She asked students for their pronouns, and locals labeled her a “groomer.” Now, she’s filing a lawsuit

This blog originally appeared at LGBTQNATIONS.

She was placed on leave for her safety after local conservatives escalated their violent rhetoric against her.

A South Carolina middle school teacher has filed a defamation and libel lawsuit against five individuals — including a state representative — after being publicly accused of “grooming” children. The accusations followed her decision to distribute a questionnaire asking students for their personal pronouns. The defendants claimed her so-called “secret sex survey” violated state laws and school policies, asserting that her teaching license should be revoked.

Mardy A. Burleson, a computer science teacher at Hilton Head Island Middle School (HHIMS), is at the center of this controversy. HHIMS is located in a predominantly white, Christian coastal community of 38,069 people, most of whom are over 45. Burleson, who has a transgender son, was personally affected by the death of her son’s friend, who died by suicide after struggling to come out to their family. Motivated by this experience, Burleson introduced a beginning-of-term survey for her students titled, “Who is behind those eyes?” aiming to create a supportive environment for her students.

She had conducted the survey for several years without receiving any complaints. The survey included questions about students’ families, preferred learning styles, favorite media, hobbies, and accomplishments. It also asked for their “preferred pronouns” and included the question, “Do you want me to use your pronouns in class and in messages home, or is it private between you and me?”

“I promise to keep these just between you and me,” Burleson wrote at the top of the survey. Parents could access blank copies of the survey through their children’s Google Classroom accounts.

Around January 9, 2023, an HHIMS student showed the survey to her father, David Cook, a local “Dad-vocate” who had supported recent efforts to ban “pornographic” books from school libraries.

The following day, Cook lodged a complaint with the HHIMS principal. In response, Burleson removed the pronoun-related questions to avoid further conflict, according to court documents. Cook also requested a meeting with Burleson and school officials, but he claimed the school had “hidden” them from him.

Cook allegedly shared the survey with Corey Allen Whittington, the author of the right-wing blog The Overton Report. In a post, Whittington accused Burleson of “grooming pre-teen students into an overtly sexualized lifestyle” and criticized her for having “transed her own kid,” referring to her transgender son.

“[Burleson] spent years transitioning her own daughter into a ‘son’ and has made no secret of expressing her full support for the controversial ideas behind gender ideology,” Whittington wrote.

For Burleson, Whittington’s post crossed a personal line by mentioning her transgender son, who she said had been bullied more at school as a result.

On his podcast and social media, Whittington continued to accuse Burleson of being a “predatory” teacher, claiming she was “indoctrinating 8th graders” with “secret surveys about sex” and telling students to “keep [it a] secret from administrators and parents.”

“Is there any other way to define somebody who encourages that type of thing in children?” Whittington asked on his podcast. “Is there any other way to define them than a groomer? What are you doing if not grooming them to accept kink and fetish at a young age?”

Whittington posted a link to his blog post on Facebook around January 25, 2023. Cook responded by sharing a screenshot of an article from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) titled, “Grooming: Know the Warning Signs,” with the caption, “I’ll just leave this right here for you, Corey Allen.” The article defined grooming as “manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught.”

In later public comments, Cook accused Burleson of violating school district policies and her employment contract by administering a secret survey to students without parental consent.

Another local conservative activist, Elizabeth Szalai—who had previously submitted a list of books to the district superintendent for removal due to “adult” content—called Burleson a “groomer.” On her Facebook page, she vowed to make school personnel “pay” if they ever kept a secret from her about her child, promising to “exhaust every effort to have their license revoked and ensure that they never have access to children again.”

Michael Covert, a former Beaufort County Council member who supported Szalai’s book-banning efforts, reportedly called Burleson a “grooming” “pervert” who was “unfit” to teach during an appearance on his broadcast, Beaufort House of Cards. State Representative Thomas Beach (R), a current member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, also joined in the attacks, labeling Burleson a “groomer” on Facebook.

Of Burleson’s five primary harassers, only Cook has a student in the local schools, while two of the others don’t even live in Beaufort County.

Burleson explained the intent behind her survey and its pronoun question in an interview with The Packet. She said that teachers are trained to be trusted adults that students can confide in, noting, “A trusted adult is not always the family.” She also added that if a parent asked her about a student’s pronouns and it appeared to be an unsafe situation, she would consult district administrators and professionals first.

Due to the escalating harassment, Burleson was placed on leave in February for her own safety. She and another teacher, Kathleen Harper—HHIMS’s literary coach and a teacher with 25 years of experience—said the mounting negative online attention made them and their families feel unsafe both at home and in public.

Cook escalated his harassment campaign in April 2023. In a Facebook post on April 9, he wrote that schools “teach kids that the only safe people are teachers and admin. Everyone else in their lives are a danger to them, [including] parents and extended family.”

He accused Kathleen Harper, a fellow teacher, of being “sexually abusive” because one of her district-sourced texts on modern-day slavery mentioned teenage female genital mutilation.

Cook began showing up on campus, according to The Island Packet. Near the end of the school term, he handed Harper a handwritten note accusing her of indoctrinating students.

During the final week of school, Cook posted on Facebook, “If you’re in support of giving sexually explicit material to children, it’s important to remember… Dead Pedophiles Don’t Re-Offend.”

Other teachers warned Harper about Cook’s presence on campus, and escorts were assigned to accompany her to her car. School officials compiled Cook’s harassing social media posts and filed a harassment report with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.

“[School officials] told me to watch my back in public,” Harper told The Packet. “They told me he is dangerous and they’re concerned for me. They encouraged me to file a police report, which I did that day.”

At a school board meeting, Cook claimed his daughter and other students were “victims” who had been subjected to “lewd and vulgar materials” by Burleson. He also accused the school and Burleson of “hiding” from a meeting with him.

At a June 2023 school board meeting, Cook made a spectacle of himself by throwing four bags of chicken feed at board members, protesting the re-shelving of books that had previously been removed for their alleged “pornographic” content.

“There’s your chicken feed,” Cook said. “I give you this gift as a way to demonstrate mine and many others’ opinion of your lack of action. Chicken. Too afraid. Matter of fact, your behavior gives chicken a bad name.”

After the meeting, the sheriff’s office issued a no-trespass order against Cook for all district campuses, though he was still permitted to attend board meetings and pick up his daughter from school.

Burleson is now suing the five individuals mentioned earlier for maliciously making false, defamatory, and harmful statements accusing her of a crime. These false accusations damaged her professional reputation and caused significant emotional distress.

Burleson is represented by Meg Phelan of the Equality Legal Action Fund, a pro-bono group that focuses on protecting members of the LGBTQ+ community, educators, and allied officials from defamation and harassment. Burleson is seeking actual and special damages, as well as punitive damages, according to The Island Packet. However, Phelan said Burleson and the organization are not focused on financial compensation.

“We’re dedicated to fighting this and trying to not only educate the public, but showing the public that no American deserves to be the target of disinformation, defamation, harassment, and intimidation,” Phelan told LGBTQ Nation.

Phelan added that the goal is to demonstrate to conservatives and extremists that their words have consequences and that not all speech is protected under the First Amendment. She noted that the defendants used the term “groomer” in a way that specifically accused Burleson of coercing children into sexual abuse, rather than simply using it as an anti-LGBTQ+ slur.

While not all states have legal definitions for grooming, South Carolina law allows lawsuits for defamation and libel if a false and malicious accusation of a crime is made.

The Equality Legal Action Fund is a nationwide network of pro-bono lawyers aiming to protect LGBTQ+ individuals, allies, teachers, and community leaders from anti-LGBTQ+ harassment. If this lawsuit succeeds, it could be one of the first court cases where anti-LGBTQ+ activists face legal consequences for using the “groomer” slur. It could also provide some peace of mind to Burleson and other teachers facing similar harassment across the country.

“We want these inspiring teachers to continue to create these safe, inclusive spaces for all of their students, particularly in these very conservative and sometimes closed-minded communities,” Phelan added. “So we don’t want them to spend all of their time and money defending both their personal and professional reputations.”