Katie Wood, a transgender algebra teacher, has long gone by ‘Ms Wood’ but the law required students to say ‘Teacher Wood’
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.
I would argue the opposite is true. The entire idea of “abolishing gender” is to remove the forced expectations and norms, not to force everyone to be androgynous or uniform. Freeing this woman to have her gender expression respected by the state is a small, concrete step towards that end.
But what does it mean to be a woman or a man? To wear dresses? To be tough and never cry? Aside from our biological differences, gender is just defined by societal norms. Without gender distinction, there would be no need to fight for people to recognize you as one or the other.
I agree that it would be best to just expand what it means to be a man or a woman, but in order for it to be really effective you’d have to go so far that really only the biological differences matter.