A Virginia school district has agreed to permanently reinstate a physical education teacher who had been suspended for refusing to refer to transgender students by their preferred pronouns.
“Just today, the court issued a final order permanently prohibiting the Loudoun County Public School Board from punishing me for freely expressing my views,” Byron “Tanner” Cross told reporters after the settlement Monday, Fox News reported.
“I can now confidently continue teaching at Leesburg Elementary School without fear of punishment for expressing my views,” he added.
In June, the district said it would appeal a judge’s decision to reinstate Cross and take the fight to the state’s Supreme Court after federal Judge James Plowman ruled that the Leesburg Elementary School gym teacher could go back to work.
Cross, an outspoken Christian, had sparked outrage at a school meeting on May 25, when he spoke out against proposed Policy 8040 and wouldn’t affirm that a “biological boy can be a girl and vice versa” and was later suspended from the job.
