A “transmasculine” elementary school teacher in the Gresham-Barlow School District in Oregon has won a $60,000 settlement from “their” district for harassment from other teachers. The teacher identifies as neither male or female and uses the pronoun “they” instead of he or she.

Leo Soell, formerly known as the now highly offensive “Miss Soell,” has been working as a teacher since 2013. When “they” were hired they decided not to come out because Oregon teachers are on probation for the first three years of their employment and they wanted more job security. But at the end of 2014, Leo was struck with breast cancer, had a mastectomy, restructured their chest area to be more masculine and decided not to live in the shadows any longer. It was then that they started to report harassment from fellow teachers. (That “their” is gonna take a lot of getting used to!)

The mean elementary school teachers:

continuously called Soell “she,” “lady” or “Miss Soell.” Someone smeared Vaseline on Soell’s cabinets, the complaint said, and another yelled insults in the school hallway. Others conspired to prevent Soell from using the school’s lone gender-neutral bathroom [that supposedly no one had ever used before].

Soell also

claimed one teacher screamed at her in the hallway that her gender choice was offensive to God, and she said teachers conspired to use the school’s only gender-neutral bathroom so Soell would have to wait a half-hour or more to use it.

ICYMI, NSFW:

It was only when Soell threatened a lawsuit that the school district capitulated and offered a settlement. The district knew it would lose because Soell’s attorney was Jennifer Middleton – the lawyer who won the Bake Me a Lesbian Wedding Cake case. Oregon is pretty “genderqueer” friendly already with another case raking in over $400,000 for disgruntled transgender and cross-dressing bar patrons who were asked not to patronize a certain establishment.

Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian has ruled in favor of marginalized groups with hefty fines over the past few years. In 2015, Avakian awarded $135,000 to a lesbian couple denied a wedding cake. In 2013, Avakian ordered a North Portland bar owner to pay $400,000 to a group of transgender and cross-dressing patrons he asked not to return. – Oregon live

In response to the settlement, the district is converting single gender bathrooms to private gender neutral bathrooms and loading up on the sensitivity training and writing new guidelines. The district is also reminding employees not to be mean by calling someone their biological gender.

“These policies require that all staff address transgender or gender non-conforming employees with their correct name and pronouns,” the principal wrote. “If you are found to be in violation of these policies, you will be subject to discipline up to and including dismissal.”

In conclusion Soell seems satisfied with the outcome:

“I actually feel safe now,” Soell said in an interview after the settlement. “There will always be people who push the boundaries, but I’m not worried about them anymore because I know that my district supports me.”

“Everyone feels better when they know what the boundary is,” Soell said. “And there was just no line before.”

So ironic – Soell claims some boundary has been created, but it’s the exact opposite. The line now is that there is no line between male and female, that a differentiation simply does not exist. What progress we are making in the 21^st century where we no longer have to be tethered to nature and science!