Florida school staffer suspended after transgender daughter played on girls sports team
A staffer at Broward County Public Schools in Florida was suspended Tuesday after her transgender daughter played on a girls sports team, which violates state law.
The school board voted to suspend Jessica Norton, an information management technician, after her transgender daughter played on the volleyball team at Monarch High School in 2022 and 2023, CNN reported.
Norton, a volunteer coach for the team, will go to a different job at the school after the suspension is up, dodging the original recommendation from the superintendent for her to be fired.
“Obviously, I don’t want to get fired from my job. I love my job,” Norton said after the vote was over, according to CNN. “But I don’t think that the decision for any suspension was correct.”
The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act in the state was enacted in 2021 and bans transgender girls from playing on girls sports teams in schools.
After the state found out about the Monarch High incident, the high school was fined $16,500 and put on a one-year administrative probation.
Students at the school staged a walkout in protest in November.
“She knew what the law was, she made a decision not to follow the law, and that needs to have consequence to it," school board member Debbie Hixon said, NBC Miami reported.
The incident comes as laws regarding which sports teams transgender students can participate in has become a national fight, with Republican-led states fighting new Title IX regulations intended to protect trans students.