San Diego:

A federal judge in San Diego on January 10 ordered two teachers at a middle school in the Escondido area in California to return to their jobs after being placed on pay suspension in May for not following the school district's gender pronoun and parental notification policies. Lori Ann West and Elizabeth MIrabelli filed a lawsuit last May. According to her attorneys, a federal district court granted them a preliminary injunction on Sept. 14 to return to the job, but the school district did not comply with the order.

The teachers, represented by LiMandri and Jonna LLP and Thomas More Society LLC, filed a civil contempt lawsuit against their school district, the school board, and the state of California on Dec. 6. The suit claims the school district violated the Court's injunction order by failing to reinstate the teachers in their regular duties.

"I have some fundamental beliefs rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition," West said. "I'm very clear about what's right and wrong, and withholding information about a child's well-being from their parents was something I was unwilling to do. "We sought religious accommodation," West said, "but that didn't extend to informing their parents about what was going on with their children."

Another Christian teacher, Joshua Sutcliffe, is set to appeal against an indefinite ban from the profession after refusing to use a student's preferred pronouns. Sutcliffe was banned indefinitely last year after the Teaching Regulation Authority said he brought the profession "into disrepute" by refusing to refer to a biologically female student as "a boy." Last December, the government published draft guidelines on transgenderism in schools stating that teachers and pupils should not be forced to use preferred pronouns, prompting Sutcliffe to seek judicial review of the ban.