WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a deep read story published on Saturday, Washington Post reporter Casey Parks profiles the heartbreaking, and inspiring, story of Florida mother, Jessica Norton, who was subjected to an 8-month employment investigation by the Broward County School Board in retaliation for filing a lawsuit on behalf of her transgender daughter, Elizabeth (Norton asked the Post to use the daughter’s middle name to protect her privacy). As a result of the investigation, Elizabeth was outed, placing her and her family at the center of intense, public anti-LGBTQ+ backlash. In the piece, Norton discusses the devastating impact these circumstances have had on her and her family’s lives—impacting her employment, forcing her child out of school and placing her family’s safety at risk—all while she continues to fight to protect her daughter and combat anti-transgender discrimination.

“Am I remorseful for protecting my child?” [Norton] asked. “Absolutely not.”

Read the full article here.

In 2021, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF) and the law firm of Arnold and Porter supported Jessica Norton and her husband Gary in filing a lawsuit on behalf of their daughter to challenge the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, a discriminatory law restricting transgender girls from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. A decision in that case is still pending. In November 2023, weeks after the volleyball season had ended, a Broward School Board member reported that he received an “anonymous tip” indicating Norton’s daughter was playing on the girls’ volleyball team at Monarch High School in alleged violation of the same Act. As a result, Norton’s daughter was outed as transgender and Norton, who was an employee at the school at the time, was suspended from her job and placed under investigation. Despite the fact that no one in the District told Norton that her daughter could not play sports, she is the only employee who was punished, even though she had no responsibility for setting or maintaining policy regarding athletics. As the article details, the investigation was traumatic for the Norton family, and the events caused her daughter to leave Monarch High School and her community of friends. After more than eight months of an investigation fraught with anti-transgender bias, in July, Norton was suspended for 10 days without pay by the Broward County School Board and reassigned to a different role, separating her from the school community she loved and for which she was a valued and treasured member.

In sharing her story, Norton illustrates the harmful, real-world impact anti-transgender laws and policies have on real people and real families—all while remaining courageously dedicated to fighting for her daughter and the rights of transgender youth.

Key excerpts from the article:

Jessica Norton eased her minivan out of the driveway, and she told herself she’d done what any mother would. Her daughter Elizabeth had wanted to play high school volleyball, and Norton had let her. Norton had written female on the permission slips. She’d run practice drills in the yard, and she’d driven this minivan to matches all across their suburban Florida county. A bumper sticker on the back said “mom.” A rainbow pin tacked inside read “safe with me.” Norton and Elizabeth had spent hours laughing and singing in this extended cab chariot. But this time, Norton had decided to leave her daughter at home. “Good luck!” the teenager called. “Don’t get fired!”...

…school officials had talked about Elizabeth as if she were dangerous, but Norton knew they couldn’t possibly be picturing the 16-year-old who stood at the edge of the driveway in Taylor Swift Crocs. This girl loved Squishmallows and Disney World. She had long red hair, and she was so skinny, the principal described her to investigators as “frail.” Elizabeth didn’t have an advantage, Norton thought. She was a normal teenage girl, and yet her very existence had thrust them into one of the nation’s most contentious debates…

…This life had not been the one she envisioned, but she’d done all she could to ensure it was a good one for her daughter. And she’d succeeded. Before the investigation, Elizabeth had been happy. She’d been a homecoming princess and class president two years in a row. She had friends, near-perfect grades and blue eyes that lit up when she talked about the future. Now, Elizabeth stayed home and read hateful comments on the internet. She didn’t play sports. She hadn’t been back to Monarch High School. Norton wanted the light in her daughter’s eyes back. She wanted Elizabeth to have prom and graduation, senior pictures, all the little hallmarks of a teenage life. But first, Norton told herself, she had to fight for her job. She had to return to the school district that shunned her, then somehow she had to convince Elizabeth it was safe for her to go back, too…

… Trans people represent less than 1 percent of the country’s population, and for decades, state lawmakers rarely mentioned them. But as gay people won protections and the right to marry, LGTBQ+ rights groups and right-wing leaders began looking for new issues to galvanize supporters. Both turned their attention to trans rights…Over the next few years, Florida and two dozen other states passed nearly identical bans on trans girls in sports. Many Republican lawmakers spoke about trans athletes as if they were all the same — tall and muscular, physically dominant, grown men cross-dressing for the sake of a secondary school athletic win. The bill sponsors didn’t mention trans girls who never went through puberty. They hardly ever talked about children like Elizabeth who tried and failed to make a seventh grade team….

…Trans athletes remain very rare. A 2021 Associated Press analysis of 20 proposed state bans found that legislators in most couldn’t point to a single trans athlete in their own region. And in Florida, state records show that just two trans girls have played girls sports over the last decade — a bowler who graduated in 2019 and Elizabeth….

…Elizabeth started high school the next year. She was good enough to make the varsity volleyball team, but she rarely left the bench, and Monarch lost more matches than it won that season. Still, she loved playing. The coach later told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that Elizabeth “brought an energy” to the team. Other players described her as the team “favorite.”...

…After the meeting, Norton’s manager told her the school district’s police chief needed to talk to her. Norton met the chief and a school district representative in the principal’s office, and she felt intimidated. The officer was armed. He sat next to Norton, then handed her a written notice and told her she was under investigation. The notice was inscrutable, just a run of numbers and legalese. Norton told the chief she didn’t understand, and he said she had caused Monarch to break the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.

Elizabeth, Norton thought. They’re going to ruin my child’s life.

…

A local station called it a “campus controversy.” Reporters said that Norton, the principal and three others had been reassigned because they allowed a transgender student to play volleyball. News crews showed pictures of Norton and footage of Elizabeth’s team. The reporters didn’t say Elizabeth’s name, but the district released Norton’s, and everyone at school knew Norton had a daughter on the volleyball team. The phone rang. Norton didn’t recognize the number, so she rejected it, and a man left a snickering voice message. “So you got a son who likes to sneak into women’s bathrooms?” he asked.

Neither Norton nor Elizabeth left the house the next day. They hid while reporters knocked on the front door, and they watched TV. The local news reported that hundreds of Monarch students had walked out to protest the district’s decision. Elizabeth was allowed to go back any time, but she told Norton she was scared. What if everyone looked at her, searching for signs of boy where they once saw girl? And what if someone tried to beat her up?...

…The investigation showed that one of DeSantis’s appointees asked the district to investigate Norton. The volleyball season was over by the time Daniel Foganholi reported Elizabeth, but Foganholi told investigators he had received an anonymous phone call “advising that a male student was playing female sports at Monarch High School.” (Foganholi did not respond to requests for comment.) The investigators’ report was more than 500 pages long, and it took Norton a few days to finish reading. Nearly every page angered her. The officers had spent considerable time trying to find out what Elizabeth looked like. They asked a district administrator to comb Elizabeth’s files and tell them how much she weighed every year between 2013 and 2017. They pushed multiple adults to describe her physically, and they asked three girls on the volleyball team if they’d ever seen Elizabeth undressed. No, the girls said. No one ever used the locker room.

The investigation included transcripts of every interview the officers conducted, and as Norton read, she saw that the officers had repeatedly called Elizabeth “he” in those discussions. On two occasions, the transcripts showed, one detective called Elizabeth “it.” …

…On the way home, they drove past Monarch, and Norton teared up. She suddenly understood all that Elizabeth might lose. Every year, the seniors paint their parking spots. Elizabeth had already made plans to decorate hers with lyrics from Taylor Swift’s “You’re on Your Own, Kid,” but now, Norton thought, she might never paint one. She probably wouldn’t go to prom. She wouldn’t take senior pictures. She wouldn’t give the graduation speech she’d already started writing…

…Norton’s stomach sank. She was tired of being silent. She decided she would go to the meeting. She would sign up for public testimony, and she’d tell the school board what had happened to her daughter. She and her husband walked to the microphone, and Norton smoothed her floral dress. “We are here to speak for our family and tell you how careless actions by the district’s leadership have affected our daughter and our family,” she said.

She had waited 203 days for an answer, she told them. She had done manual labor. She had answered every question, and she had sat through an interview where a detective refused to use her daughter’s legal name or gender. Norton teared up as she spoke. Her daughter was an innocent 16-year-old girl, she said. Yes, she had played volleyball, but she had done so much more at Monarch. Her peers had chosen her for the homecoming court and student government. She had been flourishing, Norton said, but the district’s investigation had ruined that.

“It’s okay if I’m the villain in their story,” she said, “because I’m the hero in my daughter’s story.”

…

On her way to the final meeting, Norton fiddled anxiously with the minivan’s stereo. As part of an earlier board discussion, one member had asked for other employee discipline data. A reporter had posted the findings that morning while Jessica did her makeup. Adults who’d abused children had served one- and five-day suspensions. A teacher who’d slapped a child received a letter of reprimand. “They’re recommending a harsher punishment for me than for people who abused kids,” Norton told her husband as she drove.

A dozen people registered to speak. Former students told the board Norton was the reason they made it to college. Most people asked the board not to fire her, but as Norton watched, she couldn’t tell what the district officials might do.

…

Norton was proud she hadn’t backed down, but she told them she wasn’t sure what to do now. She had fought for 11 years to keep Elizabeth safe in school. She would do whatever she had to do next to keep her safe still.

“Am I remorseful for protecting my child?” she asked. “Absolutely not.”

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation is the educational arm of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) people. Through its programs, the HRC Foundation seeks to make transformational change in the everyday lives of LGBTQ+ people, shedding light on inequity and deepening the public’s understanding of LGBTQ+ issues, with a clear focus on advancing transgender and racial justice. Its work has transformed the landscape for more than 15 million workers, 11 million students, 1 million clients in the adoption and foster care system and so much more. The HRC Foundation provides direct consultation and technical assistance to institutions and communities, driving the advancement of inclusive policies and practices; it builds the capacity of future leaders and allies through fellowship and training programs; and, with the firm belief that we are stronger working together, it forges partnerships with advocates in the U.S. and around the globe to increase our impact and shape the future of our work.