Lawsuit challenges Florida transgender law
(The Center Square) – Florida is facing another legal challenge to new laws on transgender issues.
On Wednesday, three current and former Florida teachers filed a federal lawsuit challenging a section of House Bill 1069 that prohibits K-12 teachers from using their preferred pronouns in the classroom, “if such preferred personal title or pronouns do not correspond to his or her sex.”
The law, effective July 1, defines sex as “the classification of a person as either female or male based on the organization of the body of such person for a specific reproductive role, as indicated by the person’s sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and internal and external genitalia present at birth,” states the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
It is one of a series of laws recently enacted by Florida that the lawsuits says have “flaunted its animus toward LGBTQ+ people.”
“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.
Free speech rights of teachers is violated, the lawsuit says.
It “discriminates against transgender and nonbinary public-school employees and contractors on the basis of sex, by prohibiting them from using the titles and pronouns that express who they are,” the suit said. “Subsection 3 requires Plaintiffs to shed their titles and pronouns at the schoolhouse gate because they are not the titles and pronouns that Florida prefers for the sex it deems them to be.”
Violation of the law enables the state to revoke an educator’s teaching certificate, the suit says.
Gov. Ron DeSantis declined to comment on the lawsuit, referring questions to the state’s education commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. He had not responded to questions from The Center Square before publication.
The Florida High School Athletic Association recently fined the Broward County school system $16,500 for allowing a boy to play on the girls volleyball team, citing that as a violation of the state’s 2021 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.
On Wednesday, a federal trial started in Tallahassee on a lawsuit challenging Florida’s restrictions on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender people, according to published reports. One of the plaintiffs in that case, identified only as Jane Doe, testified that her daughter was born a male and diagnosed with gender dysphoria at age 4.
The child “never, ever wavered from who she is,” the mother said, according to the Miami Herald.
