National teachers unions target Florida’s pronoun law in lawsuit

Orlando Sentinel | By John Saunders | August 6, 2024

TALLAHASSEE — Accusing Florida of “dangerous political theater,” state and national teachers unions have urged an appeals court to side with a transgender Hillsborough County teacher who challenged a law requiring educators to use pronouns that align with their sex assigned at birth.

The Florida Education Association, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers last week filed a 47-page brief arguing that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should uphold a district judge’s decision that the law violated the First Amendment rights of teacher Katie Wood.

“This broad, speech-restrictive law singles out Ms. Wood and other transgender educators, prohibiting them from providing students with the personal titles and pronouns they use as a core expression of their identities in their everyday lives,” the friend-of-the-court brief said. “The First Amendment forbids such laws.”

Lawyers for the state went to the Atlanta-based appeals court in April, after Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction that blocked enforcement of the 2023 law against Wood.

The injunction did not apply statewide or to another plaintiff, AV Schwandes, a nonbinary teacher fired last year by Florida Virtual School, and the underlying lawsuit remains pending before Walker.

A panel of the Atlanta-based appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments Sept. 24 in Birmingham, Ala., on the Wood injunction.

The pronoun restriction was part of a series of controversial measures that Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers have approved in recent years that focus on transgender people. For example, they have sought to prevent trans minors from receiving puberty blockers and hormone therapy to treat gender dysphoria.

The appeals-court case centers on part of the 2023 law that says a school employee “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.” The state defines sex as what was assigned at birth.

In a June brief filed at the appeals court, lawyers for the state said public-school systems have the authority to regulate speech of employees.

“The law doesn’t prohibit teachers from advocating publicly their views on usage of preferred titles and pronouns generally,” the brief said. “Nor does it prohibit teachers from providing their preferred titles or pronouns to other employees in school or from providing them to anyone outside school. But even if the law affected more than a teacher’s personal speech at work, the state’s interests in furthering its educational policies and preventing disruption outweigh the narrow subset of speech that the law regulates.”

The brief added, “Wood does not speak as a private citizen on a matter of public concern when providing to students a personal title and pronouns that do not correspond to Wood’s sex. But even if Wood did, the state’s interests outweigh Wood’s.”

But attorneys for the teachers unions rejected such arguments in their filing last week.

“Simply put, Ms. Wood — like all school employees — uses personal pronouns and titles — ‘she,’ ‘her,’ and ‘Ms.’ — to refer to herself in every aspect of her interactions with others in the workplace, just as we all do in every aspect of our lives,” the union’s brief said. “These pronouns and titles do not owe their existence to her responsibilities as a public employee.”

The brief also contended that the “mandate that transgender educators misidentify themselves is part of a broader effort in Florida to withdraw signs of inclusion in schools, including bans on inclusive symbols such as the pride flag and book bans that are easily weaponized against LGBTQ+ books and authors.”

“Laws that target the speech and viewpoints of vulnerable minority groups — based on ignorance, fear, or a desire to harm — are unconstitutional,” the unions’ brief said. “(The pronoun restriction) is such a law, and certainly not the only one Florida has enacted in recent years. Unfortunately, Florida’s public-school students, families and educators are once again the ones who bear the brunt of this dangerous political theater.”