this is "nightline." tonight, topless teacher. >> a picture of my upper torso now has dismantled and ruined my entire life. >> how one woman says she was shame and unjustly fired by her school district over a private selfie. >> the kids say they have a naked photo of you and your picture's going around. >> >> now at the center of a multi-million dollar lawsuit and gender discrimination in the workplace. >> my chest is no more offensive than a man's chest. >> reporte plus gigi gorgeous coming out again. >> from this point forward, i am a lesbian. >> the woman she's going to marry. >> so my engagement was

fabulous. >> and their medical odyssey as they try to have a baby. >> if i could get pregnant, i would get pregnant in a minute. but first here are the "nightline" five. alright,yeah!excited? waaahoo... wellit'er s.etas sweeter rewards. alaska airlines. while shopping at sears, you need to place yourself in the moment.

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midd teaer battle ain t st says h over a topless photo that was never supposed to get out in public. it is a case putting questions about gender and privacy in a wired age front and center. here's abc's kimberly brooks. >> a picture of my upper torso now has dismantled and ruined my entire life. >> reporter: a teacher in a small town. a topless selfie that was never meant for everyone to see. >> i sent this picture to the person i was sighing at teeing . >> reporter: that picture leading to a multi-million dollar legal battle against a school district, inciting a debate about digital privacy. >> i think it's absurd, that i'm fired over my chest. >> she has been discriminated against because she is a woman.

>> in my whole life. people ask you, if you weren't a teacher, what would you be? that is a really hard question to answer when you've never dreamed of doing anything else in your entire life. h entire w. >> my favorite part of my job was the kids. they come in every day with something fresh to talk about. i worked with the best women in the whole school. they were always so supportive and helpful. and they've really, since the day i started did nothing but help me grow as a teacher. >> reporter: a math teacher at bell port middle school on the pictu pictu picturesque shores of long island. but one selfie thr an ex three years ago had been leaked. >> i get a text message from a friend of mine in a different

building. and she says that the kids have are saying they have a naked photo of you and that your picture's going around. and i was like offended that she would even say like a kid has a naked picture of me, how? when i initially got questioned, my principal was in possession of it. and spun his computer monitor around and there's, there's picture of myself. >> reporter: how'd it make you feel with your principal looking at a picture of you without the top on? >> you feel like your privacy has been invaded. >> reporter: what was your emotional reaction to this happening in this coming out? >> i was hysterical. i was shaking. i was driving home, and i'm on the phone. i'm with my cousin and my mom. and i will to pull over and actually vomit. i had never been so upset that it caused me to get sick. i've never felt so small before. >> reporter: she says the school placed her on home assignment, ultimately letting her go.

>> i received a text message thursday afternoon from my district union representative saying that the vote, they voted on it last night, and that i've been fired. >> reporter: what did you think when you saw that? >> it's like ripping off a band aid all over again. it really brings you back to that moment when everything happened, and it really solidifies that wow, i've lost everything i've worked so hard for over a selfie. >> reporter: determined to fight back, she hired an attorney and plans to sue the school district for $3 million. what's the message you're trying to send with this? >> men and women are equal. it's 2018. my chest is no more offensive than a man's chest. so why am i being penalized? because if a man took the same picture he wouldn't be in the same situation i'm in. >> reporter: there's still one question, how was the photo made public to begin with. miranda says she only sent the picture to one person. have you talked to him since

this happened? >> briefly, but not in depth. this photo is so old. how does a three year old picture that i sent to an ex surface three years later in the hands of my students or some student that goes to the school? i think that's district's job to figure out and backtrack. i really do. i think that they were negligent by not figuring out the source of this. >> reporter: you're not interested in figuring out the source. >> at this point, i don't know if it would help me anymore. >> it is not warren's duty to focus on how the picture got out. its what the school's duty to do that and remain so. >> this case is about an employer that's just not keeping up with the times and has these really archaic notions of what sexually appropriate conduct is. when we have a crime victim who's being exploited for sexual reasons we can't just fire them. wse e to support>> reporter:

firm represents victims of online privacy breaches. >> a reaction would be to investigate it, to help the victim report it to the police. to help them contain the spread of the images and not to just take her livelihood away from her. >> this photo was sent between two adults. this is my private life. yes, i'm a teacher. do i carry out my role model face? and in environments where i might run into families or students? absolutely. i'm entitle the d to a private though. >> reporter: but when it comes to teachers, this isn't the first example of a private life attracting public scrutiny. >> i was having drinks on vacation. >> reporter: in 2009, ashley payne, an english teacher from georgia resigned from her job after a parent complained about photos she posted to her private

facebook account. >> the only way to avoid having a suspension on my record would be to resign. >> reporter: she later sued, but the court ruled in favor of the school district. payne appealed and lost. >> i feel raw. violated. >> reporter: and in south carolina, leanne arthur, a high school teacher, was asked to resign after a student allegedly stole her phone and shared partially nude photos of her. >> i left my phone. i did not knowingly leave my phone sitting on my desk. didn't think that a student would do that. >> reporter: arthur sued the district and eventually settled. the student was charged with computer crimes and aggravated voyeurism and later pled guilty. >> reporter: do you think it's ever appropriate for a school to fire someone over a nude photo? >> absolutely not. >> reporter: so a student gets access to a nude photo of a teacher. what should happen in this case with? >> the school had a duty to investigate. they didn't. they did something. but very little. that was their first mistake.

and they didn't, because they had already made up their the superintendent said you can't be in the classroom if those kids can see that picture. >> reporter: when contacted by abc news, a raintiepresentative the school district declined to comment. >> i still have bills to pay. i'm at the bottom of a hole trying to dig myself back back up. >> reporter: i'm kimberly brooks in long island. next here, a new phase of life for a transgender youtube sensation, gigi gorgeous. lobster: oh, you guys. there's a jet! oh...i needed this. no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on our car insurance with geico. we could have been doing this a long time ago. so, you guys staying at the hotel? yeah, we just got married. oh ho-ho! congratulations!

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and we're back now with the gigi gorgeous since the last time we caught up with her, she's seen major changes in her life, including coming out again, making plans to marry and trying to have a baby. here's my "nightline" colleague, juju chang. >> reporter: hi darling. >> hi, long time no see. >> reporter: look at this fabulous outfit. she's the glamorous, voluptuous star on youtube. sparkly heels and her customized mustang. gorgeous. gigi gorgeous. winning over millions of fans by being unapologetically herself. you're not the same person every day. you keep changing and growing and evolving. >> yeah, and my supporters give

me strength. >> at the end of the day, they allow me to share what i share. >> reporter: she started out more than a decade ago as a gay canadian boy named gregory, perhaps oversharing details about life. >> i want to be female. >> reporter: through the long transition to become the 26-year-old woman she is today. >> i have been on hormones now for a year. >> reporter: gigi's life has always been an open book. and now she's finally written one. he said she said. lessons, stories and mistakes from my transgender journey. you write about the path to becoming a woman is not just surgical but emotional. >> more than anything it's actually emotional. and can you change your nose. you can change your chest. you can change everything about yourself, but if you're not happy with really who you are, no surgery's going to help you. no amount of money. >> reporter: the book is part glitzy photo shoot, part intimate diary.

but buy neath the glam, soul-searching confessions. >> i was a klepto maniac. >> reporter: where does that come from? >> i think it was just being really unhappy. i got addicted and couldn't stop. >> reporter: were you stealing mainly makeup. >> yeah. >> reporter: at a point were you stealing something every day. >> i was stealing every day for an entire year. i thought i needed to make my mistakes to become who i was today. and i don't have any regrets per se. i never knew why i stole. i thought it was as simple as i wanted more makeup. it's so much deeper than that. and i would never, never address that if i didn't have to put pen to paper and write "he said she said". >> reporter: in the book she spares no detail, writing that after she transitioned she began hooking up with straight men. you talk about being promiscuous. >> i thought i needed that

straight guy to feel the mostfe a woman. >> i'm gigi's number one fan. so everything she does i think is the best ever. >> this is true. >> reporter: what do you love about gigi? >> i think it's her unapologetic way of just being 100% gigi. >> reporter: after gigi fell for nat she came out once again to her fans. >> from this point forward, i am a lesbian. >> reporter: tell me about your journey to coming out, if it's the right word, as lesbian. >> my growth, and when i grew up, i felt most comfortable with a label. when i came out as a lesbian it was because i had fallen in love with the love of my life. and she's a woman. iady, a i wasn't afraide anymor. >> she did receive a lot of hate for it and a lot of negativity.

but i think gigi was really true to herself when she decided to let everybody know hey, i'm lesbian, and this is who i am. >> reporter: after two years of dating, nats proposed on a whirlwind trip to paris which gigi shared on her channel. >> i feel like it was a full dream. >> reporter: the wedding slated for july. >> the ring is gorgeous. >> reporter: which is fitting for gigi gorgeous. >> exactly. >> reporter: both want to start a family. we talked about motherhood for you guys. >> yeah. >> reporter: what does that look like? here you are, i'm going to have kids and a family and a white picket fence evidently. >> oh, yeah. >> i didn't see kids being in my future, but now it's all i can think about. >> reporter: but as a transgender lesbian couple having a baby is complicated. >> if i could get pregnant i would get pregnant in a minute, i would do it, and i would love it. but that's something that god just didn't give me, and i'm going to have to find a way

around it. >> reporter: the couple says planning for a child involves seeing a fertility specialist and for gigi stopping estrogen hormones to produce viable sperm in the hopes of fertilizing her fiance's eggs. she shared excruciating detail. >> the woman looked at me, and she's like, what? i'm here for my sperm donation. >> reporter: after all that, the crushing news. >> she basically ended up telling me the worst news ever. my sperm count was really, really low. it turned out not to be so easy, because i've been on hormones for so long. so getting that news back that i can't produce was very hard for me, because i already had to go through the situation of not being able to give eggs because iav eggs.on d so it't was kind of like beatin me down twice.

this stuff is for basically people who have problems in that area. >> reporter: to boost her sperm count, gigi would have to take testosterone. >> it would be undoing everything she's worked so hard to achieve. i can't and wouldn't want to ask that of her. >> reporter: but the couple vowed to become parents one way or another. >> we're going to make it work. and it's going to be amazing. i can't wait to see what kind of family we get to build together. >> reporter: where does the future little old couple, you 50 years from now, what does that look like? >> probably doing the same thing, honestly. >> yeah, i think it's going to be what is so amazing about gigi and me, us together as a pair, as a couple in a relationship is that no matter what we're doing, if it's me supporting her, her supporting me, whatever and ever, it's just like we're a team, and we have so much fun together. so i can't wait to see what life continues to throw at us. >> because we're just going to throw it back.

>> yeah. >> our thanks to juju chang. coming up, the artist who adds a touch of the rainbow flag to every painting. from the very beginning ... it was always our singular focus, to do whatever it takes, use every possible resource, to fight cancer. and never lose sight of the patients we're fighting for. our cancer treatment specialists share the same vision. experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. and these are the specialists we're proud to call our own. expert medicine works here. learn more at cancercenter.com. appointments available now.

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♪ >> reporter: tyler wollock is a painter, designer and eccentric. he's responsible for this brightly-colored cartoon, take being inspiration from the rainbow flag. >> personally having grown-up knowing i was gay in texas, the rainbow flag was something that actually kind of scared my. it led me to embracing the color of the flag and using it in every piece of my art. it stands for love, light and most of all positivity. >> reporter: he's a modern-day keith herring for the insta set. i checked out a piece of art he

made for our "nightline" office. tell us a little bit about this painting. >> i wanted to represent the type of people that we may be reporting on. you will see that everybody is absolutely connected. and that's one thing -- >> reporter: i love that. >> that i really do believe in my art in that we really are all connected. if we could just realize that, you might be that much nicer to the people around you. >> reporter: kindness, the foundation of his artwork, also the foundation of his career. >> i actually moved here to pursue a degree in musical theater. i started doing street art, and that's when a team of artists from l.a. found my street art in soho and offered me an art show in l.a. and that's kind of how everything really got started. >> reporter: wow, that's pretty e in my life that way i should go for it. >> reporter: yeah, take that opportunity. >> i did, and i'll never be happier.

never looked back. >> reporter: for "nightline," zoe lake in new york. >> big things to zoe, and that's "nightline" for tonight. remember, can you always catch our full episodes on hulu. thank you for watching, and goodnight

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