Court Bars Fla. Teachers from Forcing Students and Staff to Use Preferred Pronouns

July 17, 2025

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 2-1 that Katie Wood, a Florida high school math teacher who is male but identifies as a woman, cannot force other teachers to use feminine pronouns or the honorific “Ms.”

According to Christianity Daily, the dispute arose over a state law enacted in 2023, known as Florida Statute § 1000.071, which states that “[a]n employee or contractor of a public K-12 educational institution may not provide to a student his or her preferred personal title or pronouns if such preferred personal title or pronouns do not correspond to his or her sex.”

Trump appointee Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom wrote the majority opinion, concluding that “Wood hasn’t shown a substantial likelihood that” the state law “infringes [his] free-speech Rights.”

Newsom specifically challenged a lower court’s reasoning that Wood’s preferred pronouns constituted speech from a “private citizen” instead of from a “government employee.”

Noting that “a teacher’s right to speak is not without limits,” Newsom maintained that, while “When a public-school teacher addresses her students within the four walls of a classroom — whether orally or in writing —” that teacher “is unquestionably acting ‘pursuant to official duties.’”

Newsom also contrasted the cast with the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, where the court ruled 6-3 that a public high school football coach could lawfully pray on the football field after games.

Coach Joe Kennedy, Newsom explained, was off the clock after his official duties as a football coach had ceased, contrasting that with Woods who was still “very much on the clock” while teaching.

Christianity Daily reports that Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan dissented in the decision, stating, “Wood has substantially demonstrated that [his] use of her preferred personal title and pronouns constitutes private speech on a matter of public concern rather than government speech.”

Jordan added, “The preferred personal title and pronouns of a teacher are, like her name, significant markers of individual identity. They exist outside of, and do not depend on, the school or the government for their existence.”

Photo: top, Credit: Unsplash/Taylor Flowe