An elementary school teacher has been placed on administrative leave after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier accused her of violating state law by using the gender-neutral honorific “Mx.” instead of “Ms.” or “Mrs.”
Uthmeier, on Wednesday, sent a letter to Alachua County Public Schools Superintendent Kamela Patton and the district’s school board, calling the teacher’s conduct “unacceptable” and urging them to “enforce the law and consider disciplinary action.” He warned that a failure to act could expose the district to legal liability.
The teacher, who has not been named publicly, works at Talbot Elementary School in Gainesville. District spokesperson Jackie Johnson confirmed that the employee was placed on leave pending an investigation.
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The Legal Complaint and State Policy
According to Uthmeier, his newly created Office of Parental Rights received a complaint alleging that “a female teacher was forcing students and faculty to address her with the prefix ‘Mx.’ instead of ‘Ms.’ or ‘Mrs.'”
The Attorney General argued that the term “Mx.” is a “made-up” and “ideological” label that “interferes with parents’ religious upbringing of their children” and is “unfit for a Florida educational setting.”
The state’s stance is rooted in Florida House Bill 1069, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in July 2023. The law bars K-12 school employees from using preferred personal titles or pronouns that do not align with their sex assigned at birth.
Uthmeier emphasized the law’s language, which mandates that the policy of Florida’s public school system is that “sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.” He asserted that the honorific “Mx.” undermines this policy and directed the district to ensure the title “be dropped in the school setting immediately.”
Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas echoed Uthmeier’s concerns in a post on X, calling the allegations “deeply troubling.”
The Honorific ‘Mx.’
The use of “Mx.”—typically pronounced “mix” or “mux”—is a central point of the controversy. Merriam-Webster defines “Mx.” as a “gender-neutral honorific” for people who do not identify with a specific gender or prefer not to disclose one.
First appearing in print in 1977, the title was added to the dictionary in 2017 and is increasingly recognized in the United Kingdom and professional contexts as a nonbinary alternative to traditional titles like “Mr.” or “Ms.”
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