Intersex Teacher Fired in Florida After Parent Falsely Claims He Is Trans, ACLU Says

“It became clear to me that being fired had nothing to do with my qualifications or teaching—it was about who I am.”

St. Johns County School District, Florida // Wikimedia Commons // Michael Rivera

An intersex teacher at a Florida public school was forced to resign, evidently on the false belief that he identifies as transgender, after a parent complained about his presence in the classroom—this according to a complaint filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by the ACLU and the law firm Chanfrau & Chanfrau.

The complaint was submitted on behalf of former St. Johns County School District middle school teacher Shepard Scalf. It alleges the district violated sex-based protections in the federal Civil Rights Act and the Florida Civil Rights Act of 1992.

It also appears to have violated the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Bostock v. Clayton County six years ago, in which the Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch penned a majority opinion declaring that an individual’s LGBTQ status—either real or perceived—“is not relevant to employment decisions.”

“That’s because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex,” Gorsuch wrote.

Scalf taught Language Arts to 6th- and 7th-graders at Patriot Oaks Academy during the 2025-2026 school year. “The start of a school year is always brimming with promise and excitement, and I was looking forward to continuing my teaching career at Patriot Oaks until I was cornered into resigning,” Scalf said.

At first, administrators sang his praises; Principal Drew Chiodo told Scalf his work was “nothing less than exemplary,” an ACLU press release states, “but Principal Chiodo was nonetheless directed to read a letter from the superintendent of the school district informing Mr. Scalf that he must either submit his resignation or be fired. Mr. Scalf was provided no legitimate reason for his termination and had not received any prior warnings or disciplinary actions.”

Then, the EEOC filing states, Scalf obtained evidence suggesting his termination was the result of a parent who believed Scalf was transgender and complained.

“Any such complaints were not founded in actions by Mr. Scalf, who never discussed his gender

identity, sex assigned at birth, or intersex status with his students or District officials,” the filing states. However, as part of hiring onboarding, he disclosed that he was assigned female at birth. This assignment does not reliably indicate a person’s internal reproductive organs, the future of their endocrine production, the gametes they may or may not be able to produce, or their chromosomes, and this is especially true in Scalf’s case. He lives his life as a man.

“Intersex is not usually considered a ‘third’ sex category per se, but rather represents the wide range within which innate, physical sex-related characteristics can exist from birth,” the complaint explains. “There are at least 40 different recognized variations—sometimes referred to as ‘differences in sex development’ (DSDs)—under the intersex umbrella. The vast majority of intersex people receive a social gender assignment of either male or female at birth.”

Scalf has Swyer’s Syndrome—which means that, regardless of how his genitalia may have looked at birth, he has XY chromosomes. But there is no way that his students, or school administrators, could know that. It was just presumed he identified as transgender, and the complaint does not say why.

“It became clear to me that being fired had nothing to do with my qualifications or teaching—it was about who I am,” Scalf said, as per the ACLU.

Shana Knizhnik, Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said in the press release that Bostock’s sex-based equal rights protections inherently extend to Scalf, too.

“The same reasoning protects intersex people, who have long faced discrimination because their bodies and lives do not conform to narrow expectations about what a man or a woman is supposed to be,” she said.

“As politicians and institutions increasingly seek to police sex and gender, intersex people are too often caught in the crossfire alongside transgender people—but federal civil rights law protects everyone from this kind of discrimination.”

Samantha Past, Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Florida, added that the state has a history of anti-trans animus. “Florida’s hostility towards LGBTQIA+ people is clear, especially in our public school system,” Past said. “At a time when Florida’s public schools are increasingly targeted by disruptive state policies and in the midst of a teacher shortage crisis, St. Johns County School District chose to unlawfully oust a qualified and respected educator. Everyone deserves the opportunity to work and contribute to their community without fear of being targeted because of who they are. Mr. Scalf is no exception.”

Florida is notorious for its “Don’t Say Gay” and “Don’t Say Trans” provisions, which have resulted in a mass exodus of educators and educational materials. One Brevard County high school teacher was dismissed for simply using a trans student’s preferred name and pronouns. At the university level, the famously LGBTQIA-friendly New College was dismantled by the DeSantis Administration’s cronies, including anti-trans sycophant Chris Rufo, clearing out entire departments and majors deemed too “woke.”

It’s happening in other parts of the country too—such as in Texas, where a professor teaching a class on children’s literature was fired for simply acknowledging trans people exist. A student secretly recorded the lecture, and the seditious materials—an infographic featuring the “gender unicorn”—sparked a national uproar culminating in the President of Texas A&M University stepping down from his position.

Meanwhile, the far-right social media account “Libs of Tiktok,” run by anti-trans extremist Chaya Raichik, has doxxed countless teachers, librarians, and educators across the country, leading to everything from individuals losing their jobs to fielding bomb threats against schools, simply for having LGBTQ-friendly school policies, or for having a teacher that happens to be part of the LGBTQ community.

It’s also no surprise that non-transgender people are being swept up in anti-trans witch hunts. Countless cases of violence and harassment against non-trans individuals have been documented because someone mistakenly thought they were trans. This phenomenon is especially potent in places like bathrooms or on sports teams.

Now, in order to fight for his rights, Scalf has had to broadcast details about his sensitive medical history—his chromosomes, his genitals—to the world.

“Punishing someone because of a variation in their sex characteristics or perceived nonconformity with the sex they were assigned at birth is plainly impermissible,” said Sylvan Fraser Anthony, Legal & Policy Director at interACT, in the press release. “These forms of sex discrimination will have consequences.”