income families.

Ziegler has continued to serve out her third term on the board despite calls for her resignation following sexual impropriety involving her husband, former Florida GOP chair Christian Ziegler. Late last year, police launched an investigation after a woman accused Christian Ziegler of rape. The alleged victim told police that she and the Zieglers had planned a sexual encounter for October 2. But when Bridget Ziegler was no longer available, the woman canceled, saying, “I was mostly in for her.” The woman claimed that Christian Ziegler showed up at her home anyway and sexually assaulted her.

Christian Ziegler claimed the encounter was consensual, and in January, Sarasota Police declined to charge him with sexual battery. During the investigation, Bridget Ziegler admitted to a past threesome with her husband and the alleged victim.

While Bridget Ziegler was not implicated in the alleged sexual assault or in a separate charge of video voyeurism her husband faced, she has faced criticism for her sexual involvement with another woman while heading up the anti-LGBTQ+ Moms for Liberty. In December, she was quietly removed as the director of the School Board Leadership Program at the Leadership Institute, an organization that trains conservative activists. According to the Herald-Tribune, she continues to face calls for her resignation from the Sarasota County School Board.

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