As more bills are being introduced in the state’s General Assembly legislative session, the Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) has continued to update its “Slate of Hate 2024.”
Prior to the start of the session the advocacy group had become aware of bills that they deemed as “discriminatory” and added them to the list. These included bills that would potentially ban Pride and Black Lives Matter flags, as well as access to LGBTQ+ content.
On Tuesday, a bill was filed in the Tennessee legislature that could prohibit gender-affirming resources in local education agencies (LEAs) or public charter school.
Senator Paul Rose (R-District 32) filed SB 1810 which would require school agencies to report any request for “an accommodation to affirm the student’s gender identity to be reported to a school administrator and to the student’s parent.”
“[SB 1810] prohibits an employee of an LEA or public charter school from knowingly providing false or misleading information to a student’s parent regarding the student’s gender identity or intention to transition to a gender that differs from the student’s sex at the time of birth,” reads the bill’s summary.
The bill, if passed, would allow parents and the attorney general to take “civil action” against the “noncompliant LEA or public charter school.”
This isn’t the first bill introduced this session by Rose that has found its way on the list. He also introduced SB 1738, which was passed on first consideration.
Under SB 1738, adoptive or foster parents are not required by the department of children’s services to “support a policy on sexual orientation or gender identity that conflicts with the parent’s sincerely held religious or moral beliefs.”
The summary of the bill is not yet complete, so it is unclear what is defined as “sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Other pieces of legislation that have found their way on the list included HB 1634 and HB 1661.
According to TEP, HB 1634, introduced by Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood), “removes specific sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination protections at school in favor of more general language.” This includes removing the definition of “gender identity” for “purposes of the family life curriculum.”
HB 1661 could potentially have a “chilling effect” on access to “diverse materials” in libraries the group said in an Instagram post.
“This bill authorizes the residents of a district to circulate a petition for signatures for the purposes of prohibiting each library within a district from displaying, distributing, or making readily accessible to minors any content or material in possession of a library that is specified in the petition as not meeting contemporary community standards,” reads the bill’s summary.
The bill would also require libraries to “immediately” remove the material petitioned from “places and locations accessible to minors.”
Social media users have criticized this bill, arguing that this would not stop minors from accessing certain materials.
“Have these legislators ever heard of the internet?” said a user named Stevesmotherman, “Kids do and search it very efficiently. They are exposed to waaaayyy worse.”
The full Slate of Hate 2024 can be found here.
