Bridget Ziegler is an American anti-transgender activist who co-founded right-wing extremist group Moms for Liberty.
Background
Bridget Anne (McGrath) Ziegler was born on July 23, 1982 in Schaumburg, Illinois to Eileen Marie and Kevin Norman McGrath. Ziegler grew up in Wheaton, Illinois and Fort Gratiot, Michigan. Zigler has two siblings.
Ziegler earned a bachelor’s degree from Florida International University.
Ziegler moved to Sarasota, Florida in 2010. There, Ziegler met and married Christian Ziegler (born 1983). They have three children who attend private school.
Sarasota County school board (2014–2026)
Bridget and Christian Ziegler have both been heavily involved in conservative politics in Florida.
In June 2014, Bridget Ziegler was appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis to the Sarasota County school board to fill a vacancy. In August 2014, Ziegler narrowly won a runoff election for Sarasota County Schools, District 1. In August 2018, Ziegler was re-elected after earning more than 50% of the vote in the primary election. In August 2022, Ziegler was re-elected after earning more than 50% of the vote in the primary election. Ziegler’s platform included the following:
- Parents are the primary decision makers for their children – NOT the government!
- Require informed parental consent prior to any services or sexual education.
- Sexual education focused on biology, not pleasure or gender theory.
In November 2025, Ziegler was elected Chair of the school board.
Moms for Liberty (2021)
Ziegler was a co-founder of far-right extremist group Moms for Liberty. Ziegler, Tiffany Justice, and Tina Descovich incorporated Moms for Liberty as a 501(c)4 nonprofit in January 2021. According to a 2023 report in Vice:
Ziegler’s involvement was key for the group’s evolution: She was deeply entwined with the GOP machine both locally and nationally. Her husband is the chair of the Florida GOP, and Ziegler has ties to national organizations like the influential Leadership Institute, an advocacy group that trains conservative activists. She was also photographed at her election night victory party last August alongside two members of the Proud Boys. Ziegler has denied any close links to the street-fighting group, labeling them “a menace” after she appeared in the photo with them. […] Ziegler, Justice, and Descovich, who didn’t respond to VICE News’ request for comment for this article, quickly latched onto the titanic struggle over mask mandates that was raging across the country and used it as a rallying cry for like-minded parents.
Leadership Institute (2021–2023)
Ziegler left the group in Spring of 2021 to help run school-board-campaign trainings at the Leadership Institute, remaining there until resigning in December 2023 amid a sex scandal involving the Zieglers. Ziegler’s since-deleted profile stated:
In 2015, Ziegler co-founded the Florida Coalition of School Board members which served as a rival to the Florida School Board Association (the state chapter of the National School Board Association) where they were instrumental in passing numerous pieces of legislation focused on school choice, parental empowerment, and curriculum transparency.
In 2018, after a local battle regarding transgender bathrooms and Gender Diverse “Guidelines” in Sarasota County- which included language that directed staff to withhold information from parents about their minor children regarding changing their gender at school, Bridget helped draft the Florida Parents’ Bill of Rights with Florida State Representative Erin Grall. After three legislative sessions, Florida’s Parents’ Bill of Rights passed and became law in Florida and played an instrumental role in Governor DeSantis’s Executive Order prohibiting school districts from imposing mask mandates.
Bridget worked with Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice as a co-founder of Moms For Liberty in its early stages of development – which now has over 170 chapters, serving over 100,000 members in 37 states, and continues to grow rapidly each day. Due to its rapid growth and Bridget’s limited bandwidth, she stepped down as a Director in the Spring of 2021 but remains a vocal supporter of Mom’s For Liberty and its mission.
2023 sex scandal
In February 2023, Christian Ziegler was elected chair of the Republican Party of Florida.
In October 2023, Christian Ziegler was accused of sexual assault by someone with whom the couple had a threesome. In the ensuing media coverage, Bridget Ziegler acknowledged participating in the threesome, and police removed a sex tape involving Christian Ziegler, which was reportedly made without the consent of the other participant. Investigation of digital records revealed that Christian Ziegler maintained a mobile phone contact list of potential sex partners titled “The List.”
Ziegler refused calls to resign, and in January 2024 Ziegler was removed as chair of the Florida Republican Party by a vote of 199-3.
According to a 2026 post on Florida Politics:
[Bridget] Ziegler is not just another conservative school board chair. She is a nationally disgraced figure whose family became the subject of jaw-dropping investigative reporting describing how she and her husband, former Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler, were allegedly “on the prowl” in Sarasota bars for sex partners, a saga involving police reports, photographs and videos, and a once GOP power couple reduced to a national embarrassment.
And the truly astonishing part isn’t that the scandal happened, it’s that she stayed. She stayed in leadership. She stayed in the spotlight. She stayed lecturing parents and students about values, discipline, and propriety.
References
Schorsch, Peter (January 16, 2026). Bridget Ziegler is burning down the Sarasota School Board … and handing Democrats the keys. Florida Politics https://floridapolitics.com/archives/774210-bridget-ziegler-is-burning-down-the-sarasota-school-board-and-handing-democrats-the-keys/
Chase, Noah (November 18, 2025). Bridget Ziegler elected chair of Sarasota County School Board. WWSB https://www.mysuncoast.com/2025/11/19/bridget-ziegler-elected-school-board-chair/
Chase, Noah (November 3, 2025). Christian and Bridget Ziegler sue City of Sarasota and detectives, over “egregious violations.” WWSB https://www.mysuncoast.com/2025/11/04/christian-bridget-ziegler-sue-city-sarasota-detectives-over-egregious-violations/
Litwiller, Jordan (December 30, 2024). ABC7 Year-in-Review: The sexual assault investigation into Christian Ziegler. WWSB https://www.mysuncoast.com/2024/12/30/abc7-year-in-review-sexual-assault-investigation-into-christian-ziegler/
Godfrey, Elaine (December 22, 2023). A Sex Scandal. A Conservative Power Network. And Moms for Liberty. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/12/bridget-ziegler-moms-for-liberty-leadership-institute/676950/
Walker, Steven (December 6, 2023). Bridget Ziegler resigns director position at conservative nonprofit Leadership Institute. Sarasota Herald-Tribune https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/06/bridget-ziegler-resigns-position-at-conservative-leadership-institute/71829708007/
Grant, Melissa Gira (August 17, 2023). Moms for Liberty Recruits a New Class of Aggrieved Mothers. New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/174671/moms-liberty-summit-recruits-new-class-aggrieved-mothers?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Gilbert, David (April 26, 2023). A Far-Right Moms Group Is Terrorizing Schools in the Name of Protecting Kids. Vice https://www.vice.com/en/article/what-is-moms-for-liberty/
Resources
Trans Data Library (transdatalibrary.org)
- Bridget Ziegler
- transdatalibrary.org/person/bridget-ziegler
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Ballotpedia (ballotpedia.org)
Bridget Ziegler (bridgetziegler.com)
Leadership Institute (leadershipinstitute.org)
- Bridget Ziegler
- leadershipinstitute.org/contactUS/staff/?staff=7000711 [archive]
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Instagram (instagram.com)