House of Representatives Passes Equality Act In Major Step For LGBTQ Rights

ST. AUGUSTINE – A Florida school district unlawfully violated the rights of an intersex middle school teacher who was fired because he was perceived to be transgender due to the incongruence between his male gender identity and female sex assigned at birth, according to a new filing submitted to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Shepard Scalf, an intersex man and a certified teacher, was hired for the 2025-2026 school year at Patriot Oaks Academy in the St. Johns County School District to teach Language Arts to 6th and 7th graders after previously working at another school district in Florida. As part of his hiring process, Mr. Scalf submitted paperwork that disclosed he had been assigned female at birth. He was born with an intersex variation with XY chromosomes, and he lives as and presents as a man in accordance with his gender identity. Mr. Scalf was doing well in his new role and was developing excellent relationships with his fellow teachers and staff as well as his students. However, three weeks into the school year, on August 28, 2025, Patriot Oaks Principal Drew Chiodo scheduled an emergency meeting with Mr. Scalf without explanation for the following day. During the meeting, Principal Chiodo assured Mr. Scalf that he appreciated him both “as a person” and “as an employee,” that Mr. Scalf had “met every expectation,” and that his performance was “nothing less than exemplary”—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. “Receiving this ultimatum was confusing and overwhelming. Everything had been going so well—I couldn’t understand why this was happening,” said Shepard Scalf. “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. It became clear to me that being fired had nothing to do with my qualifications or teaching—it was about who I am." Following Mr. Scalf’s resignation, he received communications providing evidence that his termination followed complaints about his gender identity. Yet his gender identity, sex assigned at birth, and intersex status were never discussed in his classroom. In fact, the school provided a placard for his classroom that stated “Mr. Scalf.” But based on the new-hire paperwork he provided, the district knew that he was assigned female at birth. Intersex is an umbrella term for a broad range of innate differences in physical sex traits or reproductive anatomy that do not fit typical binary expectations associated with male or female bodies. This includes conditions like Swyer’s Syndrome, in which people with XY chromosomes may be born with external anatomy that appears stereotypically female and are therefore assigned female at birth. Intersex people are diverse, coming from all socioeconomic backgrounds, races, ethnicities, genders and orientations, faiths, and political ideologies. For more, please refer to this media guide and these frequently asked questions from interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth. “Like any other worker, an intersex employee’s talents and contributions should be what counts—not others’ biased beliefs about who ‘counts’ as male or female,” said Sylvan Fraser Anthony, Legal & Policy Director at interACT. “Intersex employees like Mr. Scalf deserve to be valued and respected at work, and they are equally entitled to the protection of Title VII. Punishing someone because of a variation in their sex characteristics or perceived nonconformity with the sex they were assigned at birth is plainly impermissible, and employers must understand that these forms of sex discrimination will have consequences.” Today’s filing to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, submitted on Mr. Scalf’s behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, and the law firm of Chanfrau & Chanfrau P.L., charges the school district with firing Mr. Scalf on the basis of his sex and the presumption that he is transgender. In a landmark 2020 ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States found that employment discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which broadly prohibits sex discrimination in employment. “Six years ago, the Supreme Court held in Bostock v. Clayton County that employers cannot fire someone for being gay or transgender because doing so is discrimination because of sex,” said Shana Knizhnik, Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “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. Mr. Scalf was an exemplary teacher, but despite his performance and qualifications, he was forced out of his job because he did not fit those expectations. 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.” “Florida’s hostility towards LGBTQIA+ people is clear, especially in our public school system,” said Samantha Past, Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Florida. “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.” The EEOC Charge can be read here

Three New York families with adolescent transgender children and two transgender New Yorkers filed a class action lawsuit to protect patient identifying and sensitive health information from being turned over to the Department of Justice in response to federal grand jury subpoenas issued as part of a widespread effort to "end” necessary health care for transgender adolescents.

A McCarthy-era effort to report LGBTQ people to the government, classify queerness as a mental disorder, and overall push queer people from public life is taking similar shape today.

(New York, NY, June 1, 2026) – Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) today filed a federal class action lawsuit challenging the Attorney General’s and U.S. Department of Justice’s efforts to compel healthcare institutions in New York City, including NYU Langone Hospitals, to hand over the identities and sensitive health information of transgender youth who received gender-affirming medical care between 2020 and 2026. Lambda Legal, the ACLU, and NYCLU brought the lawsuit on behalf of three families with minor children and two young adults who received gender-affirming medical care as minors at hospitals in New York City during those years. The legal advocates are also asking the court to certify a class of all impacted patients and families whose identities and medical records are being sought. The lawsuit was filed after NYU Langone Health received a subpoena purportedly under the authority of a federal grand jury empaneled in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas demanding patient identities and sensitive health information in the most recent escalation of the Trump Administration’s across-the-board attacks on healthcare for transgender adolescents. Other New York City hospitals are believed to have received similar subpoenas. The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, asks the court to protect the patients’ privacy rights and prevent the disclosure of their identities and their deeply personal medical histories. “The Trump Administration has been clear that it will use every tool it has to harass and intimidate hospitals into shutting down necessary and, at times, lifesaving care for transgender youth,” Lambda Legal Senior Counsel and Director of Constitutional Law Practice Karen Loewy said. “But we will not allow the privacy rights of those youth and their families to be sacrificed as DOJ abuses its authority.” “These subpoenas are a baseless intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship, demanding medical professionals substitute their expertise for the Trump administration’s politics,” said Elizabeth Gill, Senior Counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “By weaponizing federal investigations, the administration is trying to scare hospitals into dropping patients and abandoning families. As courts across the country have already told this administration, this heavy-handed overreach has nothing to do with fraud prevention; it is a direct attempt by politicians to interfere with the New York’s exercise of its police power to ensure the health and welfare of its residents, override parental rights, and block families from making their own private healthcare decisions.” "New York's laws emphatically embrace the common-sense idea that transgender young people and their families deserve the strongest possible protections for their sensitive medical records, and to have access to the care they and their doctors agree that they need," said Bobby Hodgson, Deputy Legal Director at the New York Civil Liberties Union. "The Trump administration is trying to intimidate healthcare providers, scare families, and erode New Yorkers' fundamental privacy protections. But the Constitution doesn't permit these tactics." The lawsuit argues that allowing the Attorney General and DOJ to require hospitals like NYU Langone to reveal the identities of both patients and their parents and to turn over medical records containing diagnoses, assessments, courses of treatment, and other deeply personal health information in service of abusive targeting of providers of gender-affirming medical care would violate patients’ constitutional rights to privacy and to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. It also asserts that for NYU Langone to comply in turning over this information would breach duties of confidentiality under New York law. The legal advocates are also asking for a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking enforcement of the subpoena ahead of a June 10 deadline for turning over the health data. Today’s filing can be found here.