HB 81: Names and Pronouns Bill

 Ladies and gentlemen, and all of us who are neither and/or both. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to Sophie's legislative review and authoritarian bingo extravaganza.

I'm your host Sophie. And in this exciting episode where we're reviewing Louisiana house bill 81, as well as the committee hearing of the same, which took place April 26. 2023.

Just a heads up and this will likely be true of most of our reviews, there's transphobia queer phobia in general ignorance in the recordings we'll hear. And should you follow the links in the notes to the full recording as published by the Louisiana house of representatives, please know that there is mention of suicide and self-harm please take care of yourself, friends.

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Oh, what can we really say about HB 81? It's hyped as a parent's rights bill, but it encourages a wide variety of individuals to go against parents' wishes, at least in the case of a parent that supports their children's decisions. The sponsor says it's necessary, even though everything that the bill covers, other bills do, and those bills were also introduced this session. This bill, honestly, it's just an enigma wrapped in a mystery dipped in transphobia and baked in the warm, warm oven of ignorance and hate.

But, oh, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. Let's hear about the bill from the sponsor Representative Crews.

And it's really about, uh, preventing secrecy If a child wants to, you know, consider a different name or maybe think they've got some dysphoria problems. And if they're gonna be the child thinks there's some kind of confusion there or wants to talk about it, the parents definitely need to be involved in that.

And that's really what this is, is to solidify the parent's rights.

So here the idea, I guess, is that kids are going by names that are not their birth names. And apparently that should be illegal.

You might be asking yourself why some people think kids are secretly changing their names and pronouns. It is of course because of social media. Here's a rep Cruz explaining it to representative Jefferson asking about why this is even necessary as an education related bill and how it will help anything at all.

And last question is, as I've asked a couple of times, how does this improve learning outcomes? Well, it keeps the conversation focused on reading, writing, or etic history, things like that.

Instead of, uh, letting, um, social media peer pressure and all that divert the conversation to things that really are importantly more discussed with parents. And how does social media come into play? I, I didn't get, I, I don't know many kids that don't have social media device and input. So I'm just, a child looks at Instagram, looks at TikTok, whatever outside, they start thinking, well, maybe that's the way I need to be, or need to think, or whatever.

Should this bill become law and the chances dear listener at the time of this recording seemed quite good that it will. This bill will require parents to quote unquote opt in to letting their kids go by names other than those on their birth certificate.

And as you might imagine, this has got a lot of scorn from say folks who might be named Josh, but want to go by Joshua. But don't worry. They've got an amendment ready.

this is one amendment on page two, line 24. It would add a phrase or a derivative thereof so it would read: an employee shall use the name or a derivative thereof for a student that is listed on the student's birth certificate. Would you like to touch on the amendment?

Any? Uh, it's pretty straightforward. A number of people, uh, brought this to me. My son's name is Josh. He'd like to be called Joshua. We're good with that. So if a, a parent and a child and a teacher want to do that, that's fine. Uh, okay. So, uh, I have offered a set of amendments. Any objection, hearing none.

Those amendments are added to the bill.

So all you Joshuas was out there breathe easy. They've got your back. Obviously this bill is not about you. Go about your business.

It's also not about nicknames. Here's Representative Owens asking the tough questions standing up for the voiceless. And I'm talking of course, about his high school friend, Honey Bun.

I assume we're not messing with nicknames either. Like I, I went to high school with a guy, we all thought his name was Honey Bun. Turns out it wasn't. So nicknames are okay.

So it's not derivatives. It's not nicknames. I wonder what they could be so concerned about. Will they actually come out and say it? Here's one of my favorite parts of this session. This was representative Harris, the chair of the education committee, referring to previous conversations he and rep crews have had.

Then immediately you'll hear Cruz denying Harris's memory and characterization of the bill. This, this is just fantastic.

I have a quick question. Uh, representative Cruz, when you and I talked about this bill, this was specifically in your mind, was to give the parents protection when their kids are in school, that no one, uh, is going to, uh, usurp their authority as a parent and try to, uh, uh, you know, visit with them on transgenderism or anything like that.

Is that really had nothing to do with that. It's just simply, I think the parent needs to be involved if the child's gonna change what they identify as or Right.

All right. So it's not about transgenderism. That's good. Oh, I guess in retrospect it seems really silly that we thought that at all. Though you could see why some folks may have thought that it was about trans stuff, right? Especially after listening to the following old man ramble about gender and its effects on Louisiana's abysmal educational standing.

we talk about moving up in education from 48 to 25 or whatever. To me, one of the areas that may slow us down from making those improvements is the confusion this creates in the system because it goes against all the principles of grammar and English.

We can just all decide every day what we want to be called. Uh, I, I watched a video the other day somebody wanted to be called a cat, wanted to be called a bird. You know, how do we find a pronoun for that? You know, we're, we're just making things more confusing in the classroom

Someone speaking on the house, the United States floor this morning, said there's 74 genders now that are legally recognized.

I don't know if there's enough pronouns to cover it all. So that's my thoughts.

Oh, just a quick note here to say that, that thing about 74 legally recognized gender seems to be completely false from what I can tell. I don't know anything about the video he mentioned about that person who wants to be called a cat. Um, as you can imagine, this gentleman wasn't very forthcoming with his citations.

And that is a thing, thank God, that was picked up by representative Jefferson.

Dr. Holloway, you said when we talked about how would this assist in educational outcomes. Yes.

Do you have any data regarding the confusion and the correlation? Uh, have you heard from streams of educators?

thank you for the question, representative Jefferson, I, I, I do not have any statistics. I, I know from being a person with a lot of education also, that anytime we make education grammar more confusing, obviously it becomes an issue that's gonna change The standing, you know, we taught he him for males for a long time. Now we're saying that may not be true.

Okay. So the argument from what I can tell is that he is educated. All right, so we can put that to rest. And as such, he can tell that more time we spend asking each other, our pronouns, an activity that takes about three seconds, but in general, is it done at all in Louisiana, the last time we spend teaching students how to read. I know what you're thinking.

Wow. What a bill, but friends. That is not all. It's a relief to know that Joshua and Honey Bun are going to be okay. And it's always fun to hear old men have opinions about kids these days.

But as a Naya Robinson ACLU lawyer in all around bad-ass points out there's a whole other part of this bill that folks are sort of ignoring for most of this meeting.

I've noticed that we're actually not talking about the whole bill here. We've heard a lot of people speak about the importance of the parental rights movement, and I just wanna acknowledge that on page three, line one of the bill, there is a provision where teachers can choose to not recognize the parent's wishes if it contradicts their religious or moral beliefs.

And so I ask rhetorically, are we really respecting a parent's rights if a teacher can opt out and disregard supportive parents? And that's why a good number of our colleagues and partners today are saying that this bill doesn't cover and support all families. That's all I have. Thank you for listening.

So it seems that this bill ensures that parents must opt in to let their kids be called something that's not on their birth certificate. Ah, not you Joshua and Honey Bun, calm down. And at the same time, it ensures that anyone can simply ignore that parent. But this is still somehow a parent's rights bill. Please. Don't forget that.

So good thing that one educated person was there to explain it all to us. being a person with a lot of education

Opponents to this bill spoke for nearly two hours. Expressing deep fear and rage at the harm this bill will call students from forced outings to suicidal ideation to bullying and the committee's ignorance of basic issues of the queer community was regularly pointed out.

Exhaustion and frustration was the theme of the opposition testimony, especially as the hours crept by. One speaker was escorted out by security at the request of the committee chair. Others were loudly vocalizing criticisms from their seats. I'm not going to play audio from the testimonies. Those are available for anyone who wants to hear, big love to everyone who showed up and spoke out.

But ultimately everyone in the committee voted the way most of us knew that they would. Among jeers and shouts of shame. The chair announced the bill will pass or the full house of representatives.

HB 81 will be moved as amended favorably to the house floor by seven to five votes. Is it? Is it please, I appreciate your time committee. Uh, do I have a, is there a motion to adjourn? Thank you.

So that's my review of Louisiana house, 81 of the 2023 legislative session. I, you know, cannot recommend it. It's an unholy mess of an unneeded and frankly, confusing bill two big thumbs down.

As for the committee meeting for this bill well, it was long and grueling and happened immediately after HB 4 66. If by the way, you haven't heard our review of that one be sure to check it out. If we have a more fun quotes about grooming and social media.

So while I certainly cannot recommend sitting through two committee hearings like this back to back, at the same time hearing from so many beautiful trans and queer folks hearing from so many allies speaking up in the name of decency and basic human dignity was actually life-affirming. The queer community here in Louisiana and our allies are growing stronger. We're more organized, better prepared to resist every time we endure these meetings. And that sense, it's a joy to be a part of it. However, I think we'd all prefer a world in which 📍 this wasn't necessary. So mixed review.

Bingo Time

And now it's time for our authoritative bingo extravaganza.

Please mark the following on your card as they appear.

• Number 1: a parent's rights bill encouraging the negation of a parent's right.

• Number 2: 74 legalized genders.

• Number 3: video in which someone wants to be called a cat.

• Number 4: the nickname honeybun.

• And number 5: the phrase "visit with them on transgenderism"

if you had all five on your bingo card, please give yourself a hug and a high five to a loved one. You are today is winner.

Congratulations to the winners of this exciting episode of Sophie's legislative review and authoritative bingo extravaganza. This is a production of the Louisiana trans oral history project views express hear only my own and probably also my dogs. Thanks to Andrew quo for the original music. Thanks to you for listening.

Be safe out there. Everyone tell the ones you love that you love them. See you next time