A trans teacher in Texas resigns after being targeted by conservatives online

A transgender teacher in Texas resigned on Monday, less than a week after a state lawmaker called for her to be fired over a social media video in which she talks about feeling supported by her students.

“I am heartbroken,” said Rosie Sandri, who taught sophomore English at Red Oak High School, just south of the Dallas metro area, for three years. She said she has wanted to be a teacher since she was 5 years old. “When I signed that resignation, it felt like my dream was being taken away from me.

Sandri, 33, came out as a trans woman about seven months ago and said her colleagues at school and the Red Oak Independent School District were very supportive. She said she never got up in front of her class and came out, but instead just started dressing differently. When students noticed and asked if they should call her by a different name or use different pronouns, she told them they could call her “whatever they were comfortable with.”

She did tell them that she preferred she/her pronouns, but added, “If you don’t agree with that, or you feel uncomfortable with that, you’re not going to hurt my feelings by calling me whatever you want.”

After she came out, Sandri started sharing videos of her experiences as a trans woman and teacher on TikTok. She said she filmed some of the videos in her classroom after school hours. She had about 150 followers prior to last week. 

Last Wednesday, the social media account Libs of TikTok, which has millions of followers and singles out LGBTQ people and their employers for promoting inclusivity, shared one of Sandri’s TikTok videos in which she talks about gender euphoria, or the positive feelings trans people experience when their gender identity and expression align. 

“At school today, I’m surrounded by kids, I teach sophomores, and I have these 15-, 16-year-olds who are completely on board, who when I told them I had changed my pronouns, jumped right into it,” Sandri said in the March 18 video. “They call me ‘ma’am.’ They call me ‘Miss.’ They use my correct pronouns and know my correct name, and it is incredibly affirming.” 

In its post about Sandri, Libs of TikTok used her previous legal name, a practice called “deadnaming” that is widely considered offensive among the trans community, and also misgendered her and asked, “Would you feel comfortable with this person teaching your kid?” The account also shared a screenshot of one of Sandri’s posts about the different kinds of LGBTQ Pride flags, saying she was “pushing” the content on her public TikTok where students can follow her. 

State Rep. Brian Harrison, who represents Red Oak, where the school is located, shared Libs of TikTok’s post on X and demanded that Sandri be “immediately terminated.”

“Public schools (and the property taxes that fund them) are for education … not leftist indoctrination!” Harrison said. 

Chaya Raichik, the far-right activist who runs the Libs of TikTok account, did not return a request for comment.

Harrison said he is “proud to have helped deliver this victory to protect Texas students.”

“Public schools are for education, not indoctrination,” he said in an emailed statement. “Any teacher who claims to get ‘gender euphoria’ from their minor students and teaches them that boys can become girls should be terminated immediately.”

Sandri said she never taught her students about transitioning, and Harrison did not return a request for additional comment about whether he believes trans educators are teaching their students about transitioning just by being openly transgender.

Sandri said that she was out sick last Wednesday, when Libs of TikTok initially shared her video, but that she started receiving threats and harassment to her personal and school email accounts and on social media shortly after.

That same day, she said, she called the human resources department at Red Oak Independent School District, and the deputy superintendent told her the school had received threats as well. She said the deputy superintendent told her she would be placed on administrative leave for two days while the school investigated.

On Monday, she said she came to an agreement with the school that she would resign. She said that she can’t discuss the details of the conversation as part of the agreement, and that the school didn’t tell her she had violated any policy. 

In an email sent to school staff Monday and obtained by NBC News, Beth Trimble, the chief communications officer for the district, reminded educators of the district’s social media policy. 

“Your freedom of speech is not free of consequences if it results in a disruption of your ability to do your job,” the email said. It also directed staff to refrain from posting during school and work hours. 

In an email to NBC News, Trimble said the message sent to staff on Monday was not related to Sandri’s resignation. She did not answer questions about whether Sandri violated any of the district’s policies, Sandri’s account of events or whether the school asked Sandri to resign.

“I decided yesterday that my best option was to resign for the safety of myself and even for the safety of the school,” Sandri said, adding that she doesn’t hold any ill will against the school or district, which were supportive throughout her transition. 

“I was out [as transgender] for seven months, and parents, staff, admin, nobody had a problem,” she said. “I wasn’t causing a disruption. It was not people in the school or directly in the community that were causing a problem. It was these outside people.”

Libs of TikTok has repeatedly posted about teachers who have shared LGBTQ-inclusive content on social media, igniting harassment against those teachers and their schools. Last year, an Oklahoma teacher who performed in drag outside of work resigned after Libs of TikTok posted about him and the local superintendent subsequently called for him to be fired.

Monday, March 31, the day Sandri resigned, was coincidentally Trans Day of Visibility, an annual awareness day dedicated to celebrating trans people’s accomplishments and acknowledging the violence and discrimination the community faces. It was Sandri’s first Trans Day of Visibility as an out trans woman. 

People who said their children were in Sandri’s class commented on her post about her resignation saying they supported her. One person said Sandri was one of her son’s favorite teachers.

Sandri said she’s unsure whether she’ll be able to get another job as a teacher in Texas due to Harrison’s post and the public attention she’s received. As a result, she said she’s considering taking legal action against Libs of TikTok and people she said disparaged her and threatened the school. Libs of TikTok posted about Sandri’s resignation, calling it a “big win.” 

“My message to Libs of TikTok is, ‘You picked the wrong one,’” Sandri said. “The whole community stands behind me, and they don’t care, and I am lucky enough to have that privilege that a lot of trans people don’t have. So my message to everyone is, ‘Don’t just make this about me. Go out there and help the trans people and the LGBTQIA community, because there are Black and brown trans people, there are trans youth, there are gay and lesbian people who are having their right to marriage threatened right now. Go out there and help these people.”