Toby Tobin with his book. (Photo courtesy the Scott Law Team)
ST. PETERSBURG | Toby Tobin, a former Pinellas County teacher who is transgender, filed a federal lawsuit April 17 against the Pinellas County School District, Florida Department of Education and more for job discrimination.
The educator “claims he was forced to resign because of the school district’s implementation of Florida’s 2023 law restricting the use of preferred pronouns,” the Tampa Bay Times reported April 21. The law is currently being challenged by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Tobin’s lawsuit says Pinellas County Schools discriminated against him on the basis of his sex, violating Bostock V. Clayton County, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on LGBTQ+ workplace protections. It also names the Florida State Board of Education, Florida Education Practices Commission and Manny Diaz, Jr., the state’s Commissioner of Education, as defendants.
Tobin had previously issued a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which was referred to the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Gabriel T. Roberts, Tobin’s lawyer with the Scott Law Team, told the Times that “interest” in the matter “went away” after the election of Donald Trump. The president has specifically targeted trans Americans through executive orders and more since his second term began.
Tobin worked as a fifth grade math and science teacher at Cross Bayou Elementary for two years. Tobin said the district initially had no concerns with his gender identity.
“I was hired as Mr. Tobin. They had no problem with it,” he shared.
Florida’s restriction of pronoun usage, enacted under the state’s Republican supermajority, states that in the context of public schools, a person’s sex is an “immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.”
While the law does make some exceptions for intersex people, it also made it so “school employees were prohibited from asking students to call them by such pronouns, and students were not to be required to use them,” the Times noted.
Once the State Board of Education “updated its rules to make violation of that law subject to discipline under the educators’ Principles of Professional Conduct,” they reported, “Tobin took several steps to avoid using ‘Mr.’ while not being forced to misgender himself as ‘Ms.'”
Tobin told them he purchased land in Scotland to be known as “Lord,” which the district advised he couldn’t utilize, and that he subsequently tried to go by “Count Tobin,” having become a minister of the Universal Life Church.
“I teach math and science, and I’d be Count Tobin,” he explained. “The district said, ‘This is not appropriate. You have to be Ms. Tobin.’”
Tobin worked until July 1, 2023 before moving from Florida. He told the Times that as his family’s sole provider, “effectively I was forced out” of the state.
The educator subsequently published “Call Me Mr. Tobin” to share his story, released April 4.
“On July 1st, 2023, a law passed in Florida that essentially made it illegal to teach in a public school if you openly identify as transgender,” its description reads. “Subsequently, he lost his job, he packed up his family, and he moved to a magical land called ‘Not Florida,’ where he wrote and illustrated this true story.”
The synopsis says the picture book “uses humor to encourage readers to live their lives as their authentic selves, especially in times of uncertainty, confusion, and oppression.” Read more below via Tobin:
Pinellas County Schools told the Times that the district does not comment on pending litigation. Watermark Out News spoke with Tobin and Roberts, the latter of whom noted the two discussed the case on the law firm’s podcast.
“Teachers are so scrutinized all the time,” Tobin shares in its third episode. “You always have eyes on you, and I want to make sure that if I have this opportunity to help others, that I’m helping others understand that trans people, queer people, marginalized communities, we’re just people.
“We’re fathers, we’re parents, we’re siblings,” he continues. “We have jobs, we communicate, we contribute to society and we’re not trying to do anything other than live genuine lives and help in any way we can.”
