School employee suspended after registering son to play on girls' volleyball team
A Florida school district employee accused of violating the state's Fairness in Women's Sports Act by enabling her trans-identified son to play on the girls' volleyball team at the high school where she worked insists that she did not break the law.
The Broward County School Board voted 5-4 Tuesday to suspend Monarch High School computer information specialist Jessica Norton for 10 days for violating state law by claiming her son was a female so he could register to play on the girls' volleyball team.
While the board opted not to terminate Norton, the Broward County school employee must work a different job that is equal in pay to her previous role as a computer information specialist.
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Norton's 16-year-old son identifies as female and played on the girls' varsity volleyball team last year at the school in Coconut Creek, part of Broward County Public Schools.
The suspension comes after Norton and her husband, Gary, sued the school district and state agencies challenging the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, the 2021 law that Norton was suspended for violating, according to the national LGBT activist organization Human Rights Campaign.
In November 2023, a Broward School Board member appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis received an “anonymous tip" that Norton's son was playing on a girls' team at Monarch High School. The school board, superintendent and senior district leadership were aware that Norton’s son was participating on the girls' volleyball team at Monarch High, and no one interjected to stop her son from playing, according to HRC.
"There is no way around it, I’m being punished because I am the parent of a transgender student," Norton said in a statement. "While I can finally breathe a sigh of relief that this 239-day investigation is finally over, ending the constant scrutiny and allowing me to keep my job, I am still frustrated with the decision the school board made today."
The mother has previously revealed that her son has identified as a girl since early elementary school and the child's birth certificate was amended in 2021. Additionally, the child began taking puberty-blocking drugs at age 11 and takes estrogen.
Norton contends that her actions were done as a parent, not as a school employee. However, investigators allege that Norton didn't do her job to change her child's gender on school records back to "male" as required by district policy, The Associated Press reported.
Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, a national grassroots organization that advocates for parental involvement in schools and opposes what it considers to be "harmful" liberal agendas, told The Christian Post that she agreed with the school board's decision.
In a statement, the advocate argued that the district employee broke the law and compromised the safety of the school's female athletes.
"The fact that she did it on behalf of her own child makes it worse," Sanzi stated. "Seems like a fireable offense to me."
In an interview with WPLG following the vote, Norton disagreed with the board's decision but felt "triumphant" because she "fought back" and was not fired. Norton claimed that she took the actions she did for her family's sake.
"The way that this law is written, it cannot be broken by an individual person," the mother said in remarks aired by WSVN-TV. "An institution breaks the law, not the individual person."
DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1028, the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, in 2021. The law prohibits males who identify as female from competing on girls' teams at sporting events sponsored by public institutions.
The state athletic commission fined the school $16,500 for violating the law following an investigation into the school that went public in November, WTV-J reports. The school's principal and three administrators were also temporarily removed from their positions.
A speaker at the Tuesday school board meeting who spoke in Norton's defense said she is a sexual health educator who has taught at schools within Broward County and other districts for six years. The educator declared that the medical system "exists within a binary. Revealing that she identifies as intersex and has what she described as a "female designation" on her birth certificate, she declared, "I stand with you Mrs. Norton."
"On behalf of the LGBTQATI+ students who are experiencing being deadnamed, misgendered, harassed, killed like Nex Benedict for just being who they are, we stand in solidarity with you, Mrs. Norton, because we take care of us," the sexual health educator stated before reading two letters in support of the suspended employee.
The woman claimed that trans-identifying people are dying and called on the board to make what she believes is the "right decision" and not to suspend Norton, saying that the district employee "did not do anything wrong."
School Board Member Debbie Hixon said she did not believe terminating Norton was necessary, as this was only her first offense. Hixon clarified that the computer information specialist is not being punished for having a trans-identified child but for knowingly violating the law.
"In the report … [Norton] also indicated that she would do it again," Hixon said, adding that, in addition to a suspension, Norton should not continue working for the school as a computer information specialist. The school board member expressed concern that Norton would again use her position to conceal information about another trans-identified student playing on a girls' sports team.
Advocates for women's sports argue that it is unfair and dangerous to allow males who identify as the opposite sex to compete against female athletes because males, on average, still maintain a physical advantage over women.
The issue received renewed media attention on Thursday after Italian boxer Angela Carini quit 46 seconds into a fight at the Paris Olympics against an opponent with XY chromosomes. Algerian boxer Imane Khelif had previously been disqualified from the 2023 World Championships after failing a gender eligibility test conducted by the Russia-based International Boxing Association.
Carini told reporters that she wanted to honor her late father but now felt she had let him and her nation down. She said she had to end the match "to preserve [her] life."
"I got into the ring to fight. But I didn't feel like it anymore after the first minute. I started to feel a strong pain in my nose. I didn't give up, but a punch hurt too much and so I said enough. I'm leaving with my head held high," she said.
Payton McNabb is another female athlete who was injured by a man identifying as a woman. In 2022, the North Carolina high school volleyball player suffered a brain injury after she was hit in the face by a ball spiked over the net by a trans-identified player. Actor Rob Schneider called on more people to refuse to play against trans-identified athletes after women's sports advocate Riley Gaines shared a video of the ball hitting McNabb in the face on social media.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
