Photo: Svien Piek
Former snowboard coach David Bloch was fired by Woodstock Union High School after making comments to girls on his team about a transgender student athlete in February of 2023. This week, Bloch was awarded a $75,000 settlement in a court case stemming from the incident, although he won’t be given his job back — one of the demands outlined in Bloch’s suit against the Vermont Agency of Education. The decision is part of an ongoing culture battle across sports in which organizations around the world are regularly adopting and amending policies addressing the inclusion of transgender athletes.
The school fired Bloch for what it perceived as a violation of a state-mandated policy “prohibiting harassment, hazing, and bullying” when he made statements to his students about a transgender athlete, outlining his belief that a snowboarder shouldn’t have been allowed to compete against the girls on his team. When Bloch sued the school district in July, he alleged that they violated his rights to free speech and due process, as there was no investigation before his firing.
The judge ruled that Bloch’s attorneys didn’t demonstrate his termination was for the anti-trans speech, his firing was for the disruption caused by complaints from parents and students following the event.
“Plaintiff’s comments not only had the potential to disrupt a school function and cause offense to a captive audience but in fact did so,” the judge said.
Court documents show that this wasn’t an isolated incident with Bloch, however. On one hand, Bloch’s complaints in the filing paint a picture of a man simply interjecting his understanding of biology when a male student athlete and a female student athlete were discussing a transgender snowboarder on the opposing team. Bloch v Bouchey details his stance that “differences in DNA cause males to develop differently than females and to have different physical characteristics,” and even throwing in how an archeologist would characterize males and females based on their bone structure, among other arguments. One student took offense and called Boch a “transphobe,” which he took offense to in response. In an attempt to rally his team later that day, Boch told his students, “Let’s go out and beat this biological boy.”
A parent filed a complaint with the school following the event and he was handed his termination the next day.
“FYI-the Woodstock Coach made an inappropriate comment about [W]. [W.] has made friends with [] a few of the Woodstock teammates and the coach was telling his kids that they need to try real hard because they are competing against a guy pretending to be a girl,” the document reads.
Three students and one assistant coach were interviewed in response, painting a picture of ongoing tension.
“[Is] this about the transphobic behavior from our coach?” one student said, according to the transcript. “He is transphobic[.]”
“She explained that she was not at the event but heard from her friends that the coach had told the team they had to be ready because they were going up against a male athlete. She then went on to explain that when she is present he is often sexist, talks about politics, and has told people he is ‘uncancelable.’ The student reported that she had complained about this coach in the past,” the document reads.
