Shepard Scalf said he never had any warning or indication of poor performance in August when he was told to resign or be fired from his new job teaching middle school language arts at Patriot Oaks Academy, a public K-8 school in St. Johns County.
A former Sarasota County school superintendent ousted for what he called political reasons in 2022 is accused of removing Scalf. The American Civil Liberties Union says it's because the district thought he was transgender.
In fact, Scalf, is intersex. Just a few weeks after he began teaching, the 23-year-old said the principal, Drew Chiodo, read a letter from Superintendent Brennan Asplen, which said Scalf had to go. But it wasn't clear why.
"Mr. Chiodo was very clear that it was not a merit- or performance- or conduct-based termination, so it's like, 'If you're not firing me because I've done something wrong or I'm doing a bad job, then what else is there?' " said Scalf.
He was born with Swyer syndrome. It's a rare genetic condition, in which babies appear female at birth, with a uterus, vagina and fallopian tubes. But they have XY chromosomes, typically associated with male development. They don't develop ovaries or testicles, and they don't go through puberty without hormone therapy.
"There is just such a lack of understanding of what intersex is, and the different ways it can manifest, and things like that. Everyone gets looped in together, and people just decide all of this is bad without understanding any of the nuance of anything."Shepard Scalf
An estimated 1.7% of the world's population is intersex, which includes anyone with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't fit the typical definition of male or female.
"This seems to be a reoccurring thing, where someone looks at me and is like, 'Hey, you're kind of a funny-looking man, and you don't have a low man voice like you're supposed to, and you don't fit into what I think a man is supposed to look like, so something must be wrong with you, you must be weird in some way,' " he said.
Polls by the Center For American Progress have shown nearly 7 in 10 intersex people reported experiencing some form of discrimination in the past year.
Scalf said his union representative asked if he had discussed his gender with anyone.
"And I said, 'My gender? No.' He's like, 'Not with students, not with other people at the school?' And I'm like, 'No. What?' First of all, why would I talk about my gender with my students, except, 'Hi, nice to meet you, I'm Mr. Scalf.'
"They don't need to be all up in my business. And no, my gender doesn't come up in conversation with my friends either. I mean, there are very few situations in life, I think, where that's something that naturally comes up in conversation. 'Oh, hi, by the way, I happen to be intersex and have this condition.'"
Reinstatement sought
The ACLU is representing Scalf and filed a civil rights complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
According to an audio recording of the meeting between Scalf and Chiodo, the principal began by saying: "You have met every expectation that I have set here at Patriot Oaks, and I mean that sincerely. I have seen you in your classroom, I've seen how you've responded to our children and with our children, I've seen how you've responded with our staff, and it has been nothing short of exemplary through my lens."
Then, Chiodo read the letter by Asplen, which pointed out that as a new hire, Scalf's "initial annual contract shall be a probationary contract for a period of one year, during which the employee may be dismissed without cause or may resign without breach of contract."
Chiodo continued: "On behalf of the superintendent, the district has elected to recommend to the school board to dismiss you from employment within the St. Johns County School District." Scalf was given the choice to resign or have his employment voted on at next school board meeting. He chose to resign.
"No other prior discipline, no other prior conversations, nothing like that to indicate any reason for termination," said ACLU lawyer Samantha Past.
"There was a complaint from a parent about the perception that he was transgender, and Shep is not transgender," she added.
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The filing seeks to renstate Scalf as a teacher at the school.
"The most important thing to us as Shep's attorneys and to Shep is that he can get back in the classroom, and that's all he wants," Past said.
Florida is an at-will employment state, meaning someone can be fired without cause. But state and federal laws aim to protect people from discrimination.
"Even if you can be fired for no reason, you still can't be fired for a discriminatory reason," said Sylvan Fraser, legal and policy director at interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth.
Discrimination is "higher for intersex people than for almost any other group surveyed, which can surprise people, in part because intersex people and intersex variations are still not as visible or widely known about, compared to, for instance, the transgender community or the broader LGBTQ community in general," said Fraser.
The ACLU filing says Scalf's dismissal is "a direct violation of his rights under both the Florida Civil Rights Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Bostock v. Clayton County."
Fraser also cited another case, Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, in 1989, which found that "discrimination on the basis of someone not conforming to sex stereotypes is a form of sex discrimination" and is impermissible under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
"The employer bears the burden of proving that the adverse employment action would have been the same if sex discrimination had not occurred," said the case summary.
Asplen became the superintendent in St. Johns County in May 2025, just a few months before he signed that letter about Scalf's employment.
Asplen, a Republican, said he tries to keep his personal views apart from his work. He got high ratings from the Sarasota County school board for his leadership through the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Ian.
It came as a shock when a newly elected conservative majority school board forced him to resign in 2022. One board member, Karen Rose, blamed him for poor academic achievement. Another questioned his leadership.
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Among those voting for his removal was Bridget Ziegler, a cofounder of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty. At a heated school board meeting, Asplen said it was all "politics and nonsense."
"You have to get the politics out of the school district. You have to," he said to the sounds of applause in the school board chambers in November 2022.
Asplen did not respond to a request for comment for this article. A St. Johns schools spokeswoman said the district will not comment on litigation matters.
Love for teaching
Scalf said his love for teaching was inspired by his mother, who also taught middle school language arts.
"She is like the queen of helping kids level up," said Scalf. "Actually, I think it's wizardry."
"My mom has been a teacher my entire life, and when I was really young, if I had a day off from school or something, she would bring me to school with her," he said.
"It was just so cool to me. That was really where I was like, 'Oh, this is important. And then I really, really wanted to teach."
Losing his job has been a financial hardship, since he was the primary financial provider for himself and his wife. He said it's also hard to speak publicly about such a private issue.
"There are a lot of people that are really supportive on every part of the political spectrum, and then there are just some people that just say things, and I just think to myself, 'This comment wouldn't exist if you simply used Google, and Google is free,' " Scalf said.
"There is just such a lack of understanding of what intersex is, and the different ways it can manifest, and things like that. Everyone gets looped in together, and people just decide all of this is bad without understanding any of the nuance of anything."
But beyond that, he said the hardest part of being let go has been wondering about his students.
"Those kids all think that I abandoned them, and it breaks my heart," he said.
"They are going to think that there was somebody out there that just didn't care enough about them, that they weren't worth being cared about. And that is something that genuinely keeps me awake at night."
