A Georgia special education paraprofessional says she was forced to resign after telling a student she was a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
Cameryn Lovett resigned from Mulberry Creek Elementary School in the Harris County School District after challenging anti-LGBTQ+ remarks made by a fourth-grade student.
Lovett told ABC affiliate WTVM in Columbus, GA, that she told the student she was gay after he said that he didn’t know any gay people “because they are bad.”
Lovett said the exchange was a brief attempt at correcting the child’s misinformation. However, the district’s human resources department allegedly deemed the conversation inappropriate and gave her a choice between resignation or termination.
“The woman from HR told me it will look better for your next job and for job applications if you resign. So, I agreed,” she said. “I said I would resign, and then, in leaving, I find out that prevents me from taking any kind of action.”
Georgia does not have a “Don’t Say Gay” law that restricts the discussion of sexual orientation in classrooms, though several have been introduced in the past.
Noël Heatherland, the Statewide Organizing Director for Georgia Equality, told Georgia Voice that having openly LGBTQ+ people in schools is critical for childhood development.
“Having interactions with teachers, teachers’ assistants,and other students of different identities and family structures helps young people learn that there is not just one kind of person that exists in this world,” they said. “Learning of the different types of people that are a part of our neighborhoods and schools contributes to healthy childhood development and helps build character qualities like compassion and respect… [LGBTQ+] people are everywhere and they belong everywhere, including our schools.”
Lovett is not the first educator in Georgia to lose their job for discussing the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, a Cobb County teacher was fired after reading a book on gender fluidity to fifth graders, and in 2025, a librarian in South Georgia was fired for allowing a child to include a book with transgender themes in a display.
Related story: All anti-LGBTQ+ bills defeated as Georgia legislative session ends
