Florida Crackdown on Student Nicknames Adds to Wave of Regressive School Rules, Advocates Say

Under a new rule adopted by the Florida Board of Education in July, parents must fill out a consent form before their children can go by a nickname in public schools. If Thomas wants to be called Tommy in the classroom, or Katherine prefers that teachers refer to her as Kat, they will need their parents' written permission.

The Board of Education said the change was made "to protect the fundamental rights of parents." If the form is not completed and a parent does not sign off, school staff must refer to students by their legal name.

"This amendment is to strengthen the rights of parents and safeguard their child's educational record to ensure the use of the child's legal name in school," a statement included on a July 19 agenda reads.

Local and national LGBTQ advocacy groups tell New Times the rule is not about parenting rights but rather an extension of a political agenda that stomps out LGBTQ expression in schools. They say the new requirement comes hand in hand with Gov. Ron DeSantis' and the Florida legislature's expansion of the Parental Rights in Education law, AKA "Don't Say Gay" bill, for this school year. HB 1069, which was passed this past legislative session, prohibits teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity through eighth grade and bars public school employees from asking kindergarten through 12th-grade students their preferred personal pronouns (e.g., "he," "she," or "they").

HB 1069 also bars school staff from referring to a student by a "personal title or pronouns" that "do not correspond to that person's sex" as assigned at birth. The bill states that sex is an "immutable biological trait" and "it is false to ascribe a pronoun that does not correspond" to a person's sex.

In a statement to New Times, GLAAD president and chief executive Sarah Kate Ellis says these "regulations are tying up precious resources and sending dangerous messages that hurt every student's ability to learn."

"Americans overwhelmingly believe that school should be a safe place for all students to learn, and instead, Florida's extremist leaders are working overtime to cause chaos and hostility. It's basic human decency to call people by their names, the nicknames they go by, and their pronouns. Students should always feel like they belong and can be honest about who they are," Ellis says.

Kristen Browde, an attorney and vice president of the Florida LGBTQ Democratic Caucus, says the new nickname-consent form will further harm transgender students, particularly those who are not out to their parents but have a preferred nickname to match their gender identity.

"They may be placed in danger by having this knowledge imparted to their parents by being forced to do so or forced to accept the consequence of being put in a very uncomfortable situation in school," Browde says. "Then, there are the ones whose families do know and are supportive, and yet they are going to be forced into some sort of registry. For what purpose?"

A spokesperson for Broward County Public Schools tells New Times a nickname questionnaire was added to the county's student emergency-contact card to comply with the new state regulations, which, according to the education board, apply to "any deviation from [a] child's legal name in school."

"All staff may refer to my child by the preferred name(s) or nickname(s) listed above on all unofficial documents and during school and district events," the Broward County form reads.

In conjunction with his signing of a slate of bills targeting LGBTQ issues, DeSantis proclaimed in May that "as the world goes mad, Florida represents a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy." Among other bills, he backed the recently passed measure to prohibit transgender students from using school bathrooms that do not match their sex assigned at birth.

The governor told the crowd at a Heritage Foundation conference in the midst of the 2023 legislative session that he believes he is fighting a "woke mind virus."

"Woke ideology is a form of cultural Marxism that seeks to divide our society on the basis of identity politics," the governor said. "It is an attack on merit and an attack on achievement."

Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr. of Hialeah says the state "will remain focused on teaching students core subjects, rather than woke gender ideology or inappropriate topics."

Though the new nickname policy does not mention trans students explicitly, Browde sees it in the context of transgender-targeting measures that DeSantis supported as part of his anti-woke agenda, which helped him amass grassroots support by stoking concerns about leftist indoctrination in schools.

"This is yet another completely unnecessary and potentially dangerous step by people who either don't know what they're doing to transgender people or just don't care," Browde says.

Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, says the state is sending the message that being transgender is something to be ashamed of.

"This isn't just about names," he adds. "It's about youth feeling safe and comfortable in the classroom."

Florida has been at the center of national controversy over DeSantis' education agenda for the past two years, with the  governor maintaining that he's on a crusade against a "far-left woke agenda" seeking to "take over our schools and workplaces."

The political firestorm only ramped up in recent weeks, when debate raged over whether an AP Psychology course would be permitted in the state in light of sexual orientation-related lessons — and over a new set of Black history standards that asserted, among other controversial clauses, that some slaves received a "personal benefit" from the skills they learned while enslaved.

According to the Trevor Project's National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, only 33 percent of LGBTQ youth in Florida identified their home as an LGBTQ-welcoming space.

"Supportive school environments can be lifesaving, as our research has consistently found that LGBTQ students who have access to LGBTQ-affirming schools — and trans students who have support from their teachers and peers — report lower rates of attempting suicide," Gabby Doyle, advocacy campaigns manager at the Trevor Project, says.

"On top of navigating which classes are under siege, which books are being censored, which history lessons are being whitewashed, and which bathroom their child will be forced into, parents are now having to complete paperwork to ensure their child's name is being respected," Brandon Wolf, press secretary of Equality Florida, tells New Times.