A snowboarding coach is suing the Vermont high school that fired him after he spoke out against biological men playing in women’s sports.
David Bloch, who says he is a devout Christian, is suing Woodstock Union High School in Woodstock, Vermont, for firing him after serving as a school employee for over a decade. He alleges the school fired him for having a three-minute discussion with students about how male bodies have a physical advantage over female bodies in sports, the New York Post reported.
Bloch filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Vermont on Monday.
In the filing, Bloch says that on Feb. 8, he joined a conversation among students who were talking about a male-to-female transgender athlete from another school who is now competing against natural-born girls in school sports.
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Bloch also charges that Sousa is biased against him because she has a child that she allows to identify as transgender.
“Bloch joined the conversation to comment that people express themselves differently and that there can be masculine women and feminine men,” according to a statement from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is representing Bloch in the lawsuit.
“He also affirmed that as a matter of biology, males, and females have different DNA, which causes males to develop differently from females and have different physical characteristics, and that those biological differences give males an advantage in athletic competitions,” ADF added.
Bloch, who says he is a Catholic man who believes “that God immutably creates each person as male or female,” says he explained the biological differences between men and women and spoke about DNA, physical development, and bone structure. He also said that males have a decided physical advantage over females.
The coach insisted that the conversation was short, constructive, and in no way disruptive. And he also said he did not name or mention the trans student from the other school.
Still, the day after the conversation, school Superintendent Sherry Sousa fired Bloch and told him he violated the Windsor Central Supervisory Union Board’s policy regarding “harassment, hazing, and bullying” by questioning “the legitimacy and appropriateness of the student competing on the girls’ team to members of the WUHS snowboard team.”
Bloch was also defamed in a letter by the superintendent.
“I find that your use of disparaging names created an objectively offensive environment and constituted harassment based on gender identity, justifying terminating your contract as a snowboarding coach,” Sherry wrote in a letter to Bloch dated February 9.
Sherry fired Bloch and put a red flag on his record to prevent him from being rehired.
“For more than a decade, Dave has led the Woodstock Union snowboarding program to enormous success in terms of both athletic accomplishment and personal growth of the snowboarders,” ADF attorney Mathew Hoffman of the Alliance Defending Freedom said.
“But for merely expressing his views that males and females are biologically different and questioning the appropriateness of a teenage male competing against teenage females in an athletic competition, school district officials unconstitutionally fired him,” Hoffman concluded.
Bloch is asking to be reinstated to his coaching position and to force the district to exclude discussions of transgenderism from its policies on “harassment, hazing, and bullying.”
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