A musical theater teacher was outed to her bosses. She was fired immediately.


Monica Toro Lisciandro
Photo: Florida Today video screenshot

On October 2, administrators at Covenant Christian School in Palm Beach, Florida, summoned part-time musical theater teacher Monica Toro Lisciandro to tell her that someone had anonymously called the school accusing her of being in a relationship with a woman, attending a Pride festival, and hosting an LGBTQ group in her private acting studio.

“Well, it’s true,” Lisciandro replied. Soon after, the school fired her even though she had taught there for the last three years and was in the middle of directing the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. The school then informed parents via letter that she’d no longer be teaching due to “personal reasons.”

Now Lisciandro is speaking out.

“I can’t be silent about it,” she said. “I want kids to see me and know that you can be a Christian and you can be gay. You can be gay, you can teach at a Christian school…. to think that something like this could happen to them makes me feel really upset and angry, because they deserve better.”

Florida lacks a law guaranteeing workplace protections for LGBTQ people, and even if it did have one, it’s unclear whether it would stop discrimination at church-affiliated schools.

The school participates in…

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