HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — A new Florida law that prohibits educators and students from being required to use pronouns that are different from a person’s sex assigned at birth is being challenged in a federal lawsuit. 

Several educators are listed as the plaintiffs in that suit, including one here in the Bay area.

Katie Wood is one of the plaintiffs. The name ‘Ms. Wood’ was written on the board of her math class last year, but this year the title ‘Ms.’ Is gone.

“Before this law was put into place, everyone could call me Ms. Wood. Now everyone can call me, but me. That’s the law and so it’s not benefitting anyone, my kids can still call me Ms. The only thing it’s doing is restricting what I can call myself and its demoralizing. It’s dehumanizing,” Wood said.

The law Wood is referring to is a Florida Statute focusing on personal titles and pronouns in schools. It affects teachers like Wood who is a transgender woman.

“If they see me use Ms. Wood on my board or if I’m referring to myself as Ms. Wood when I get a new student, that’s me breaking the law in that moment and I can get fired. They already know that I’m trans,” said Wood. “I already told them before I took a job at Leonard.”

Wood said the new law that prohibits teachers from using their preferred pronouns is unconstitutional. So she, along with a few others, filed a federal lawsuit against the state department of education. 

“It wasn’t initially like, 'OK, I’m gonna lawyer up.' I don’t even know how that works right? So, I just started talking with people, saying 'What can I do? What am I allowed to do? How can I advocate for myself and other teachers that are struggling with this way,'” said Wood.

The Florida Department of Education’s press secretary said they don’t comment on pending litigation. The press secretary did forward a letter from the state’s education commissioner, Manny Diaz. 

In the letter responding to the orange county school board chair, Diaz said he’s clearing up any confusion about the change in law.

Diaz said a person’s sex, “is a immutable biological trait” and that it’s false to use a pronoun that doesn’t match their sex. He goes on to say that the new law not only prohibits employees and students from being required to use “false pronouns,” it also prevents employees from telling students that the employee uses false pronouns and it prevents employees from asking students what pronouns they go by. 

Diaz ends the letter stating how the law restricting pronoun preference, “prohibits school district employees from taking an active role in exposing students to these falsities."

It's a gut punch for teachers like Wood, but she says she’s ready to keep fighting.

“There are trans educators all over the country that are in the same position that just want to teach their kids, and they aren’t doing anything dangerous, they aren’t indoctrinating or preying on your kids. It’s, 'Hey, we just want to teach math, but we want to be ourselves doing it,'” Wood said.

Wood is hopeful the title of Ms. Will be one day back on the white board in her class.