Grossmont Union High School District in El Cajon, California. – Photo: Facebook
A California school district will pay $700,000 to a lesbian administrator — plus an additional $500,000 in attorneys’ fees — to settle her claims that she was demoted and pushed out because of her sexual orientation.
Rose Tagnesi, the district’s former special education director, sued Grossmont Union High School District last month, alleging she was harassed and retaliated against for opposing what she called the board’s “anti-LGBTQ agenda” — including efforts in 2023 to ban LGBTQ books and cancel contracts with an LGBTQ-affirming mental health provider.
Tagnesi was demoted to a classroom teaching role in early 2024 after what she described as a secret investigation into a January 2021 incident involving a 16-year-old special education student who left Santana High School, disappeared for five days, and was sex trafficked.
The student’s family later sued the district, alleging an administrator and another student helped create the circumstances that allowed the teen to be lured away, and accusing the board of a subsequent cover-up. The district settled that case for $400,000 in 2023, reports The Advocate.
Although Tagnesi was never named in the family’s lawsuit, she claims conservative board members used it as a pretext to launch a separate investigation targeting her and other employees who didn’t align with “East County values,” meaning conservative politics and opposition to LGBTQ rights. She alleges the goal was to purge such staff from the district.
In August 2023 — the same month the district cut ties with the LGBTQ-affirming mental health provider — Tagnesi was placed on paid administrative leave while the investigation into her conduct and performance continued. Until then, she had received multiple promotions and glowing reviews, with her supervisor once calling her performance “extraordinary given the unique challenges placed on special educators.”
“I’ve never been told what I did. I’ve never been told what I was accused of doing. I’ve never been even asked a question,” she told San Diego ABC affiliate KGTV in September 2024, a month after filing her lawsuit alleging discrimination and a hostile work environment.
In her lawsuit, Tagnesi alleges that the attorney hired to conduct the investigation sent a text message saying “one down and one to go,” referring to another staffer’s dismissal and signaling, she claims, that she was being deliberately targeted.
She also alleges that school board trustee Jim Kelly called her and another female employee she supervised “witches” who were part of an “LGBTQ coven.” The lawsuit claims Kelly also said the other staffer was unqualified and had only been hired because Tagnesi thought she was “hot.” Kelly denied the allegations when confronted by KGTV in September 2024.
In another incident detailed in her lawsuit, Tagnesi says her supervisor told her to keep a “low profile” because board members would block any promotion if they learned she was a lesbian.
Collin McGlashen, the district’s executive director of communications, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the district admits no wrongdoing but agreed to the settlement “to allow all parties to move forward in the most productive way possible.”
As part of the settlement approved last week, the district will pay Tagnesi $700,000 over the next 20 years, plus an additional $500,000 to cover attorneys’ fees.
Tagnesi’s attorney, Aaron Olsen, told the Union-Tribune that his client had “gone to great lengths to ensure a culture of inclusivity is created for LGBTQ students in the Grossmont Union High School District.”
“In the future, I’m hopeful the district will take decisive action toward creating the culture of inclusivity its students and teachers deserve,” Tagnesi said in a statement.
Tagnesi subsequently left the district in February 2024 and now works as a special education director for another school system.
The Trump administration is working to bring a transgender woman back to the United States after immigration officials wrongly deported her in violation of a federal judge's order.
Britania Uriostegui Rios, a Mexican transgender woman who came to the U.S. in 2003 and later became a lawful permanent resident, lost that status in 2023 after pleading guilty to felony assault with a deadly weapon, according to The Guardian.
She received a suspended sentence for the assault conviction, then was sent to a men's immigration detention facility as officials prepared to deport her to Mexico.
A transgender teaching assistant at the University of Oklahoma has been placed on leave after a conservative student accused both the assistant and the course's professor of discriminating against her for citing the Bible in an essay that received a zero.
The student, OU junior Samantha Fulnecky, a psychology major, had been assigned a 650-word essay reacting to a study on whether children's popularity correlates with how closely they conform to prescribed gender norms, reports Oklahoma-based NPR station KOSU.
The study -- Gender Typicality, Peer Relations and Mental Health -- found that popular children are more likely to be described as "gender-typical" by their peers than children who are frequently teased. Among those who are teased, young boys show the worst mental health outcomes.
Lucien Bates, a transgender man, says security guards threatened to arrest him after he used the women’s restroom at a Round1 arcade inside the North Riverside Park Mall in suburban Chicago. Bates, an Indiana resident, was visiting the venue on September 28 with his fiancé and a friend to play Dance Dance Revolution.
Bates, who presents as alt-masculine with facial hair and piercings, had just arrived at the arcade when he needed to use the restroom. He chose the women’s restroom, a decision he often makes in public because he feels safer there and is less likely to be harassed.
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