A transgender teacher in Texas resigned on Monday, less than a week after a state legislator asked to be fired by a video of social networks where he talks about feeling supported by her students.
“I am disconsolate,” said Rosie Sandri, who taught second year English in Red Oak High School, just south of the Dallas Metropolitan Area, for three years. She said she wanted to be a teacher since she was 5 years old. “When I signed that resignation, it seemed to me that my dream was being removed.
Sandri, 33, left as a trans woman about seven months ago and said that her colleagues at the School and the Independent School District of Oak were very supportive. She said she never got up in front of her class and left, but began to dress differently. When the students realized and asked if they should call her by a different name or use different pronouns, she told them that they could call her “what she felt comfortable.”
She told them that she preferred her/her pronouns, but added: “If you do not agree with that, or you feel uncomfortable with that, you will not hurt my feelings calling me as you want.”
After she left, Sandri began sharing videos of her experiences as a trans and teacher at Tiktok. She said she filmed some of the videos in her classroom after school hours. He had about 150 followers before last week.
Last Wednesday, the account of Libs of Tiktok social networks, which has millions of followers and individuals to LGBTQ people and their employers to promote inclusion, shared one of Sandri’s Tiktok videos in which he talks about gender euphoria, or the positive feelings that people experience when their gender identity and expression align.
“In today’s school, I am surrounded by children, I teach the second year students, and I have these young people of 15, 16 who are completely on board, that when I told them that my pronouns had changed, it jumped directly to it,” Sandri said in the video of March 18. “They call me ‘Lady’. They call me ‘Miss’. They use my right pronouns and know my correct name, and it’s incredibly affirmative.”
In his publication about Sandri, Libs de Tiktok used his previous legal name, a practice called “Deadnaming” that is considered widely offensive among the trans community, and has also damn it and asked: “Would you feel comfortable with this person who teaches your child?” The account also shared a capture of capturing one of Sandri’s publications about the different types of LGBTQ pride flags, saying that he was “pressing” the content in his public Tiktok where students can follow it.
The state representative Brian Harrison, who represents Red Oak, where the school is located, shared pounds from the Tiktok post in X and demanded that Sandri be “ended immediately.”
“Public schools (and property taxes that finance them) are for education … not leftist indoctrination!” Harrison said.
Chaya Raichik, the extreme right activist who directs Tiktok’s Libs account, did not return a request for comments.
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 a statement sent by email. “Any teacher who claims to obtain ‘gender euphoria’ from their minor students and shows them that boys can become girls should be dismissed immediately.”
Sandri said he never taught his students about the transition, and Harrison did not return a request for additional comments on whether he believes that trans educators are teaching their students about the transition simply because they are openly transgender.
Sandri said he was sick last Wednesday, when Tiktok Libs initially shared his video, but that he began receiving threats and harassment of his personal and school email accounts and on social networks shortly after.
That same day, he said, he called the Human Resources Department in the Independent School District Red Oak, and the deputy superintendent told him that the school had also received threats. She said the attached superintendent told her that she would be put on administrative license for two days while the school investigated.
On Monday, he said he reached an agreement with the school he would resign. She said she cannot discuss the details of the conversation as part of the agreement, and that the school did not tell her that she had violated any policy.
In an email sent to school staff on Monday and obtained by NBC News, Beth Trimble, district communications director, the social media policy of the district reminded the educators of the district.
“His freedom of expression is not free of consequences if it results in an interruption of his ability to do his job,” said email. He also ordered the staff to refrain from publishing during school and working hours.
In an email to NBC News, Trimble said the message sent to the staff on Monday was not related to Sandri’s resignation. He did not answer questions about whether Sandri violated any of the district’s policies, the story of Sandri’s events or if the school asked Sandri to resign.
“I decided yesterday that my best option was to give up the security of myself and even for the safety of the school,” said Sandri, added that he has no bad will against school or the district, which he supports during his transition.
“I was out [as transgender] For seven months, and parents, staff, administrator, nobody had a problem, “he said.” I was not causing an interruption. They were not people at school or directly in the community who were causing a problem. They were these outer people. “
Tiktok Libs has repeatedly published about teachers who have shared LGBTQ inclusive content on social networks, lighting harassment against those teachers and their schools. Last year, an Oklahoma teacher who acted in the drag out of work resigned after Libs de Tiktok published about him and the local superintendent later requested that he was fired.
On Monday, March 31, the day Sandri resigned, was casually trans day of trans visibility, an annual awareness day dedicated to celebrating the achievements of trans people and recognizing the violence and discrimination facing the community. It was Sandri’s first trans visibility day as a trans woman.
The people who said that their children were in the Sandri class commented on their publication about their resignation saying that they supported her. A person said Sandri was one of his son’s favorite teachers.
Sandri said he is not sure if he can get another job as a Texas teacher due to Harrison’s publication and the public attention he has received. As a result, he said he is considering taking legal measures against the pounds of Tiktok and the people who, according to her, belittled and threatened school. Libs of Tiktok published about Sandri’s resignation, calling him a “great victory.”
“My message to Libs of Tiktok is: ‘You chose the wrong,” Sandri said. “The whole community is behind me, and they don’t care, and I am lucky to have that privilege that many trans people do not have. Therefore, my message for everyone is: ‘Not only do this.
