Kansas City Star. December 20, 2023.
Editorial: Missouri law could force public schoolteachers to out transgender students
Missouri already faces a massive teacher shortage in its public schools. What will happen if educators are forced to betray their transgender students — or else face the loss of their careers and livelihoods?
Unfortunately, we may find out soon.
H.B. 1739 — which bills itself the Parents’ Bill of Rights 2024 — is one of a host of anti-LGBT bills pre-filed by Missouri lawmakers ahead of the 2024 legislative session, which starts next month. It is sponsored by state Rep. Doug Richey, a Clay County Republican who is running for a promotion to the state Senate.
Much of the bill is relatively innocuous: It would guarantee parents and guardians the right to important pieces of information about their child’s public school education — the names of teachers and guest lecturers, access to their student’s education and medical records, and information about medical records.
That seems reasonable enough. We expect that most Missouri schools already have such policies and procedures in place.
It’s the rest of H.B. 1739’s text, though, that is potentially harmful: Teachers and other public school employees would be ordered to out transgender students to their families.
How? Richey’s bill would require educators to inform parents immediately if a student approaches them “to express discomfort or confusion about the student’s documented identity.” It would also order those same teachers to also quickly notify parents “if a student asks a school official to refer to the student using personal pronouns that are associated with a gender other than the student’s documented identity.” And the legislation would mandate that classroom educators call students only by names approved — in writing — by their parents.
The bill would also prohibit teachers from encouraging students to undergo gender reassignment therapy or surgery. Fair enough, we suppose: Teachers who listen empathetically shouldn’t encourage students to undertake a gender reassignment, or give any surgical advice, actually.
Punishments would be harsh.
Teachers who violate the requirements could have their license revoked or suspended on charges of “incompetence, immorality or neglect of duty.” School nurses could be tagged with the stigma of “unethical or unprofessional conduct involving a minor.” Other officials could be banned from working in public schools for up to four years.
Educators who inform on colleagues for violations, on the other hand, would be offered protections under the state’s whistleblower law.
The point is clear: Richey’s bill would close off some of the few remaining safe spaces left to many transgender students in Missouri — and do so by threatening the careers and livelihoods of our state’s educators.
We would hope that every student has a warm and supportive family environment to honestly explore any questions they have about gender and identity: These issues can be complicated and deeply personal, after all. But those supportive environments aren’t always available. Richey’s bill would make it impossible for young people even to hint at their questions with other trusted adults in their lives.
More broadly, the legislation would probably make it that much harder for Missouri public schools to hire and retain teachers. That is already a huge problem in the Show-Me State.
“The earlier generation became teachers and stuck with it,” Jon Turner, a retired teacher and associate professor of educational leadership at Missouri State University, told The Star last year. “That doesn’t happen anymore, because of the stresses of teaching, the politics involved in teaching.”
Richey’s bill would only add to those political stresses. Who would want to work in a Missouri public school, knowing they could lose their job at any time because a student came to them to discuss a deeply personal issue? The legislation seems designed to keep the state’s public educators looking over their shoulders — or out of the profession entirely.
Then again, that may be the least of Richey’s concerns: He has also pre-filed legislation to create a tax credit for Missouri parents who send their kids to private schools, a so-called “universal school choice” bill that would inevitably undermine the state’s support for public schools.
Missouri Republicans appear determined to make the state ever-less welcoming to its LGBT residents. That’s a tragedy. Worse, their crusade threatens to undermine other institutions, like community schools, that form the backbone of public life in this state. And that will make the state less welcoming for all of us.
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