Yesterday, Republicans in the South Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill that would prohibit teaching about gender dysphoria, a mental state in which trans people’s gender identity doesn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth.
The proposed bill, HB 1108, reads, “No instruction in gender dysphoria may be provided to any student in kindergarten through grade seven in any public school in the state.”
Zack Ford of the progressive political site Think Progress has called HB 1108, “the first ‘no promo trans’ bill to actually have traction in the country,” comparing it to “no promo homo” laws currently active in seven U.S. states which forbid teachers from discussing any LGBTQ issues — including LGBTQ politics, queer history, or sexual health — in a positive light.
One of the bill’s supporters, Republican Representative Fred Deutsch, said, “We protect our children that we’re sending to public schools from the influences of other children that are suffering with different disorders.”
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He continued, “I don’t want my grandchildren going to kindergarten and being confused if they’re a boy or a girl. Treat our children with respect, all of them, but let’s not subject them to notions of fancy.”
Deutsch sponsored a failed 2016 bill to prevent trans kids from using the bathroom matching their gender identity.
Related: Arizona Republicans’ new law would fire teachers who discuss “controversial” things, like politics
Ford points out that trans children identify themselves at an early age, and many age-appropriate children’s books discuss the issue. HB 1108 would effectively ban these books and disallow faculty from addressing the trans child’s medical and psychological needs.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative Tom Pischke, has “a 100-percent rating from Family Heritage Alliance Action, South Dakota’s anti-LGBTQ political advocacy group,” Ford writes.
GLSEN and The National Center for Transgender Equality have both criticized the bill as discriminatory.
MarathonBoy
I don’t see how this can be compared to “no promo homo” laws. The “no promo homo” laws banned favorable discussion of gay people and allowed negative commentary. And they applied all the way through grade 12. By contrast, this proposed South Dakota law simply removes the subject of gender dysphoria, without regard to viewpoint, from early grades.
Also, the whole schtick of equating gay issues with trans is tired. Sexual orientation and gender identity are 2 different topics, so the law can treat one in a particular way and the other in a different way.
mr guy
Teaching tolerance and acceptance is one thing. But the broader gender identity ideology promulgated by the currently ascendant trans rights activists is a deeply regressive, unscientific/pseudoscientific, irrational dogma more akin to a faith-based belief system..replete with silenced and persecuted heretics (“tru scum” transsexuals) and demonised women (“TERFS”). Untill it clears out its stables its propaganda doesn’t deserve to be elevated to the status of education
djmcgamester
I’m not sure I understand what it means to teach about trans issues in a school. Even health class didn’t discuss sexuality (in the part where boys and girls are split up) so much as the reproductive organs and how they work. The classroom isn’t where we go to talk about every color of the rainbow. It’s just to learn about how the body works. Why does everything have to be about sexuality these days?
If we’re going to ban things in school, it should be Creationism.
Thad
There really aren’t many trans kids. But I pray those in South Dakota get support from their parents and families. They sure aren’t getting any from their politicians.
BivisibleGuy
As a teacher with a non-binary coworker, we simply refer to them by their preferred pronouns. When asked by children, we explain that some people are boys, some people are girls, and some people don’t identify as either. Even my preschoolers understand this basic notion. Similar to the “how do you explain being gay” trope we had years ago, just adjusting to the developmental age of the children and breaking it down into common understanding (Gary and Paul love each other like mommy and daddy do) is all that is required in education to make roads for people to be able to normalize differences.
MarathonBoy
So you’re lying to the kids, then? Because it is not true that “non-binaries” are real. And because, even if non-binaries were real, they would make up only 0.1% of the population, which means you would be telling the children in your care that 99.9% of the population is only “some people.”
Myles
I think thats exactly what is needed! You don`t have to teach an elementary child the full complexity of gender or sexuality but just open them up to the discussion and normalize it and as they grow the discussion can grow and incorporate the complexities and layers of gender identity and sexuality.
stadacona
Drop the T!
Myles
Banning the discussion of trans identities is what will cause youth to feel alienated and wrong without access to information to their identity. As a transgender individual I had no access to any information of what being trans was and struggled for almost a decade with mental health issues due to not knowing what being transgender was and the possibilities there are to gender reassignment. Teaching youth about gender diversity does not mean all children will see themselves as transgender nor did teaching about LGB identities make every child gay. This bill will increase suicide rates and further the alienation of the transgender community, we need to teach youth about diversity to stop the repetition of ignorance and mis-informed hate.