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Florida Education commissioner seeks sanctions against elementary teacher for requiring children to use non-binary pronouns

According to the official complaint document, during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, Grace "asked and/or encouraged and/or failed to correct elementary students who addressed her using the non-binary prefix Mx instead of Ms. or Ms., as corresponded to the sex determined at birth" of the teacher.

DeSantis en Iowa/ Joseph Prezioso

Florida Governor DeSantis in Iowa/ Joseph PreziosoAFP

Agustina Blanco
Published by
Agustina Blanco

Published

2 minutes read

The Education Commissioner of Florida, Anastasios Kamoutsas, filed a formal administrative complaint against Emily Caylen Grace, a support teacher at Talbot Elementary School, seeking sanctions against her educator certificate for requiring students to call her "Mx" instead of "Mrs." or "Miss."

According to the official document, during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, Grace “asked and/or encouraged and/or failed to correct elementary students addressing her using the non-binary prefix Mx rather than Ms. or Mrs. as appropriate for [Grace’s] sex as determined at birth.”

Kamoutsas alleges that these facts constitute a violation of the Principles of Professional Conduct for the teaching profession and of the state administrative rule related to the use of titles and personal pronouns in educational institutions.

In a Wednesday posting on X, the commissioner wrote, "No schoolteacher can make elementary school kids use fake pronouns in Florida. This isn’t hard.”

No school teacher can make elementary school kids use fake pronouns in Florida. This isn’t hard. pic.twitter.com/PcfsfejbIr

Similarly, Florida's Attorney General James Uthmeier also weighed in on X: "We enforce our laws here in Florida. There is zero tolerance for teachers who want to play in the pronoun Olympics and force dangerous ideology on our kids.”

We enforce our laws here in Florida.

There is zero tolerance for teachers who want to play in the pronoun Olympics and force dangerous ideology on our kids.

Thank you, Commissioner @StasiKamoutsas! https://t.co/MJSFzem7e8

For his part, Governor Ron DeSantis wrote, “We are not running the pronoun Olympics in the state of Florida.”

We are not running the pronoun Olympics in the state of Florida. https://t.co/t0jzfjinP6

The complaint requests that the Educational Practices Commission impose a sanction against Emily Caylen Grace's certificate.

Possible sanctions against the teacher

Possible actions include written reprimand, probation, restriction of scope of practice, administrative fine, mandatory enrollment in the Recovery Network Program, suspension, or revocation of the certificate, and even a permanent or temporary ban on reapplication.

So far, neither the teacher nor the school district has issued a public statement on the administrative complaint. The proceeding is still pending before the Florida Department of Education's Educational Practices Commission.

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