Virginia Teacher Fired for Misgendering Trans Student Wins Legal Battle, Will Receive Large Settlement

A Virginia teacher will receive more than $500,000 from a school board after he was fired for refusing to use a transgender students' preferred pronouns.

Peter Vlaming, a French teacher at West Point High School, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the district in 2018, claiming that the school district had violated his freedom of speech and freedom of religion when they decided that he needed to use the students' preferred pronouns, as reported by The Virginian-Pilot.

The transgender student, who had been born biologically female but identified as male, asked Vlaming to call him by his new chosen name and male pronouns in 2018, which was strongly supported by his mother.

Vlaming agreed to call the student by their chosen name, however he said that he could not in "good conscience" use the student's new pronouns, as reported by the Pilot. As a work around, Vlaming tried to refer to the student directly with their name as opposed to using their pronouns.

The teacher, who had taught in the district for nearly seven years, was told by the school district that it was not enough, and was fired.

The case was initially dismissed by a circuit court judge, but was reinstated and taken to the Virginia Supreme Court which ended up ruling in his favor 10 months ago.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian legal group representing Vlaming, said in a news release Monday that the school board had agreed to pay Vlaming $575,000 in damages and attorneys' fees.

"I was wrongfully fired from my teaching job because my religious beliefs put me on a collision course with school administrators who mandated that teachers ascribe to only one perspective on gender identity — their preferred view," Vlaming said in a statement.

While seven justices ruled in favor of Vlaming, the three dissenting justices argued that the freedom of religion claim was overly broad and "establishes a sweeping super scrutiny standard with the potential to shield any person's objection to practically any policy or law by claiming a religious justification for their failure to follow either," as reported by the Associated Press.