TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A federal judge in Tallahassee has issued a preliminary injunction blocking Florida from enforcing a law that requires a transgender teacher to use pronouns that align with her sex assigned at birth. The judge ruled that the law violated the teacher’s First Amendment rights.
The 2023 law restricts the use of personal pronouns and titles by educators in schools. Violations of the law can result in teachers losing their certifications and hefty financial penalties for school districts. The law is one of several measures supported by the Republican-controlled Legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis that specifically target the LGBTQ community.
Plaintiffs Katie Wood, a transgender teacher in Hillsborough County, and AV Schwandes, a nonbinary teacher who was fired last year by Florida Virtual School, sought preliminary injunctions as part of their lawsuit challenging the restrictions. The lawsuit alleges that the law infringes on the teachers’ First Amendment rights and violates federal civil rights laws.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction against the law specifically for Wood, but the injunction does not apply statewide. Walker’s ruling denied a preliminary injunction for Schwandes. In his 60-page ruling, the judge emphasized that the state does not have the authority to dictate how teachers refer to themselves when communicating with students.
Attorneys for the Florida Department of Education and other defendants requested that the lawsuit be dismissed, arguing that the Legislature has the discretion to promote pedagogical goals and protect parental rights. However, Walker referred to a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed a high-school football coach to pray with his team before games, highlighting the importance of First Amendment rights.
The ruling issued by Judge Walker only applies to Wood and not to the entire state. This is consistent with a previous ruling by U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell, who blocked a 2023 law aimed at restricting children from attending drag shows statewide on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment. The injunction was allowed to remain in place by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The judge determined that Wood had sufficient evidence of an injury-in-fact, as she had used her preferred pronouns before the law went into effect and is now deterred from using them due to the threat of disciplinary action. However, the judge did not find sufficient evidence from Schwandes that their speech was being chilled by the enforcement of the law.
In his ruling, Judge Walker rejected the state’s argument that the pronoun and title restrictions were a “pedagogical” decision protected from First Amendment scrutiny. He stated that the broad application of the restriction to all employees and contractors in public K-12 schools indicated that it was not simply a choice related to curriculum.
The case serves as another example of ongoing conflicts over LGBTQ rights in Florida and raises broader questions about the limits of the state’s authority to regulate speech in public schools.