A federal judge agreed with a transgender teacher that state law prohibiting teachers from telling students their preferred pronouns discriminated based on sex and altered her employment conditions, violating federal law.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker’s decision comes a month after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down Walker’s preliminary injunction, in which he ruled that Hillsborough County teacher Katie Wood’s right to free speech was infringed.
In Walker’s Aug. 13 order, he sided with Wood’s claim that a provision of state law (HB 1069) discriminated against Wood based on sex and left Wood worse-off in their employment conditions. It says a teacher “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.”
Wood is a transgender woman who teaches algebra at Lennard High School in Ruskin. She filed the lawsuit in December 2023 with two other teachers, contending the new state law under the First Amendment, the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
“We’re happy with the decision … we’re glad the court correctly recognized that the law discriminates against our clients and violates their rights under Title VII,” said Samuel Boyd, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center who represents Wood.
Requests for comment are pending with the Department of Education and the Hillsborough County School Board.
This challenge to the state’s so-called “anti-pronoun” law is part of a larger national conversation on how far a state can go on regulating classroom speech. The law underscores a continued conservative effort to limit LGBTQ+ expression in schools.
‘State of Florida has a First Amendment problem,’ judge says
Since he said he is bound by the appellate court’s ruling, Walker denied Wood’s claims that denying her use of preferred pronouns in the classroom violated her First Amendment rights. But even while ruling that officials couldn’t punish Wood for using preferred pronouns, he said the “state of Florida has a First Amendment problem.”
Walker’s latest order also disagreed that Wood’s circumstance falls under a legally-defined hostile work environment.
“This Court in no way intends to diminish Ms. Wood’s experiences and their impact on her,” Walker wrote. “But while Ms. Wood should not be treated worse than anyone under the hostile work environment standard, she is also not entitled to more protection than other plaintiffs who experience deplorable conduct at work.”
This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Stephany Matat is based in Tallahassee, Fla. She can be reached at SMatat@gannett.com. On X: @stephanymatat.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Federal judge: Florida discriminated against transgender teacher based on sex
Reporting by Stephany Matat, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
