NC lawmakers advance bills targeting gender, public school discussions

Senate lawmakers advanced two bills targeting transgender youth on Wednesday, including one that critics say could limit free speech in classrooms. 

House lawmakers on Wednesday sent Senate Bill 442, which sponsors call the Parents Protection Act, back to the Senate to consider proposed changes. Under the bill, parents would be protected from charges of abuse or neglect for not supporting their child in coming out or living as a transgender person. It would also ban adoption services from refusing to place kids in adoptive homes that won’t “enable the child to engage in a gender transition.”

Supporters say the bill is needed to allow North Carolinians to parent according to their beliefs and to provide instruction for social services departments. Those departments shouldn’t develop policies that consider a parent’s views of trangender issues, said Rep. Sarah Stevens, R-Surry.

“It's this body's ability to decide what's abuse, what's neglect, what's appropriate for a foster care home, what's appropriate to remove a child or not remove a child,” Stevens said. “That's what we're doing with this bill.”

Opponents said the bill would harm transgender kids and that it’s unnecessary because many of the things the bill seeks to regulate are already covered by other state laws.

“It puts politicians in the middle of sensitive family situations that are best handled by trained professionals,” said Sarah Crawford, D-Wake. “We shouldn't be writing new laws that interfere with the protections that are already on the books. We should be trusting the process and the people already in place to keep our kids safe.”

A Senate judiciary committee, meanwhile, approved changes Wednesday to House Bill 805, which passed the House unanimously last month as an initiative to crack down on the exploitation of women and children. The bill now includes proposals from Senate Republicans that would define gender as two sexes, bar the state Department of Public Safety from using state taxpayer funds to pay for sex reassignment surgery for inmates, and require transgender North Carolinians to use their original birth certificate in official transactions.

Supporters say such changes are needed to protect taxpayer dollars. State Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wlison, is leading changes to the bill. Citing President Donald Trump's executive order on gender, Newton said earlier this month that the proposal "further ensures that our state maintains eligibility for any and all federal funding and program participation."

Democratic opponents say Newton’s changes are unnecessary and, in practice, would only serve to make life harder for transgender people. The birth certificate provision, for instance, could “out” a transgender person, critics say.

Changes added to House Bill 805 on Wednesday would:

• Allow people to sue medical providers for issues related to gender reassignment surgery for up to 10 years after a procedure was performed.
• Allow public school students to request to be excused from certain course material if they believe the material would “impose a substantial burden” on their religious beliefs.
• Require public school boards to post a list of books available in their schools.
• Require public schools to block students from borrowing certain books, if instructed to do so by that student’s parent.

The bills advanced on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Tennessee in a lawsuit challenging the state’s ban on gender-affirming care. North Carolina is among a group of states with GOP-controlled legislatures that have rolled back transgender rights in recent years.

New proposals face opposition

During the committee meeting Wednesday, supporters of provisions in House Bill 805 praised Senate Republicans for attempting to give parents more influence over what their children see in school.

“A lot of parents around this state have been complaining for a few years now, and this bill solves several problems,” said Tami Fitzgerald, executive director the NC Values Coalition, a group that advocates for socially conservative policies.

Democratic lawmakers objected to the new language and said it shouldn’t be attached to legislation that was bipartisan when approved by the House.

“We had a bipartisan bill — a really solid bill that was really focused on tackling the sexual exploitation of women and girls,” said state Sen. Sophia Chitlik, D-Durham.

The House “sent it over to us, and instead of saying — ‘You know what? Great work. Go team. Let’s do this for the people of North Carolina.’ — we decided to put in a number of amendments that are both not germane to the bill and actually hurt children and families,” Chitlik said.

Democrats said Wednesday’s changes, if enacted into law, would have a chilling effect on gender reassignment surgeries and certain discussions in public school classrooms.

The bill provisions related to public school libraries generated significant discussion. A parent who denies the Holocaust could prevent their child from checking out books related to the event, Chitlik said.

State Sen. Buck Newton, who is leading the changes to the bill, said that parents deserve to know what books are accessible to their child. Newton said he was surprised to receive criticism for the proposals relating to school libraries.

“We’re seeing a lot of instances of libraries being filled up with materials that, at the very least, are not age-appropriate for the children that would check it out — and parents are totally in the dark,” Newton said. “Parents are the ultimate determiners of their children’s education, and we choose to empower them.”

State Sen. Lisa Grafstein, R-Wake, accused Newton of spreading misinformation about public school libraries.

“There’s a narrative out there that librarians — who we all grew up learning from, and being guided by — that somehow they’ve turned evil and they’re trying to harm children,” Grafstein said. “It’s a false narrative, and ‘false narrative’ really is a great description of everything that’s been added to House Bill 805.”

If the Senate passes the bill with the new changes, it will need approval from the House again before going to Gov. Josh Stein’s desk.