A Virginia high school teacher who was fired for refusing to use a transgender student’s new pronouns has filed a lawsuit.

The Washington Post reported that Peter Vlaming filed suit on Monday against West Point Public Schools, a system outside Richmond.

The French teacher was fired in December 2018, having told superiors at West Point high school his religion prevented him from using male pronouns for a student who had informed the school of his transition during the previous summer.

According to Vlaming’s suit, in October 2018 the student approached the teacher and said: “Mr Vlaming, you may have your religion but you need to respect who I am.”

Vlaming, the suit says, replied: “I’m sorry, this is difficult.”

The suit says he reported the exchange to the principal, who told him: “You know what you do to diffuse a situation like that? You say, ‘I’m sorry, I meant to say him.’”

Principal Jonathan Hochman later told a school board meeting considering whether to fire Vlaming he could not “think of a worse way to treat a child than what was happening”.

After Vlaming was fired, the West Point schools superintendent, Laura Abel, said: “Discrimination … leads to creating a hostile learning environment. And the student had expressed that. The parent had expressed that. They felt disrespected.”

According to the TV station WWBT, Vlaming’s firing led to student petitions on either side of the issue and a walkout in which around 100 students carried signs that said: “Men are men. Women are women.”

In his lawsuit, Vlaming says his rights to speak freely and exercise his religion were violated. The suit states that Vlaming “sincerely believes that referring to a female as a male by using an objectively male pronoun is telling a lie”.

Among remedies sought by Vlaming are $1m damages, reinstatement in his job and a declaration that his rights were violated.

He is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based group which the Southern Poverty Law Center watchdog has called “one of the most influential groups informing the [Trump] administration’s attack on LGBTQ rights”.