State Bill Seeks To Not Require Teachers To Use Students’ Preferred Pronouns
In a slew of legislation taking aim at transgenders, a new bill would protect teachers from litigation if they refuse to use a student's preferred pronouns.
Florida might have the nation’s attention for a slew of anti- LGBTQ legislation, but another state is making waves right on the sunshine state’s heels. Tennessee was one of the first states in the nation to pass legislation targeting transgender students last year when they banned them from playing school sports opposite of the gender their birth certificate shows. They even recently took it a step further, with a bill seeking to further punish districts that don’t comply. Yesterday, another bill targeting transgenders was hurdled forward, and it concerns the use of preferred pronouns used inside schools.
The measure is being jointly introduced in both the House and Senate. House Bill 2633, sponsored by Republican Rep. Mark Cochran, was voted through the House committee on April 19th in a 5-1 vote. The Senate version introduced by Republican senator Mike Bell, SB 2777, passed through a similar committee at the end of March with a 6-1 vote. Both bills seek to protect teachers’ and educators’ rights by stating that educators are not required to refer to students by their preferred pronoun if that pronoun is not aligned with the student’s biological sex assigned to them at birth. The legislation goes further, protecting teachers from civil liability if they refuse to use the student’s preferred pronoun.
A similar case regarding this legislation made headlines recently in another state. Nicholas Meriwether, a former philosophy professor at Shawnee State University in southern Ohio was awarded $400 thousand from a lawsuit against the school regarding his refusal to call a trans student by their preferred pronoun. Back in 2018, the school launched an investigation after the incident and claimed that the professor had created a “hostile environment” in the classroom. The decision to award him his suit was made in the name of “free speech.”
Free speech is the hot phrase used in the debate over the Tennesee bills targeting preferred pronoun use in schools. Senator Mike Bell spoke via Chanel 9 news for his reason for sponsoring the bill. “This is about compelling a message they may or may not agree with,” Bell said in reference to teachers. House Representative John Ragan, who also voted in favor of the bill discussed the need to protect free speech under the legislation. “I believe the Supreme Court has ruled that for speech is a violation of free speech, if you visit adverse effects on someone for not saying something the way that you want them to. That is for speech, sir. So therefore, protecting teachers who do not want to do this is not anything that I see is wrong,” he said.
Some of the proponents of the preferred pronouns legislation even compared freedom of religion as a need for the bill. One legislator said, “If I said I don’t believe in your God. You know, Christianity is not real, I’m going to be in trouble. Right? Like, if that isn’t, that’s a human rights issue. So these things are equitable, they’re the same. And it works both ways. Our beliefs, our identities and our liberties need to be protected.” Yet proponents clapped back at these comments acting as if gender identity and religion could be synonymous, citing notions that plenty of trans people are in fact, Christian.
But while the Republican trifecta in the state’s government might be filled with voices of support for the preferred pronouns legislation, plenty of LGBTQ+ and trans advocates in Tenessee voiced their thoughts against the bill. Signaling the bill would only further put a target on certain students in classrooms, a GLAAD spokesperson said that it’s all about respect. “Pronouns are not assigned to gender and everyone deserves to be able to use the pronouns that they connect with.” One state high school counselor spoke to the committees, discussing how he feared it would affect some of his students. “I know that being the most effective responsive school counselor I can be means honoring and respecting my students’ identities, even when they are different from my own. Students learn best when they are in environments where they feel safe and supported,” he said.
One major thing that is imperative to point out about the controversial preferred pronouns bills is that it does not bar teachers from using a student’s pronouns, it only protects teachers who refuse to use them from litigation. Both bills will now be sent to the vote of the full chambers. If the legislation moves forward, it will without a shred of doubt be signed into law by the state’s Republican governor, Bill Lee.
