Trans teacher must misgender herself in classroom, US court rules

A federal court has ruled that a trans teacher must misgender herself while at work, in a major blow for trans rights in Florida.

A divided federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday (2 June) that Floridian school teacher, Katie Wood, must refrain from using ‘she’, ‘her’, and ‘hers’ pronouns to describe herself while teaching in the state.

In a 2-1 decision, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals chose to overturn a preliminary injunction that blocked a 2023 extension to the state’s infamous ‘Dont Say Gay’ law, which forbids discussion of gender and sexuality in public schools.

The extension aimed to force trans teachers to misgender themselves while teaching in public schools, but was temporarily blocked in 2024 by state judge Mark Walker, who argued it was “substantially likely” that the law violated Ms Wood’s free speech rights.

In his majority opinion, Appeals Court judge, Kevin Newsom, alongside judge Andrew Brasher, argued that the Hillsborough County teacher could not prove “that she was speaking as a private citizen rather than a government employee” while interacting with students in her classroom.

“We hold only that when Wood identified herself to students in the classroom using the honorific ‘Ms.’ and the pronouns ‘she,’ ‘her,’ and ‘hers,’ she did so in her capacitry as a government employee, and not as a private citizens.”

Judge Newsom further argued that Ms Wood’s First Amendment rights to use the correct pronouns weren’t relevant to the case, saying he believed it didn’t matter whether Ms Wood used “gender identifiers” when “conversing with colleagues in the faculty lounge.”

The ruling, which overturns Walker’s injunction, means that the 2023 law will likely go into effect imminently and will have wide-ranging implications for trans teachers in the state.

In a dissenting opinion, judge Adalberto Jordan argued that allowing the law to go into effect “leaves the First Amendment on the wrong side of the schoolhouse gate.”

“We should be wary of holding that everything that happens in a classroom constitutes government speech outside the ambit of the First Amendent,” he wrote, adding that the precedent could see government officials supporting the measure being “silenced when their opponents are in charge.”

The judge went on to say that the law has “nothing to do with curriculum and everything to do with Florida attempting to silence those with whom it disagrees on the matter of transgender identity and status.

“If the majority opinion is right, and I do not think that it is, Florida can require that married female teachers use the last name of their husbands in the classroom even if they have chosen to keep their maiden names … it can demand that unmarried female teachers use ‘Mrs.’ instead of ‘Ms.’ in the classroom … and it can require all teachers to call themselves ‘Teacher Smith’ in the classroom instead of using their actual last names.”

In his 2024 ruling opinion blocking the 2023 law, judge Walker argued that the case was a “classic speech injury,” noting that Ms Wood had used the correct pronouns in the past and has a right to use them in the future.