Ana Mota’s parents sued Grand Prairie ISD in federal court on Oct. 26. They say the district broke Title IX when it pulled their daughter from the lead in “Little Shop of Horrors” because she’s a girl.
The 17-year-old senior at South Grand Prairie High School won the part of Seymour, the nerdy flower shop clerk, after four days of auditions, KERA News reported. About a week into rehearsals, she was told she couldn’t play him.
“District administrators told Ana and her mother directly that she had to be removed because she is female and replaced by a male student,” the complaint says, according to The Texas Tribune.
Superintendent Gabriel A. Trujillo is named too, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Attorney Jonathan Winocour filed the case in the Northern District of Texas, according to theater writer Howard Sherman’s Downstage Center.
It asks a judge to restore the show, which had been set for Dec. 10, with Mota as Seymour. The district declined to comment, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Which Senate Bill 12? Grand Prairie Officials Gave Two Answers
Texas has two laws called Senate Bill 12. The 2023 one targets sexually oriented performances and is widely read as a drag ban. A federal judge struck it down in August, and Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed. The 2025 one bans DEI programs and LGBTQ+ student clubs in public schools.
At an Oct. 8 meeting, district officials talked with Mota and her mother about the 2023 law, according to a recording Mota shared with KERA. The district later told KERA that area chief Suszy Meyer “misspoke” and meant the 2025 law. It didn’t say which part applied.
Fine arts director Lance Morse was worried about backlash. “We’re picturing at the same time certain political factions, I mean, protesting the show and picketing,” he said on the recording. “It could become a huge deal.”
Morse said he’d love to see a female Seymour on a professional stage.
“But not in a public school,” Meyer said.
A district statement to KERA also cited the show’s romance and “themes in the musical involving an abusive relationship.” The school had already planned to cut the scripted kiss, the Morning News reported.
Ana Mota’s Complaint Says She Isn’t Transgender and SB 12 Doesn’t Apply
“SB 12 contains no text that can reasonably be read to require an actor’s biological sex to match the sex of a fictional scripted character,” the complaint says, per KERA.
It also tells the court, “Ana Mota is not transgender and was not engaged in any personal gender transition.”
The district had offered Mota a shared turn as Audrey, a role she never auditioned for. She said no. Then the show was canceled.
“I don’t think that was a compromise at all,” Mota told KERA. “It felt more like a punishment.”
At an Oct. 15 board meeting, she told trustees, “Everyone in the cast earned their role.”
Her mother, Nancy Jimenez-Mota, has also filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. “Our freedoms are being trampled by a few people that are scared about anything inspiring feelings of LGBTQ or anything to that matter,” she told KERA on Oct. 15.
She was blunter with the Morning News this week. “Our leaders are making decisions based on nothing but fear,” she said.
Sherman and Keller ISDs Reversed Earlier North Texas Show Cancellations
Sherman ISD called off “Oklahoma!” in 2023 after a transgender teen boy was cast in a lead role. A year later Keller ISD canceled “The Laramie Project,” the play about the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard. Both districts let the shows go on, the Morning News reported.
Court records show a hearing on a temporary restraining order could come next week, the Star-Telegram reported.
Mota told KERA she’ll still audition for “Frozen.”
“I love to do theater,” she said.
