Stephen Sawchuk, a veteran journalist at Education Week, has compiled a summary of current legislation that would limit or eliminate any teaching that includes references to LGBT topics. Legislators seem to believe that teachers are willfully indoctrinating students to become gay, which insults teachers. Teachers have become suspects, “grooming” students for a “gay lifestyle.” Legislators apparently believe that if no one talks about people who are gay, students won’t become gay.
Sawchuk writes:
At least 15 states are considering bills in the 2021-22 legislative session that would affect ways of discussing, addressing, or interacting with LGBTQ youth in schools, according to an Education Week analysis.
The bills—nearly 30 of them in all—variously take aim at school clubs for LGBTQ students, would put limitations on teachers’ and students’ use of gender pronouns, and would restrict or proscribe curriculum, instruction, and library books that feature LGBTQ themes, an Education Week analysis finds. They are only a subset of what LGBTQ-rights organizations have described as a sudden explosion of legislation aimed at LGBTQ people in 2021 and 2022.
Education Week’s analysis shows that, while few of the proposals have passed as legislative sessions come to a close, they often go far beyond Florida’s much-discussed recent legislation, which forbids certain topics in grades K-3.
The bills generally echo broader fears that educators are indoctrinating students in liberal ideas or about social justice. That discourse has fueled legislation aiming to curb how racism and race are discussed in classroom settings. In fact, Education Week found that many of the LGBTQ provisions are located in broader legislative packages that address those topics, or are otherwise styled as a “parent bill of rights.”
Quite a few of the laws take aim at transgender students in particular—a newer theme that has gathered steam in recent legislative cycles. In 2017, many states considered proposals to require trans students to use bathrooms and changing facilities that matched the sex on their birth certificates. In 2021 and 2022, lawmakers have considered restricting which sports teams trans women can play on.
The latest crop of proposals, say those who have studied them, reflects both old and new anxieties.
“Because of all the Zoom schooling, a lot of parents have had a peak into the classroom, and those that didn’t have read or seen reports that in some classrooms some very unorthodox, very liberal, LGBTQ+-type and other controversial position statements and lessons are being taught,” said Arizona Rep. John Kavanagh, who sponsored a bill in that state that would require parents to sign off on students’ decision to join an LGBTQ club at school. “I’m not saying it’s pervasive throughout the school system, but I think a lot of parents want to be assured it’s not something their students are being exposed to, if it’s controversial to the foundational beliefs of the parents.”
But in another sense, the fear driving these is older, said Chris Sanders, the executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project, which advocates for LGBTQ people in that state. He pointed to the plethora of bills that address mental health screening, social-emotional survey tools, and sex education.
“One of the old accusations against our communities, and I think this fits into this, is that mental health screenings are this tool to be used to find out who might be gay, and somehow these tools might be used to help solidify people into gender identities or sexual orientations that aren’t cisgender,” he said. “It’s the old accusation of recruiting.”
Education Week has grouped legislation into several categories.
Note: We have not included bills that would outlaw gender-affirming care for transgender people, except those that specifically implicate school personnel. We have also not included bills prohibiting trans athletes from participating on school sports teams that match their gender identity; such legislation has now been passed in 12 states and introduced in many others. We have included only curriculum-related proposals that specifically mention LGBTQ students, though other, broader proposals could also lead to censorship of books and materials with LGBTQ themes.
Curriculum and instruction
The most widely known bill on these topics is Florida’s law, which prohibits instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for students in kindergarten through 3rd grade and says in later grades, teaching must be “age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate.” The law has already been challenged in federal court. An Ohio proposal introduced this week lifts the Florida bill’s language.
A Tennessee bill would prohibit schools from adopting or using textbooks or materials “that promote, normalize, support, or address lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) issues or lifestyles.”
A Louisiana bill would prevent any teacher or school employee from covering the topics of sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through 8th grade, and it would prevent them from discussing their own orientation or gender identity as well.
An Iowa proposal would require parents to opt in in writing to “instruction relating to gender identity.”
A Kansas parent-rights and curriculum transparency proposal, as introduced, would have prevented both public and private entities from using materials that included depictions of homosexuality. A substitute version eliminated that language, but still would designate some materials as recommended for parental review for their “sexual content.”
One Arizona bill would change the curriculum of sex education to “emphasize biological sex and not gender identities.” A second bill in the state would prohibit schools from giving students “sexually explicit materials.” Initially, the proposal included homosexuality in that definition, but that language was stripped out before it was passed in the House.
A South Carolina bill would prohibit state entities, including schools, from subjecting minors to “instruction, presentations, discussions, counseling, or materials in any medium” that involves topics including “sexual lifestyles, acts, or practices” or “gender identity or lifestyles.”
A Missouri bill would prevent public schools from requiring students to engage in “gender or sexual diversity training,” as would an Indiana bill; a South Carolina billwould extend that to teachers, staff members, and district employees. The language in these bills is identical to draft legislation prohibiting such training at the university level, which has been introduced in numerous states, but lawmakers in only these three states appear ready to extend it to K-12 education.
Gender-affirming care
Three states—Alabama, Arizona, and South Carolina—have introduced a version of legislation called the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act. Its primary focus is to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors—a spectrum of services that can include the use of drugs to delay puberty and cross-sex hormones. (Sex-reassignment surgery is exceedingly rare before age 18.)
Student clubs
An Arizona bill would require students to get their parents’ written permission to participate in a group or club involving “sexuality, gender, or gender identity,” and allows parents to review foundational documents of any such club.
A Tennessee parents’-rights proposal does not specifically reference LGBTQ clubs, but would require parents’ permission for students to participate in clubs, and would allow them to see which library books their children had checked out, among other things.
Disclosure of student pronouns/gender identity
A Wisconsin proposal includes parent’s rights to choose pronouns in a larger parents’-rights piece of legislation; the bill has been approved by both chambers in the legislature but has not yet been signed into law.
An Iowa bill would require schools to give a week’s notice to parents before educators ask students which pronoun they prefer or before administering a survey on pronoun use, and to send them the response upon request.
A wide-ranging Rhode Island bill would also require children to “be addressed by their common names and the pronouns associated with their biological gender” unless parent permission is given to change them.
An Indiana proposal would include parents’ written consent for students to receive sex education, including on “transgenderism” [sic]; it would also require parents to give consent for medical inspections or mental health treatment, including on counseling about “gender transitioning issues,” pronoun selection, and referral to other agencies that provide these services.
An Arizona parents’-rights proposal initially stated that school officials cannot “withhold or conceal,” or “facilitate, encourage, or coerce” students to conceal, a student’s gender identity or “requested transition” if it doesn’t match their biological sex. Parents also would need to consent before students are asked questions on a survey about gender expression, perception or stereotypes. Both provisions were removed before the bill advanced.
A North Carolina bill, while primarily focused on outlawing gender-affirming care, would also require any state employee to report to parents if a minor has “exhibited symptoms of gender dysphoria, gender nonconformity,” or “otherwise demonstrates a desire to be treated in a manner incongruent with their biological sex.”
Library materials
Two proposals in Oklahoma would submit library books to scrutiny over sexual themes; one of them specifically would prohibit public schools or libraries from holding or promoting “books that make as their primary subject the study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender issues or recreational sexualization.” It would also prevent teachers from administering a survey about gender or sexuality.
Teacher beliefs/use of pronouns
The language appears in one Ohio bill and two South Carolina bills.
A Tennessee bill would indemnify teachers who refused to use a student’s pronoun that is different from their biological sex. It would make them not civilly liable for doing so and shield them from penalties or firing.
The context for this legislation is a handful of lawsuits in which teachers have allegedly been disciplined for refusing to use a student’s preferred gender pronoun, or for speaking against a policy that required them to use students’ preferred pronouns. The most high-profile instance occurred in Loudoun County, Va., and ended in a settlement.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is sad that states are getting involved in what is a personal matter for very vulnerable students. For some students parents are the biggest hurdle as certain religious or cultural groups totally reject LGBTQ young people. The right is determined to spread baseless propaganda about public schools to denigrate them any way they can at the expense of vulnerable young people caught in the middle of a culture war. Red states are jumping each other’s biased bandwagon with laws that impact people of color, LGBTQ youth, and women’s personal rights.
When the Dems keep quiet and/or deny a problem, STUPID laws will be written/enacted by the other side that will hurt many people. Most of us caught in the middle territory of politics are mentally exhausted and will vote for some sanity to stop the upheaval….expect the red wave.
https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/walking-the-transgender-movement-away-from-the-extremists/
I will not comment further.
Not so sure about a red wave.
GOP has fallen into a QAnon hole.
Just out of curiosity, how can I determine a student’s gender? I know how I used to find the sex of a calf. If you know what you are doing you can sex a chicken. Anybody want to see me determine the gender of a student ?
I think we ought to just be kind and careful.
Agree emphatically with the last statement.
But to answer your last question, just ask.
If sex is the biological inheritance and gender is all the cultural expressions traditionally or commonly associated with a particular biological inheritance, then the former is mostly given and the latter is assumed (often and largely unconsciously, but not necessarily so). For example, I used to teach my theatre students how to do typical walking like a boy and walking like a girl. If you actually go out and film males and females walking, you will find that there are definite gender differences ON THE WHOLE–so definite that these can be taught to an actor who must, for example, convincingly play Rosalind AND Ganymede in As You Like It or Viola AND Cesario in Twelfth Night.
Understanding this distinction between sex and gender would go a long way toward clearing up a lot of the current muddy thinking about this subject AND would help young people to understand that if they are experiencing dysphoria with regard to their biological sex, they can take steps related to gender expression until they are old enough and mature enough and experienced enough to consider more dramatic steps, such as hormone therapy or surgery.
Hilariously (if you have a very dark sense of humor), the right-wing is blaming the explosion of expression of varying sexual orientations and gender identities among teens on teachers when, ofc, this is primarily a GENERAL CULTURE PHENOMENON that takes place in mass media, in young people’s texts and conversations with one another, etc.
And IRONICALLY, this wave of repression will have among teenagers PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE OF ITS INTENDED EFFECT, as anyone who has worked with and knows teenagers would be able to tell you. This is a war that the right will not and cannot win.
News flash, right wingers: that ship has sailed, that train has left the station, that cat is out of the bag, you can’t unscramble that egg, we’ve crossed that Rubicon, you can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube, it’s no use closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, you can’t unpick a pepper, you can’t unknow what you know or unlearn what you’ve learned. Or, as Lady Macbeth says, “What’s done is done; it cannot be undone.”
Thank you, Mr. Sawchuk, for this roundup of proposed codification of bigotry nationwide.