NC Senate approves bill that would require teachers to out LGBTQ students

Senate Bill 49 Clerk will read Senate Bill 49 Parents

Bill of Rights

Senator Galea is recognized to explain the bill

Thank you Mr

President

This bill pertains to the role of parents in public

education and health care has been very well vetted public

speakers at committee meetings have been very interesting and I

have learned a lot from listening to them talk about

their lives and their families

Each side was very firm and passionate about their views

and each expressed a point of view that was valid

and important to them

Each group saw itself as protecting Children

However their worldviews were vastly different

The challenge of public education is that the classroom belongs

equally to both groups in a space with young Children

who are required by law to be present and who

are not allowed to leave

We have an arm of the government deciding which worldview

to endorse and promote when you have two groups with

opposite views and equal rights to access the space created

by the government

In this case a classroom we must turn to deeper

bigger values

People have due process rights and the state cannot restrict

their rights without a hearing or a chance to respond

And that includes parents of public school Children notification age

appropriate instruction and the consent of parents are vital to

continue confidence of the public in our government run public

schools

Parents are the primary decision makers with respect to their

minor Children not their school or even the Children themselves

Parental rights are most important in matters of medical and

health related decisions even if a child disagrees the parent's

authority to decide what is best for their child is

not diminished

The government is not a partner in raising our Children

Parents have the duty and responsibility to raise their own

Children according to their own cultural social and religious beliefs

opponents to the parents bill of rights

We keep the parents from finding out what the curriculum

is

Place barriers in the parents way and complicate policies with

shrouds of bureaucratic secrecy

The parents bill of rights is really about acknowledging parents

vital role in their Children's lives

It requires local schools to establish one policies to make

parents aware of their rights and to procedures so that

parents can exercise those rights in a meaningful way

It requires that health care practitioners obtain parental consent to

treat minor Children unless an exception applies

I do appreciate Senator lee and senator Barnes working on

this bill with me as well as the staff

I commend this belt bill to you and I ask

for your vote

Thank you

Discussion or debate

It's in a graph seen for what purpose you rise

to debate the bill

You have the floor

Thank you Mr President Mr President

Um I'm new here as you know and I've appreciated

the gracious welcome that you've offered and your kindness and

like everyone who came here to the Senate

I'm I'm sure I came here because I had some

issues that I care a lot about that

My constituents care a lot about and that are important

to the state of north Carolina

These include things like public education mental health services for

folks who need them other disability issues for people in

our communities affordable housing which is becoming a chronic problem

and making sure working families get a fair shake on

the issue of education

Many of us are participated in the hunt holds Howard's

Her Institute several weeks ago which highlighted a lot of

the educational needs and opportunities for investment uh in better

outcomes for our kids

We also had an event about the state of educational

attainment yesterday which uh you mr President and other leaders

including speaker more and the governor spoke where there was

a discussion about the role that enhancing educational opportunity plays

and making sure that we're able to fulfill our obligation

to fill the jobs that are coming here in great

numbers um in the in the in recent years

And certainly in coming years there seems to be a

real clarity about the need for investment and forward progress

when it comes to education

Mr

President there are so many needs in education That should

be a higher priority than Senate Bill 49

I have heard from many parents over the course of

the last few months about the lack of uh things

in their schools like transportation lack of certified teachers in

child's classroom inability to get special education services because of

shortages which is an issue that's close to my heart

because my son benefited from those special education services when

he was a student in the wake County schools and

the list goes on just in the past week or

so

We have had several um code reds in multiple schools

in Wake County

We need to make school safety a priority and it

needs to be a higher priority than Senate Bill 49

Since Senate Bill 49 was filed I've heard from scores

of parents teachers students people in my district who have

a genuine fears about this bill

These are medical professionals

As I mentioned parents students not one parent has contacted

me to say that they were not able to access

information about their child's education

Not one parent has contacted me to say that they

were cut out of decision making about their child or

their child's education

I take the bill sponsors at their word about their

intent with regard to this bill

Um I know senators gaily and Lear lawyers and as

lawyers they know that sometimes intent matters and sometimes intent

doesn't matter in this situation

It's really not intent that matters

It's really consequences that matter

I have sat in on the committee meetings in which

Senate Bill 49 was discussed and heard and as Senator

Gailey mentioned we had a lot of folks come speak

at each of those meetings and we've now heard from

Countless young people and others about the real effects of

Senate Bill 49 and these are folks who have real

and important concerns about this bill and and concerns that

are based in the text of the bill and the

actual impact of the bill

Their concerns are specific to certain parts of the bill

They've read the bill and they understand that much of

it simply restates current law in terms of the rights

that parents already have they identified

And we've identified some key provisions of the bill that

changed current law in particular the provisions that would require

school personnel to out their students who asked to use

a different pronoun pronoun or name

And the provision that is functionally policing of references to

the existence of L

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People in educational materials in the classroom

And so we now know that no matter the intent

the effect and consequence of this bill is widespread widespread

fear and concern and real harm to real people last

weekend which frankly seems like a month ago at this

point

But last weekend there was a mental health legislative legislative

breakfast

And uh Senator Bergen spoke and Senator Woodard received a

very nice award and was also a speaker a lot

of folks from um this body and also from the

House were there the keynote speaker was uh DHHS Secretary

Cody kinsley and he was talking about youth suicide rates

and the rate of youth suicide attempts and he especially

spoke on uh those attempts among L

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Youth

The data was alarming in its data we've heard in

other contexts but it was something else that he said

that drew a bigger reaction from the folks in the

room

He said as a young gay kid in New Hanover

County I can tell you that teachers saved my life

as far as I know I am the only L

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Member of the north Carolina senate

Unless anyone has something they'd like to share at this

point

No Okay I was looking at you senator Perry but

you wouldn't turn around But when I came out you

know in the 1980s uh I can tell you that

I genuinely believed that there was something wrong with me

Um and even though um I've you know grown over

the years and had the opportunity to really come to

as most of us do through adulthood learn a lot

more about who we are and our place in the

world

It was a real and persistent feeling in my youth

over the course of time

And then my high school drama teacher because I was

a drama nerd

My high school school drama teacher wrote four words in

my in my yearbook he wrote Dare to be different

and that small gesture has really stuck with me all

these years because it was what I needed to hear

at the time

So you know I'm amazed at the progress we've made

in the in the last few decades now some of

us count our lives and decades at this point

Um but I'm also saddened that we still have to

have conversations like this one no matter the intent of

the bill

Uh the effect of bills like this is that it

it dredges dredges those of us who are L

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Through public discussions that we didn't ask for and that

we're not particularly enamored of having to engage in

I did not plan for this to be my first

uh debate on the floor of the north Carolina Senate

Um but you know I'm an adult so I can

handle it

You know Secretary Kinsley he's an adult he can handle

it

Um and we made it we're okay

What I want is that other kids make it too

and that they're okay

And I know that that's what we all want

And I believe those who say that what they also

want is for kids to be able to talk to

their parents about these things and this is something Senator

Gayle and I have spoken about and we agree on

I mentioned I have a 24 year old and I'm

confident that there are things that I still don't know

that happened when he was a teenager

So I get it

It's it's frightening when you don't feel like you know

everything that's going on in your child's life

I get it

But we can't make policy based on how we wish

things were

We have to deal with the facts as they are

We can't legislate the quality of family relationships and we

can't legislate away the fact that sometimes young people need

to think and talk things out with someone other than

their parents

I know we all did it when it's your parents

when you're a kid

The stakes are really really high right

And that's why and that's why it's important to have

other adults

It makes sense that young people need to work through

these conversations before they talk to their parents sometimes

So now that we've heard from so many people about

what this means to them and their genuine concern I

feel like we can't pretend that we don't know

And that my concern about rushing through Senate bill 49

is that now that we know we have to act

in accordance with what we've learned

We've not heard why North Carolina needs this bill particularly

except I would say from activists

And you know this again you know senator Gaily made

reference to the fact that folks came out and spoke

on this bill on both sides and that's true

Um we had several lobbyists and activists come to advocate

on behalf of the bill but they expressed positions not

experiences as I said earlier We've heard from so many

people who talked about their experiences and their genuine uh

perspectives based on where they are in their lives

But the activists who came out were not speaking about

their experience

They were talking about ideologies and I came here not

to work on ideologies but to work on issues that

our constituents face focusing on ideology focusing on those kinds

of things that divide us

That's the wrong priority

And if we pass this bill now it will seem

to elevate ideology over what our constituents came to those

meetings and told us and emailed us and called us

to express

It's now just the second full week of the legislative

session

Thanks for the welcome

We all came here to try to solve problems

We all want to solve problems for our constituents

But first we should do no harm

This bill does harm full stop

If you're thinking of voting Yes here's what I'm gonna

ask of you

You know think ahead to tomorrow morning when you get

up and look in the mirror I want you to

be sure to ask yourself this now will you be

sure that you did no harm by passing this bill

That not one young person well feel like they're trapped

and have no one to trust that not one young

person will suffer the consequences of that feeling of isolation

that not one young that not one young person will

be outed to an abusive parent that not one young

person will be added to the 20% of L

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Kids who attempt suicide

There are Kody kinsley's in our schools right now

And God help us

They release a graph teens as well

But there are Cody kinsley's in the new Hanover County

schools in the Alamance County schools in the wake county

schools all across the state

They're in the gallery I think They are hearing about

SP 49 on the news and talking about it on

social media

If you're even a little unsure about whether rushing this

bill through may do them some harm

Please vote now

But I also want those young people um to know

that whatever happens with this bill does not define them

and it does not define their future

Those of us who vote no and those who advocated

against this bill we will have your back and the

progress we've made will continue and not because of what

happens on the floor of the north Carolina senate necessarily

And it may have to be in spite of what

happens on the floor of the north Carolina senate

But progress will happen

And that's because this generation this new generation they're strong

They're smart they have allies and they will see that

progress continues and the last thing I would say to

them Mr President is that they should dare to be

different

Mr President

I yield back

Senator

Mayer what purpose your eyes to debate the bill

Thank you Mr President and Mr

President after so many years in the House

If I ever call you MR speaker I ask your

preemptive forgiveness

You will be out of order if you do that

colleagues

I've rise today um to speak as both a parent

and someone who spent 16 years as a social worker

in north Carolina's public schools

I kinda I couldn't believe it

I've been parenting in North Carolina's public schools for 25

years already

And what's maybe even more startling than that is I

have 10 more years to go

So I have a vested interest in this legislation and

any legislation that we do that at the intersection of

families and schools

And I do absolutely believe in strong school family partnerships

I spent my career working on those but there are

elements of this bill that are going to make it

more difficult to have family school partnerships in practice

The first of those is the provision that sets a

vague limit on how teachers in the early grades can

talk to Children about gender identity sexual identity issues

We agree in policy and practice that sex ed should

start in 5th grade and that's where it is in

our curriculum

But kids in the early grades have lots of questions

you may remember from your own kindergartners for instance about

how many questions they have about people who are different

from them

Families that are different from them

And if you're a kindergarten teacher sitting on the rug

with 23 of those kids and one of them asks

a question it's not too long before there are 23

hands in the air

This bill would allow the teacher to answer those 23

questions but teachers actually have a better educational strategy than

answering all the questions

And it's called reading a good book a book that

answers the most common questions without going too far and

a book that allows them to address everybody's questions without

getting in too much depth to the one kid that

asks the really awkward question that you don't want to

answer before having talked to that kid's parents

This bill would make that more difficult for those teachers

of kids in early grades in the later grades and

adolescents kids need a network of caring adults adults that

have to work together

And as a school social worker I had many challenging

but also important and rewarding conversations with parents about struggles

that their child was facing

Even at times where I was mandated by state law

to make child abuse and neglect reports reports that could

be made anonymously

I always felt it was important to call parents directly

and tell them I was making the report

I thought it was critical to have that level of

trust and transparency with them If I was going to

be able to continue to work with them

But when kids came to tell me something that they

would tell me that they didn't want to tell their

parents when they came in behind my closed door to

say don't tell my parents this

I actually knew that almost all the time they did

want to tell their parents the part of what they

were asking me for was guidance on how to tell

their parents and that could be if it was because

they were gay or pregnant in a gang addicted to

something

Whatever the situation was they want to tell their parents

because they want to be loved by their parents and

they don't want to disappoint their parents but sometimes they

know that their parents are gonna have a hard time

understanding what it is that they want to share

And if they're afraid to come and tell a social

worker or somebody else in the school about a piece

of their gender identity or sexual identity because they're worried

that that person is going to tell their parents before

they're ready then they just won't come and talk to

us at all putting them at further risk that Senator

graph Stein talked about for depression self harm

Heaven forbid suicide

And when they do come to us not just as

social workers but any educator in the school we have

an obligation to protect our students from harm including both

self harm and harm from their parents

The worst experiences of my career were the times that

kids come to me because they were being hurt by

their parents

And in those moments school professionals we need the latitude

to decide how to proceed

It would be unethical for me to inform a child's

parent of something that might lead to that parent abusing

the child

And I will tell you that I believe this bill

would put me in the untenable position in certain cases

of having to make a choice between the legal requirements

of the bill to inform parents of something their child

had told me in the ethical consideration of trying to

protect that child from harm from their own parents

And if I were back in schools and I was

put in that decision I will also tell you that

I would choose protecting the safety of the child over

the legal obligation to tell their parents

Now I think about this from my parenting perspective as

well

I told you I got 25 years in in schools

and 10 more years to go see my wife and

I have six Children at home and you know they

talk about you have to play zone defense at some

period where like our defense is just getting crushed

There's no defense with that many kids

They all have a wide variety of ways of showing

up and we're constantly trying to figure out how does

one of us communicate to one of them when the

other one is run out of patience or when that

child is run out of patience with one of us

one may tell us all the school gossip but another

will keep us guessing as to whether they're interested in

boys or girls or anyone at all

They mainly just want to talk about video games

Sometimes when kids want to talk to their parents and

sometimes they don't want to talk to their parents and

when they don't and you may have experienced this it

scares us as parents when they don't talk to us

And those are moments where we need other adults that

we can trust to have conversations with our Children when

our Children can't have them with us

It's one of the hardest parts of parenting because every

day your child gets over you lose a little bit

of control over them

And you have to put more trust in other adults

We have to trust the bus driver to get them

to school safely

We have to trust their coach to teach them important

moral lessons

We have to trust their teachers to teach them not

just what's good for their mind but what's good for

their body and their heart

So hopefully every day that I have to trust those

other adults I also gain an ounce of trust in

my child including about things that what they tell me

what they want to do for a living that they

understand themselves and who they should become including trusting them

to know when they first fall in love including hopefully

telling us when they've chosen the person that they want

to be in love with forever because I want to

love them in all of those situations and I need

their school to love them too as they figure those

things out educators and parents should absolutely be in part

of partnership and I'm speaking as both an educator and

a parent

This bill undermines that partnership because it falsely assumes that

one side the school side does not believe in that

partnership

If you do want that partnership there is a better

path forward whether it be to support a trans child

or to stop a truant child doing that important home

school connection work requires a partnership that is built by

caring adults over time time that's required when we have

social workers counselors school psychologists nurses and well trained teachers

who can talk with kids about difficult issues and spend

time building relationships with parents and helping to be part

of that network that raises those Children

Schools are where we come together where we build ourselves

out of many into one

We need school policies that support us in that this

bill does too much to break that

We can do better than this bill heard you to

vote against this bill

Thank you

for the discussion of debate

to speak to the bill

Thank you Mr President I just want to respond to

a few of the things that we have heard

I really appreciate Senator graphs seen my law school friend

um in her remarks in their tone and I really

appreciate her bringing the question of doing harm to Children

up

I would say that people who encourage our youth to

keep secrets to keep the the name and the pronoun

we're talking about the name that's in the official school

record and pronouns that are used throughout the school

We're not talking about private conversations

This bill addresses the the name that's in the official

school record and the pronoun that the student is commonly

addressed by in the entire school community

Under this situation where the student would have an expectation

of privacy of those things at school keeping them from

the parent

The entire school is lying to the parents at home

about a very essential thing with their child their child

and that does harm that does harm to the child

into the family

Um Senator Mayer I would direct your attention to page

seven Lines 43 for 45 of the bill

You expressing a concern that you would be um if

a child might be abused or neglected if you were

to you know give information to the parents

The bill specifically says when a reasonably prudent person would

believe that disclosure would result in the child becoming an

abused juvenile or neglected juvenile then the procedures established by

the education unit shall not prohibit parents

Well that's an exception and that exception then they can

prohibit the parents from accessing their child's education health records

Um Senator Mayer you also he mentioned you know the

nice idea of the Children asking the teacher a question

I would submit that when the teacher has asked questions

by the Children that are not pertinent to the curriculum

or the course of instruction the teachers should tell the

child go ask your mom and dad or you know

remember ask your mom and dad those questions

That's not what we're here to discuss

This is kindergarten

We're here to learn to use scissors

We're here to learn to write our names

We're not here to explore gender identity and sexual activity

for five year olds

Um You mentioned uh are well trained teachers was mentioned

um confidential relationships do not exist between minor Children and

government employees The public schools or government schools run by

government employees

And we must not embrace a mindset that considers there

to be a confidential relationship between government employees and minor

Children

That excludes parents from knowing essential information that's in their

official school record

Lastly I will come into you

There is um you know this is uh the whole

idea about what parents should know about a child who

wants to have a transition in their gender

So we didn't even think about this stuff five years

ago particularly and in common discussion there is and it's

hard to find out information about it

However dr Erica Anderson has 40 years of experience in

this field

She works in Berkeley California

She signed an amicus brief just november 21st of 2022

In a case parents versus Montgomery County Board of Education

And on page 10 of her amicus brief this professional

notes every major professional association recommends a thorough professional evaluation

to assess among other things the underlying causes of the

child's or adolescent's feelings and consider whether a transition will

be beneficial

The american Psychological Association recommends a comprehensive evaluation and consultation

with the parents and youth to discuss among other things

the advantages and disadvantages of a transition furthermore

On page 14 she says in her amicus brief to

summarize no professional association recommends that teachers and school officials

who have no expertise whatsoever in these issues should facilitate

a social transition while at school treating minors as if

they are really the opposite sex in secret from their

parents solely because they are concerned that their parents might

not be supportive of a transition Mr President this is

a good bill and I commend it further discussion or

debate

Hearing on the question for the Senate

Is the passage on second reading of Senate Bill 49

all in favor will vote aye

All opposed to vote no five seconds be allowed for

the voting clerk will record the vote

29 having voted an affirmative 18 in the Negative Senate

Bill 49 has passed its second reading and without objection

will be read a third time the General Assembly of

north Carolina and acts Discussion or debate on 3rd reading

Hearing

None question for the Senate is a passage on third

reading of Senate Bill 49 all in favor will say

aye all opposed

No

The eyes have it and Senate Bill 49 has passed

its 3rd reading and will be sent to the house