A south Florida school district employee has been suspended from her job for allowing her transgender daughter to play on a high school girls’ volleyball team. The Broward County School Board voted 5-4 to suspend Jessica Norton for 10 days without pay for violating Florida’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.
Under Florida’s law, public secondary school and college sports teams are required to be designated based on “biological sex.” The state defines biological sex as the one printed on the student’s official birth certificate at or near the time of birth.
Norton will also no longer be able to work for the district as a computer specialist, but she must be given a different job with equal responsibility and pay.
Norton and several other school staff members were reassigned to non-school sites while the district investigated. She was the only one not cleared of any wrongdoing.
In December, state officials placed Monarch High School — where Norton’s 16-year-old daughter has been on the girls’ varsity team the last two season — on administrative probation for a year and fined the school $16,500 for allowing her to play on the team.
Norton’s daughter was also told by the Florida High School Athletics Association that she is banned from playing sports for an FHSAA school through November of this year.
