A school district in Gresham, Oregon has agreed to pay a transgender teacher $60,000 in settlement after she sued her own school, claiming that the latter tolerated the "harassment" being done by her fellow teachers and other school staff who refused to call her by her preferred pronoun "they."
Leo Soell, a 25-year-old teacher at Hall Elementary School in Gresham, says she does not identify as a male or female.
She came out as transgender last spring after surviving breast cancer, The Oregonian reports.
Soell said the harassment started when her co-workers started calling her "she," "lady" and "Miss Soell."
She alleged that someone smeared Vaseline on her cabinets and that school personnel prevented her from using the school's only gender-neutral bathroom, her complaint read.
However, the Gresham-Barlow School District found there was no harassment after it conducted an investigation based on her complaint.
Despite this, the district agreed to settle the lawsuit and compensate Soell for "emotional damages." It also agreed to add gender-neutral bathrooms in all schools and create policies for transgender teachers.
"I actually feel safe now. 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," said Soell.
The school district said it was pleased with the settlement and "the provisions of this agreement resolve concerns, enable us to put this issue to rest and allow the district to move forward."
Soell started teaching at the school in 2013 and waited for her to attain permanent employee status to ensure job security before filing a complaint to school administrators.
In November 2014, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and doctors removed her breasts and performed reconstructive surgery to give her a masculine-appearing chest.
She then legally changed her name to Leo.
The former principal told teachers not to announce Soell's name change or refer to her as "they" in front of students.
If students asked if Soell was male or female, the district told Soell to say, "We all have private lives, and it would not be appropriate to talk about our private lives during the school day."
She said co-workers intentionally called her "lady" or "Miss Soell."
"Another teacher yelled at me openly in the school hallway, saying that my gender is a 'belief system' that I do not have the right to make other people follow and that God is on her side," Soell said in her complaint.
After the settlement, Hall Principal Heidi Lasher emailed all teachers and staff about the district's anti-bullying policies, saying these also refer to teachers.
"These policies require that all staff address transgender or gender non-conforming employees with their correct name and pronouns. If you are found to be in violation of these policies, you will be subject to discipline up to and including dismissal," she said.
