A handful of bills targeting LGBTQ students and their schools will be up for discussion in various committees this week at the state Capitol. Here’s a rundown.
HB2633, House sponsor Mark Cochran (R-Englewood)
A bill sponsored by Rep. Mark Cochran (R-Englewood) and Sen. Mike Bell (R-Riceville) would ensure that schools and school employees are not civilly liable if they refuse to use students’ preferred pronouns. A fiscal note on the bill indicates that “the requirements of this legislation could be in violation of Title IX and U.S. Department of Education policies and could jeopardize annual federal funding.” The bill will be discussed in the Senate Education Committee and the House Finance, Ways and Means subcommittee on March 30.
HB1895, House sponsor John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge)
Last year, lawmakers passed a bill requiring middle and high school transgender students to play on sports teams that reflect the gender on their birth certificate, as opposed to their gender identity. However, in November, the Metro Nashville Public School board refused to add aspects of this legislation to its policy. This year, another bill was introduced to make sure districts enforce this legislation. The bill, sponsored by Rep. John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge) and Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald), would require the education commissioner to withhold funding from districts that don’t determine student athletes’ genders based on the student’s sex assigned at birth. It passed during the March 29 Senate Education Committee meeting and will be discussed on the House floor on March 31.
“High school sports are for the most part regulated by [the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association],” Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) tells the Scene. "This is policy searching for a problem, and the TSSAA should promulgate rules and regulate things as they see fit related to high school, K-12 sports, and it should not be something that we're doing on a state level. And as far as the collegiate [sports], again, the NCAA regulates those policies. I think this is a direct aim at them having a more open-minded approach to those policies, and you don't want Tennessee to be an outlier and potentially even be in conflict with our sports conferences that we're a part of."
HB2316, House sponsor John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge)
Another bill sponsored by Rep. Ragan and Sen. Hensley addresses trans athletes in higher education. The bill specifically states that those who were assigned male at birth cannot participate in female sports in public colleges and universities, or in private universities that compete against public ones.
“This bill is trying to level the playing field for female athletes,” said Hensley in a Tuesday committee meeting. “These college athletes are competing on a high level, they've trained, they're in college competing, and when they have to compete against a biological male, it's just not fair.”
“Being involved with competitive sport, from athlete to occasional event announcer, I have experience on just what female trans participation in sport can really mean,” said Dahron Johnson, a Nashville-based chaplain and cyclist who testified on this bill on behalf of Sen. Akbari in the same committee meeting. “I asked a competitor, one who's raced with me many times over the last year, how she perceives my involvement. And her reply was this: ‘Dahron shares the same vision that all the other ladies who tow the line at our races do, to test the limits of our own bodies, to race in a safe and ethical manner, and to build relationships and community in sport.’”
The bill will be discussed in the Senate Education Committee and the House Civil Justice Committee on March 30.
HB0800, House sponsor Bruce Griffey (R-Paris)
Though this bill sponsored by Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) and Sen. Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) will not make it to the floor, it aimed to ban the use and adoption of textbooks that “promote, normalize, support, or address lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, or transgender issues or lifestyles.”
Not only does this kind of legislation negatively impact many LGBTQ students' mental health, but it could lead to schools losing funding. Tennessee lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree that public school students need more funding, yet these bills aim to make funding conditional.
“I think that we … need to spend our time focusing on making sure our kids read on a grade level, that they are graduating and can move into some sort of post-secondary education or training and that we are just continuing to move our state forward financially,” says Sen. Akbari. “These are cultural war bills that really have no place in our legislature. They don't help the people of Tennessee, if anything they cause a harmful discussion.”
