A statewide LGBTQ group and others slammed Gov. Ron DeSantis after his administration on Tuesday punished a Broward County High School for allowing a transgender student to play on the volleyball team.
"Student's lives and administrator's livelihoods were upended as a result of the DeSantis administration's focus on culture wars," Jennifer Solomon, Parents and Families Support Manager for Equality Florida, told reporters at a press Tuesday outside Broward County Public School headquarters in Fort Lauderdale.
Florida's state athletic board fined Monarch High School on Tuesday, placing the Coconut Creek school on probation after a transgender student played on the girls volleyball team, a violation of a controversial law enacted by DeSantis and the Republican-majority Legislature.
The Florida High School Athletic Association fined Monarch High $16,500, ordered the principal and athletic director to attend rules seminars and placed the suburban school on probation for 11 months, meaning further violations could lead to increased punishments. The association also barred the girl from participating in boys sports for 11 months.
The association also ruled that Monarch Principal James Cecil and Athletic Director Dione Hester must attend rules compliance seminars the next two summers and the school must host an on-campus seminar for other staff before July.
The 2021 law, which supporters named “The Fairness in Women's Sports Act," bars transgender girls and women from playing on public school teams intended for student athletes identified as girls at birth.
The student, a 10th grader who played in 33 matches over the last two seasons, was removed from the team last month after the Broward County School District was notified by an anonymous tipster about her participation. Her removal led hundreds of Monarch students to walk out of class two weeks ago in protest.
WLRN is not naming the student to protect their privacy.
"Student's lives and administrator's livelihoods were upended as a result of the DeSantis administration's focus on culture wars."Jennifer Solomon
According to legal filings in the case, from as early as three years old, the student insisted on wearing the clothes and colors that girls wear.
She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria when she was seven and began going by a girl’s name in second grade. Under the care of her doctors, she began taking puberty blockers at age 11, and two years later began taking estrogen.
Last month, a federal judge in the case upheld the state law, finding that SB 1028's “sex-based classifications are substantially related to the State's important interest in promoting women's athletics.”
The student and her family have until Jan. 11, 2024 to appeal the ruling.
Jessica Norton, the girl’s mother and a Monarch information technician, went public last week, issuing a statement calling the outing of her daughter a “direct attempt to endanger” the girl.
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. said the punishments were “swift actions (...) to ensure there are serious consequences for this illegal behavior.”
The controversy at Monarch High has drawn extensive media coverage and national attention after students at the school staged two walkouts to protest the state's decision to prohibit their fellow student from continuing to play on the volleyball team.
The Broward school district is continuing its own investigation. It has already reassigned five employees, including the principal and assistant principal, for allowing the student to play on the girls team.
Equality Florida's Solomon told reporters Tuesday that the governor, who is running for the 2025 Republican presidential nomination, is "the state's biggest bully."
The governor was on the presidential campaign trail in Iowa on Tuesday. He has made his enactment of the law and others that are similar a campaign cornerstone.
Others who spoke at Tuesday's press conference organized by Equality Florida included Tatiana Williams, Executive Director, TransInclusive Group and the parents of students of Broward elementary and middle schools, along with a high school student.
"Kids just want to be kids," said Williams. "They want to be kids, and they want to play, and I think we forget that.
"As the leader of a trans-led organization, we often deal with a lot of community members that come to us because they feel isolated, contemplating suicide, because of what's going on in our community, and because of this government," Williams told reporters.
Said Andre Cardona, a 17-year-old transgender, high school student from Miami-Dade: "My school life consisted of relentless fear, guilt, and pain. This is the reality of trans children in Florida today. What I find fundamentally lacking is a sense of humanity in these conversations."
"Think of us with the love and fragility you would any other child. We will continue to fight for a world that is safe. We will fight for a world that is loving. And I will dream of a world that loves me and wants me in it."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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