A Kentucky bill that sought to bar transgender people from teaching has failed.
State Sen. Gex (“Jay”) Williams (R-Verona) introduced SB 351 in early March to prevent transgender people from obtaining or keeping teaching certifications.
Under the bill, anyone reported to state education officials as potentially transgender would have been required to undergo medical exams and submit the results to obtain or renew a teaching license.
The bill also would have barred teaching certificates for anyone “who has been treated for or diagnosed with any disorder that is excluded from the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 by a licensed medical professional, as these disorders were defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM] at the time.”
That means anyone identifying as transgender — which in 1990 was still classified as a “mental disorder” — would be barred from teaching. Health professionals examining applicants would also be required, based on those 1990 DSM definitions, to classify transgender people as “mentally ill” and therefore ineligible for certification.
Williams’ initial bill stalled without a hearing and was withdrawn. He later tried to revive it by introducing an amendment incorporating its language into HB 759 — an unrelated measure dealing with alternative teaching certifications — in a maneuver known as “piggybacking.”
According to Queer Kentucky, piggybacking is against Senate rules, and sources told the LGBTQ news outlet those rules would be enforced.
On March 31, lawmakers removed HB 759 from the consent calendar but never added it to the orders of the day for a full floor vote, preventing the amendment from being formally ruled out of order.
By the night of April 1 — the deadline for passing veto-proof bills — HB 759 had not been given a vote. Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, a longtime LGBTQ ally, would have been certain to veto any bill restricting transgender people from serving as teachers.
Lawmakers still could have pushed through a vote on the measure during the two final days of the legislative session, April 6 and April 7, but did not choose to do so. Furthermore, even if the bill had passed, a Beshear veto would have killed it, and lawmakers would be out of time to hold a vote on overriding that veto.
Lawmakers could still have pushed through a vote during the final two days of the session, April 6 and April 7, but did not. Even if the bill had passed, a Beshear veto would have killed it, leaving lawmakers no time to override it.
The bill’s failure means that, for the first time in years, Kentucky has not passed any new anti-LGBTQ laws during a legislative session. Earlier this year, Kentucky Republicans introduced several such measures, including an anti-transgender bathroom bill, a bill seeking to criminalize drag performances, and one allowing medical providers to deny care based on religious “conscience” objections. None gained traction.
However, as Aleksandra Vaca of Transitics notes, Williams’ attempt to bar transgender people from teaching — and his efforts to avoid transparency while doing so — helped sink the underlying teacher certification reform bill.
“Put a different way, Williams appears to have traded the education of hundreds of thousands of kids for a chance at passing a radical anti-trans proposal,” Vaca said.
A Republican-backed federal bill imposing stricter ID requirements for Americans registering or voting could disenfranchise millions whose official documents do not match their names at birth -- including many transgender Americans.
Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the SAVE America Act, a Republican-backed bill that supporters say will preserve the "integrity" of elections by requiring voters to show photo identification when casting a ballot and requiring states to obtain documented proof of U.S. citizenship from people registering to vote.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little recently signed a bill into law adopting what may be the strictest bathroom ban in the nation, under which anyone who enters a bathroom that does not align with their sex assigned at birth can face prison time.
Idaho already bars transgender students in public schools and universities from using bathrooms that do not align with their sex assigned at birth, and has a separate law requiring multi-occupancy restrooms in colleges, universities, correctional facilities, and domestic violence shelters to be restricted based on a person’s assigned sex at birth. But this new bill goes even further.
Transgender activist Samantha Boucher deliberately violated a newly enacted Kansas law criminalizing the use of bathrooms or other facilities that do not align with a person’s sex assigned at birth.
The founder and executive director of the national nonprofit Trans Liberty, Boucher opposes the law, which took effect after Republican lawmakers overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
Boucher told the Kansas Reflector she came to Kansas on March 31, Trans Day of Visibility, because "no single bill in American history has ever been as aggressive toward the trans community as SB 244," referring to the law by its legislative designation.
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