Ohio middle school English teacher Vivian Geraghty lost her job in August when she refused to call two students by new names and preferred personal pronouns.
Geraghty was informed in August that two of her students were beginning to “socially transition” to another gender. A school counselor emailed Geraghty and several other teachers with instructions to call the students by new names and pronouns, according to a press release issued by Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal organization that represents Geraghty .
The teacher in Ohio’s Jackson Local School District met with her principal and explained that her religious beliefs would not allow her to call the students by pronouns that didn’t reflect their biology.
The principal told Geraghty that she would have to put those beliefs aside and participate in her students’ social transitions. School district officials told Geraghty that “if she would not participate in the students’ social transitions, she must resign immediately,” according to Alliance Defending Freedom.
“Geraghty said that she believed forcing her to resign violated her rights under the First Amendment, but the principal reiterated his stance that, as a public servant, she must ‘set [her] religious convictions aside,’ and that if she was unable to do so, she had no choice but to resign.”
Geraghty was ordered to draft a letter of resignation and resign immediately.
“Jackson Local School District officials require their teachers to immediately and personally validate a child’s gender transition even if doing so violates their religious beliefs, conscience, or sound judgment,” Tyson Langhofer, a senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, said in a prepared statement.
Geraghty “treated every student with equality and respect,” Langhofer said, “and it was unlawful for school officials to terminate her employment simply because she wanted to avoid using her voice to validate ideas that violate her faith and jeopardize her students’ well-being.”
On today’s edition of “Problematic Women,” we discuss Geraghty’s fight to protect not only her own rights to religious freedom and free speech, but also to defend children against harmful gender ideology.
Also on today’s show, we discuss why TikTok may be on its way out of America after congressional lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill to ban the Chinese-owned social media app.
Plus, President Biden signed the so-called Respect for Marriage Act surrounded by drag queens. We’ll break down the significance of their presence and how it may be a dark foreshadowing of what’s to come as the radical transgender movement promotes its agenda. Also on today’s show, we discuss how American Girl went woke.
Listen to the podcast below:
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.