Southern Poverty Law Center

“Everyone told me it’s state law and there is nothing we can do,” Wood said.

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Teacher fights Florida anti-LGBTQ+ law, says ‘state can’t deny my existence’

By Rhonda Sonnenberg | Read the full story here

Friend,

When Katie Wood interviewed for the position of math teacher at Lennard High School in Hillsborough County, Florida, in 2021, she told the principal that she was a transgender woman and wanted to work only in a school that would make her feel welcome.

“I told her that as a transgender woman, it’s really important that I work at a school that affirms me,” Wood said.

The principal assured Wood that Lennard was that kind of school, and in August 2021, Wood, now 25, began her first paid teaching job out of college.

On her first day of class, she wrote “Ms. Wood” on the blackboard. She used “she” and “her” as pronouns consistent with her gender identity, and her students called her “Ms. Wood.” For the next two years, her fellow teachers, superiors and all other school staff called her “Ms. Wood.”

But the acceptance ended in the summer of 2023.

The prior May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had signed HB 1069, an expansion of the 2022 law known as “Don’t Say Gay.” The statute prohibits public and charter schoolteachers from using pronouns and titles that don’t “correspond” to their sex assigned at birth. Teachers who violate the law can lose their jobs and teaching licenses. The law also bars any employee from being required to use a student’s pronouns if they do not match their sex assigned at birth.

The law took effect July 1, 2023, but Wood didn’t know about it until the school principal informed her of it after the school year started. At first, she resisted. She privately consulted several members of the school board, her principal and assistant principal.

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Sincerely,

Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center

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