A transgender teacher in Texas resigned on Monday, less than a week after a state lawmaker called for her dismissal over a social media video in which she discussed feeling supported by her students.
“I am heartbroken,” said Rosie Sandri, a three-year sophomore English teacher at Red Oak High School, just south of Dallas. She said she’d wanted to be a teacher since she was five years old. “When I signed that resignation, it felt like my dream was being taken away from me.”
Sandri, 33, came out as a trans woman about seven months ago, and she said her schoolmates and the Red Oak Independent School District were extremely supportive. She claimed she never stood up in front of her class and came out, but instead simply began dressing differently.
When students noticed and asked if they should call her by a different name or use different pronouns, she replied that they could call her “whatever they were comfortable with.”
She did tell them that she preferred she/her pronouns, but she also said, “If you don’t agree with that, or you’re uncomfortable with it, you’re not going to hurt my feelings by calling me whatever you want.”
Sandri began posting TikTok videos about her experiences as a trans woman and teacher after coming out. She stated that she recorded some of the videos in her classroom after school hours. She had approximately 150 followers prior to last week.
Last Wednesday, the social media account Libs of TikTok, which has millions of followers and singles out LGBTQ people and their employers for promoting inclusivity, shared one of Sandri’s TikTok videos in which she discusses gender euphoria, or the positive feelings transgender people experience when their gender identity and expression match.
“At school today, I’m surrounded by kids, I teach sophomores, and I have these 15-, 16-year-olds who are completely on board, who when I told them I had changed my pronouns, jumped right into it,” Sandri recounted in the video from March 18. “They address me as ‘Ma’am.’ They call me ‘Miss.’ They use my correct pronouns and know my name, which is extremely reassuring.”
In its post about Sandri, Libs of TikTok used her previous legal name, a practice known as “deadnaming” that is widely considered offensive among the trans community, as well as misgendering her and asking, “Would you feel comfortable with this person teaching your kid?” The account also shared a screenshot of one of Sandri’s posts about the various types of LGBTQ Pride flags, stating that she was “pushing” the content on her public TikTok, which students can follow.
State Rep. Brian Harrison, who represents Red Oak, where the school is located, shared TikTok user Libs’ post on X and demanded that Sandri be “immediately terminated.”
“Public schools (and the property taxes that fund them) are for education … not leftist indoctrination!” Harrison wrote.
Chaya Raichik, the far-right activist behind the Libs of TikTok account, did not respond to a request for comment.
In an emailed statement, Harrison stated that he is “proud to have helped deliver this victory to protect Texas students.”
“Public schools are for education, not indoctrination,” he told me. “Any teacher who claims to get ‘gender euphoria’ from their minor students and teaches them that boys can become girls should be terminated immediately.”
While Sandri claimed she never taught her students about transitioning and allowed them to address her as they saw fit, Harrison’s spokesperson claimed Sandri abused her position “by coercing the students” into calling her the “wrong gender.”
Sandri stated that she was out sick last Wednesday, when TikTok’s Libs first shared her video, but that she soon began receiving threats and harassment via her personal and school email accounts, as well as social media.
That same day, she said, she called the human resources department at Red Oak Independent School District, and the deputy superintendent informed her that the school had also received threats.
She said the deputy superintendent informed her that she would be placed on administrative leave for two days while the school investigated.
On Monday, she said she had reached an agreement with the school to resign. She stated that she cannot discuss the specifics of the conversation as part of the agreement, and that the school did not inform her that she had violated any policy.
In an email sent to school staff members on Monday and obtained by NBC News, Beth Trimble, the district’s chief communications officer, reminded educators of the district’s social media policy.
“Your freedom of speech is not free of consequences if it results in a disruption of your ability to do your job,” according to the email. It also instructed employees to refrain from posting during school and work hours.
Trimble told NBC News via email that the message sent to staff members on Monday had nothing to do with Sandri’s resignation. She did not respond to questions about whether Sandri violated any district policies, Sandri’s account of events, or whether the school requested Sandri’s resignation.
“I decided yesterday that my best option was to resign for the safety of myself and even the safety of the school,” Sandri said, adding that she has no ill will toward the school or district, which have been supportive of her transition.
“I was out [as transgender] for seven months, and parents, staff, admin, nobody had a problem,” she told me. “I wasn’t causing any disruption. The problem was not caused by students or members of the community. It was these outsiders.
Libs of TikTok has repeatedly posted about teachers who have shared LGBTQ-inclusive content on social media, resulting in harassment of those teachers and their schools.
Last year, an Oklahoma teacher who performed in drag outside of work resigned after Libs of TikTok posted about him, and the local superintendent called for his dismissal.
Sandri’s resignation occurred on Monday, March 31, which also happened to be Trans Day of Visibility, an annual awareness day dedicated to celebrating trans people’s accomplishments while also acknowledging the violence and discrimination that the community faces. Sandri’s first Trans Day of Visibility as an openly transgender woman.
People who said their children were in Sandri’s class responded to her post about her resignation, saying they supported her. According to one parent, Sandri was one of her son’s favorite teachers.
Sandri stated that she is unsure whether she will be able to find another job as a teacher in Texas as a result of Harrison’s post and the public attention she has received.
As a result, she stated that she is considering legal action against TikTok’s Libs and others who she claims have disparaged her and threatened the school. TikTok users hailed Sandri’s resignation as a “big win.”
“My message to Libs of TikTok is, ‘You picked the wrong one,'” Sandri told me. “The entire community supports me and doesn’t care, and I am fortunate to have that privilege that many transgender people do not have. So my message to everyone is, ‘Don’t make this all about me.
Go out there and help the transgender and LGBTQIA communities, because there are Black and brown trans people, trans youth, and gay and lesbian people whose marriage rights are currently being threatened. Go out there and help these people!”
