Fort Lauderdale, Florida- A Florida public school staffer who faces termination because she let her transgender daughter to play girls high school volleyball attacked those who outed her child on Tuesday, claiming that the subsequent inquiry devastated the girl’s life.
Jessica Norton said her daughter was doing well at Monarch High School in suburban Fort Lauderdale before an anonymous tipper informed a Broward County school board member in November that the 16-year-old was participating on the girls varsity volleyball team in apparent violation of state law. The 2021 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act prohibits pupils born male from participating in female sports.
That November tip sparked an inquiry by the school district, and Norton now faces the possibility of losing her job as a computer information specialist at Monarch because she permitted her daughter to play. Investigators also said she did not convert the child’s gender on school records back to “male” from “female,” as required by district protocol. Norton informed the school board on Tuesday that her daughter had been voted freshman and sophomore class president, the student body’s director of charity, and a homecoming princess. That all changed when the investigation began, and the girl departed Monarch.
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“They destroyed her high school career and her lifelong memories,” Norton stated. “I saw the light in my daughter’s eyes gleam with future plans of organizing and attending prom, participating in and leading senior class traditions, speaking at graduation, and leaving for college with the confidence and joy that any student like her would after a successful and encouraging high school experience.” And 203 days ago, I witnessed as that life was ended.”
The girl currently attends classes online.
Norton, a seven-year district employee with glowing evaluations prior to November, received no response from any of the board’s nine members.
In recent years, the treatment of transgender youngsters has become a contentious subject across the country. Florida is one of at least 25 states that have banned gender-affirming care for minors, as well as one of at least 24 states that have prohibited transgender women and girls from participating in some women’s and girls’ sports.
The board was supposed to vote Tuesday on Superintendent Howard Hepburn’s proposal to terminate Norton, but the decision has been postponed for at least a month. A district committee suggested a 10-day suspension for Norton, but Hepburn overruled it. He has not explained why. The board might dismiss Norton, suspend her, or do nothing.
Monarch Principal James Cecil and three other officials were initially reassigned when the investigation began but were later reinstated following student protests. The State Athletic Commission fined the institution $16,500.
Broward is one of Florida’s most politically liberal counties, with twice as many Democrats as Republicans and a sizable LGBTQ+ population. With about 255,000 students across 327 campuses, the countywide school district is the seventh largest in the nation. According to the district’s investigative report, board member Daniel Foganholi phoned the police department after receiving the tip. Last year, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Foganholi after the elected board member was ruled unfit to serve.
Since 2021, DeSantis has signed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act and other laws aimed at the transgender population. The Nortons are the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit seeking to block the act.
Foganholi did not respond to emails sent last week or on Monday requesting comment.
Norton’s child began taking puberty blockers at the age of 11 and takes estrogen, but has not undergone gender-affirming surgery. These procedures are rarely performed on minors.
Her parents claim she frequently sat on the bench for Monarch’s volleyball team and had no athletic advantage as a result of being born male. When investigators asked Cecil to describe the child, he replied, “She looks like a girl to me… she seems very small, very skinny.”
Broward Schools responded to Foganholi’s report by assigning two police to conduct an investigation. The state education department has also appointed an investigator.
They took Norton’s daughter’s school records and locked them in a vault. They contacted Monarch officials as well as administrators from the daughter’s middle and elementary schools to learn who knew she was transgender and when and how her records were modified. They also questioned Norton and three other Monarch volleyball players.
Norton, who has two older children, informed them that she registered her youngest child in kindergarten as a boy in 2013, four years before starting employment for the district. In first grade, the youngster changed gender to a girl. She stated that other parents and children were aware of the situation, thus it was never completely secret.
She stated that when her child was in second grade, she asked a school employee to change the child’s gender on her school records. She claimed then-Superintendent Robert Runcie told her that was the process. Runcie left the district in 2021 due to an unrelated controversy and was not contacted.
However, the district says such alterations are only permitted if the parent first has the child’s birth certificate altered. The birth certificate was not updated until 2021, after Norton began working with the district. The district claims that after learning about its policy, Norton should have requested in 2017 that her child’s gender be changed back to male on her records.
Norton told detectives she didn’t since the revised records are correct: her child is a girl.
When her daughter started high school in 2022, Norton was already aware that a new state legislation prohibited transgender females from participating in girls’ sports. The police questioned why she allowed her daughter to play volleyball and why she marked “female” on a permission form that asked about the child’s “sex at birth.”
“Because she’s my child, and she wanted to play,” Norton explained. Norton coached the junior varsity volleyball team.
When authorities interviewed the Monarch volleyball players, they stated that the team did not change clothes or shower together, therefore they were never disrobed with Norton’s daughter. All three stated that they knew or thought Norton’s daughter was transgender, but it did not disturb them that she was on the team. The Knights finished 13-7 last season.
“I didn’t have a problem with it because I didn’t believe she was a threat to anyone else,” one girl told investigators.