She changes out of the clothes she wore to school<\/a>. She sets aside the bag that holds her lesson plans. She places everything she will need for the next day near the door, then tries to stop thinking about the classroom. It is, she says, the only way to keep herself intact.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to have a clear division,\u201d Stone, who is transgender<\/a>, told The Advocate in an interview. \u201cI change clothes immediately. I set my work stuff down. And then I don\u2019t touch it. I don\u2019t look at it. I don\u2019t think about it.\u201d For the rest of the evening, she tries to inhabit the life that feels real \u2014 the one she shares with her wife, Dani, in Orlando<\/a>. The one where she reads books<\/a>, plays tabletop games with friends, and occasionally loses herself in the sprawling universe of X-Men comics.<\/p>\n Related: Florida Senate pushes ahead with ‘don’t say gay at work’ bill after seemingly brushing it aside<\/a><\/p>\n Related: Florida Republican lawmaker proposes law erasing transgender identities<\/a><\/p>\n But the next morning, the other version of her life begins again.<\/p>\n Stone is a high school English teacher in Orlando. She teaches 11th-grade English, AP Seminar, AP Research, and Cambridge General Paper, an advanced writing and critical thinking course in the Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education program, a college prep curriculum developed by the University of Cambridge and widely offered in Florida public schools.<\/p>\n She also coaches the school\u2019s Esports team.<\/p>\n \u201cI love teaching,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is something really wonderful about helping students realize literature and language are powerful things.\u201d For years, she believed that staying in the classroom, even under difficult circumstances, mattered.<\/p>\n Her hope, she said, was that simply existing as herself in front of students might mean something to teenagers quietly trying to understand their own lives. \u201cMy hope was just the fact that I\u2019m there,\u201d she said. \u201cEven if I can\u2019t say everything I want to say, even if I can\u2019t do everything I want to do, I\u2019m here, I\u2019m alive, I\u2019m happy.\u201d<\/p>\n Now she is preparing to leave.<\/p>\n Stone, who is 32, says she began transitioning in 2022. At the time, she planned to come out publicly at work the following spring.<\/p>\n Then the political climate in Florida shifted dramatically.<\/p>\n Related: Florida House Passes Bill Extending ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law<\/a><\/p>\n Related: Florida is allowed to restrict transgender health care, appeals court rules<\/a><\/p>\n <\/a>In 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education law, widely known by critics as the \u201cdon\u2019t say gay\u201d law. Initially, it restricted classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. Subsequent rules expanded the restrictions across grade levels unless the material is considered age-appropriate or part of state standards.<\/p>\n Another Florida statute governs the use of pronouns and personal titles in public schools. The law states<\/a> that sex is \u201can immutable biological trait\u201d and says it is \u201cfalse to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person\u2019s sex.\u201d It also says that a public school employee \u201cmay not provide to a student his or her preferred personal title or pronouns\u201d if they do not correspond with that person\u2019s sex assigned at birth.<\/p>\n For Stone, the legal language translates into something far more personal. Before she became a teacher, Stone studied the law. She attended law school in Virginia<\/a> and completed her degree, but she never pursued a career as an attorney. Instead, she found herself drawn to education, first through tutoring and academic support work, and eventually through the classroom.<\/p>\n Teaching, she said, offered something the legal profession did not.<\/p>\n \u201cIn law school, a lot of what you\u2019re doing is theoretical,\u201d she said. \u201cTeaching is immediate. You can see the effect of what you do right in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n Related: Fact-check: Is Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill About Sex Ed & Sex Acts?<\/a><\/p>\n After graduating, she returned to Florida, where she had grown up, and entered the profession she now says she still loves despite everything that has changed around it.<\/p>\n Now, though, the laws she once studied as a student have become the rules governing her daily life in the classroom.<\/p>\n She says she cannot discuss being transgender with her students. She cannot provide pronouns that match her gender identity. And when students refer to her incorrectly, whether accidentally or deliberately, she says she must let it pass.<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot provide pronouns other than the ones that correspond with the gender I was assigned at birth,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I do that, I could have my teaching certificate revoked.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the misgendering is accidental.<\/p>\n Sometimes, she says, it isn\u2019t. \u201cSometimes kids get wise [and figure out that I\u2019m trans] and they do it intentionally,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd there is nothing that can be done.\u201d Sometimes the moment is as small as a word or a laugh.<\/p>\n But Stone cannot respond. \u201cI can\u2019t even speak up for myself,\u201d she said. \u201cI can\u2019t defend myself.\u201d<\/p>\n The compromise she arrived at was linguistic. If she could not use \u201cMs.\u201d and would not use \u201cMr.,\u201d she would use neither. Because of her coaching gig, she figured out an alternative. \u201cWhat they can\u2019t do under the law as they\u2019ve created it is mandate that I describe myself as \u2018mister,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cSo I refuse. I became a coach.\u201d<\/p>\n The solution works \u2014 mostly.<\/p>\n Stone says that her school serves a large Hispanic student population, where students often default to calling teachers Mr. or Miss. When it happens, she gently reminds them of her preference to be called coach. But the boundaries of what she can say are always present.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m constantly having to self-police everything I say,\u201d she said. \u201cIs this going to be the thing that gets me on Fox News and gets my teaching certificate revoked?\u201d<\/p>\n Stone said what frightens her most is not simply the possibility of discipline, but the sense that she might have little protection if it were to happen. \u201cIf I do something that somebody decides violates the law, I don\u2019t believe I\u2019ll get due process,\u201d she said. In the current political environment, she added, she believes officials who would ultimately judge her case are already predisposed against people like her.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is so much hostility toward trans people from the conservatives who are in power right now,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019d be treated fairly.\u201d The constraints she describes come at a time when Florida is struggling to staff classrooms. The irony is that Florida schools need teachers like her.<\/p>\n A recent Florida Department of Education report<\/a> identifying high-demand teaching areas shows that thousands of English courses statewide are taught by instructors who are not certified in the subject. English remains one of several fields where districts struggle to staff classrooms with qualified teachers.<\/p>\n Stone is exactly the kind of teacher the state says it needs: experienced, credentialed, and teaching multiple advanced courses. <\/p>\n Orange County Public Schools said the restrictions Stone describes stem from state law rather than district decisions.<\/p>\n Michael Ollendorff, administrator of media relations for the district, said questions about the policies should be directed to the Florida Department of Education because the concerns are \u201cdirectly connected to state law, not district policy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Orange County School District is required, as a matter of state law, to follow all state laws and State Board of Education rules,\u201d Ollendorff said.<\/p>\n At the same time, the district\u2019s official school board observance calendar<\/a> still includes several LGBTQ-related commemorations. The 2025\u201326 list designates October as LGBTQ+ Awareness and History Month, June as Pride Month, and June 12 as Pulse Remembrance Day, honoring the victims of the 2016 nightclub shooting in Orlando.<\/p>\n The Florida Department of Education did not respond to The Advocate\u2019s request for comment. A request for comment sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019s office also went unanswered.<\/p>\n For Stone, the pressure has not been only emotional. It has also been financial. Orlando\u2019s housing market has surged in recent years. Rent and utilities now consume more than half of her monthly income, she said. \u201cFor the past six months,\u201d she said, \u201cprobably 60 percent of my diet has been cheap rice, whatever vegetables are on sale, and as a treat, discount Spam.\u201d<\/p>\n Her wife, who works in health care, struggled to find stable work for a time. They\u2019ve started a GoFundMe page<\/a> to help defray some of the moving costs they anticipate having. The couple began to consider leaving Florida for Maryland<\/a> as the most plausible destination.<\/p>\n![\"Saoirse](\"https:\/\/www.advocate.com\/media-library\/saoirse-stone-and-wife-dani.jpg?id=65152290&width=980\")
![\"Saoirse](\"https:\/\/www.advocate.com\/media-library\/saoirse-stone.jpg?id=65152291&width=980\")