Florida can’t ban teacher from asking students to use her preferred pronouns, judge rules

Florida cannot prohibit a 10th-grade math teacher from asking her students to call her by her preferred pronouns, a federal judge has ruled.

The decision from Mark Walker, the US district judge, is a blow to an anti-LGBTQ law championed by Ron DeSantis, the state’s governor, which prohibits discussion of sexuality in public schools. A 2023 expansion of the measure, widely known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, prohibits teachers and students from using pronouns that align with their gender identity.

The Tuesday decision, a preliminary injunction, blocks Florida from enforcing the law against Katie Wood, a transgender 10th-grade algebra teacher in Hillsborough county. Wood has long gone by “Ms Wood” in school, but the law has made her require her students to call her “Teacher Wood” – a title no one else at the school uses.

“The state of Florida has a first amendment problem. Of late, it has happened so frequently, some might say you can set your clock by it,” Walker, an appointee of Barack Obama, wrote in his ruling. “The question before this court is whether the first amendment permits the state to dictate, without limitation, how public-school teachers refer to themselves when communicating to students. The answer is a thunderous ‘no.’”

Wood and two other transgender educators sued the state in 2023, saying the law violated their constitutional right to free speech, equal protection under the law as well as federal laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.

Walker’s Wednesday ruling only applies to Wood, and not statewide. Walker said that her lawyers had not yet adequately explained why the law was unconstitutional on its face and not just unconstitutional as it was being specifically applied to her.

Walker also declined to rule in favor of Av Schwandes, a non-binary teacher who was fired from Florida Virtual school after starting to use the “Mx” honorific. Schwandes had not put forth evidence they were looking for employment at a school where their speech would be restricted by their use of pronouns or intended to take future actions where their first amendment rights would be at risk.

At the end of his 60-page ruling, Walker, a judge known for his colorful writing style, quoted Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and gave a full-throated defense of why the constitution protects Wood.

“In sharing her preferred title and pronouns, Ms Wood celebrates herself and sings herself – not in a disruptive or coercive way, but in a way that subtly vindicates her identity, her dignity, and her humanity,” he wrote. Florida law, he added, “has silenced her and, by silencing her, forced her to inhabit an identity that is not her own”.

“The state of Florida has not justified this grave restraint, and so the United States constitution does not tolerate it,” he continued. “Ours is a union of individuals, celebrating ourselves and singing ourselves and being ourselves without apology.”