A transgender substitute teacher who was fired from Uinta County School District 1 is suing the district, saying it violated the Constitution.
The case involves a trans substitute teacher, Kurtis Stefanick, being assigned to supervise the boys locker room in 2025.
That same year, Wyoming passed a law requiring schools to designate boys bathrooms and changing rooms “for the exclusive use” of males, and girls bathrooms “for the exclusive use” of females.
Stefanick’s lawsuit complaint, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming, accuses the school district and then-Superintendent Ryan Thomas of firing Stefanick for being transgender.
“My whole life I’ve been trying to find the career, the one we’re supposed to want to do since middle school, and I felt I finally found that with teaching,” Stefanick told Cowboy State Daily in a Friday phone interview, “and having that ripped away from me so violently has been one of the most horrific things I’ve experienced.”
Since the firing, Stefanik has gone to work at a local coffee shop and is in the hiring process at a local drugstore.
The complaint says the firing violated the employment section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as Stefanick’s 14th Amendment right to equal protection.
It asks for actual economic damages, compensatory and punitive damages, interest, a tax offset, attorney fees and costs, and any further relief “as justice requires.”
Wyoming-based attorney Ian Ross, and Colorado-based attorneys Iris Halpern and Stephanie Wise of Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC, filed the case on Stefanick’s behalf.
These are the same attorneys who made headlines last week for suing the Converse County Library System on behalf of a librarian who says she was fired after her daughter published a critical Facebook post.
Rathod Moahmedbhai has also been representing Terri Lesley, the Campbell County library director who was fired after a yearslong controversy over sexually explicit books.
“Kurtis Stefanick is a transgender man and was a well-liked and exemplary substitute teacher and paraprofessional/aide with Uinta County School District Number One when the school district summarily fired him for no reason other than his sex and gender identity,” the complaint opens.
The complaint alleges that, in the wake of Stefanick’s firing, Thomas had said, “Mr. Stefanick may have been one of our best substitutes.”
The district's new superintendent, Joseph Ingalls, did not immediately respond to a Friday email.
Cowboy State Daily sent a text (voicemail was dysfunctional) to the now-retired Thomas' listed cellphone number.
Stefanick, who is 37, has family in Evanston and spent time in the town as a teen, then moved there in 2024.
“I have never been dsicriminated against before in my life, like this,” said Stefanick. “My entire family has loved and supported me my whole life… It’s been very life-changing in the words kind of way.”
First, Hiring
The complaint says Stefanick started substitute teaching at the Evanston-based school district Jan. 18, 2025, and performed duties without disciplinary issues.
Stefanick worked primarily at Davis Middle School but also at other elementary and high schools in the district, the complaint says.
“Mr. Stefanick quickly distinguished himself as one of the school district’s most sought-after substitutes,” the document continues. “He was known throughout UCSD schools for his ability to build meaningful relationships with students.”
Stefanick was known for learning students’ names and understanding their needs, and built relationships with students who had disabilities, learning challenges and difficult home circumstances, says the complaint.
It says Stefanick entered the district during a time of teacher shortage, and staffers sought Stefanick often, including for long-term positions.
“Mr. Stefanick felt he had found the perfect career for his aptitudes and skills,” the complaint says.
Stefanick was repeatedly asked to substitute for the Davis Middle School physical-education teacher, a job that required monitoring the boys locker room – because two boys had been involved in an assault there the prior year, reportedly.
Stefanick worked as the substitute PE teacher at least six times in the 2025 spring semester without issue, the document says.
Legislature Passes Senate File 62
In March 2025, the Legislature passed Senate File 62, which specifies exclusive bathrooms and changing rooms according to sex, across Wyoming schools.
The law has a clause requiring reasonable accommodation, such as single-stall bathrooms, to people who don’t wish to use a multiple occupancy restroom.
In response, the district adopted a policy citing the law.
On Aug. 20, 2025, the district held an all-staff meeting, during which Thomas addressed the policy, and made a comment about having seen a man in a women’s bathroom while vacationing in Utah.
“We won’t have to worry about that here,” Thomas added, according to the complaint.
The concern resonated with Stefanick.
“Recognizing immediately that using a woman’s’ restroom would place him – a transgender man with a full beard – in the woman’s restroom, which Superintendent Thomas just said would not happen in UCSD, Mr. Stefanick went directly to the Davis Middle School’s guidance counselor, Bret McCoy, for advice.”
McCoy suggested Stefanick use the gender-neutral restrooms in the school’s main office, and Stefanick took that advice “to heart,” the complaint says.
On Oct. 8 and Oct 24, 2025, Stefanick was assigned to substitute for the boys’ PE class at the middle school again. As required, the substitute monitored boys in the locker room.
On Nov. 18, the complaint says, UCSD’s human resources secretary Kristine Hayduk informed Thomas that Stefanick had been born female.
“Almost immediately,” the document asserts, “Superintendent Thomas reviewed surveillance footage from the previous thirty days.”
Thomas called Stefanick into the principal’s office that day, and a held a meeting with Principal Rick O’Driscoll and Dean of Students Andra Trammell, the complaint says.
The document says Thomas handed Stefanick a new form that Stefanick hadn’t been asked to sign, titled “Biological Sex, Statutory Compliance Only.”
Thomas accused Stefanick of being dishonest about the latter’s identity – a claim the complaint denies by saying Stefanick “disclosed his birth name” and participated in the background check during hiring.
Thomas accused Stefanick of violating the new policy, and didn’t let Stefanick respond to these allegations, the complaint claims.
Thomas immediately fired Stefanick, the document adds. It says neither the state law nor the new policy call for firing teachers.
Stefanick proposed alternatives, but Thomas rejected those, the complaint alleges.
“In the days and weeks that followed, Mr. Stefanick experienced significant emotional and psychological harm,” the complaint says, including “panic attacks, severe sleep disruption, loss of appetite and prolonged fear of being in public, including anxiety about using any public restroom.”
Unemployment Insurance Benefits
Stefanick applied for unemployment insurance benefits, and when those were granted, Thomas appealed on behalf of the school district, reportedly.
The complaint says that during the Feb. 4 appeals hearing, Thomas said, “Mr. Stefanick may have been one of our best substitutes,” and added the termination was “extreme.”
Two days after that hearing, the Uinta County Herald reported that Thomas announced his retirement after nearly 42 years of serving Uinta County School District No. 1.
Ultimately, the hearing officer upheld Stefanick’s unemployment insurance benefits, declining to find Stefanick had engaged in misconduct.
“Given UCSD’s well-documented shortage of qualified substitutes and Mr. Stefanick’s proclivity for teaching and aiding students, both Mr. Stefanick and UCSD have suffered a great loss,” the complaint says.
