(The Center Square) – The Tennessee House of Representatives approved a bill on Tuesday that protects students from discipline if they use social titles that don’t match a teacher’s biological sex.
Senate Bill 1665 also covers teachers, state employees and state contractors.
Rep. Aron Maberry, R-Clarksville, told The Center Square he introduced the bill after questions from constituents and his 14-year-old daughter.
Maberry said a female teacher at Richview Middle School in Clarksville requested the classroom being taught to use “Mx.,” a gender-neutral courtesy title typically adopted by people identifying as nonbinary. Maberry said he also heard that a male teacher at Kenwood High School, identifying as a female, told students to start using “Mrs.”
Knoxville Democrat Gloria Johnson called the bill “bigoted” and “mean-spirited.”
“You’re teaching children to be bigots,” Johnson said. “You’re dehumanizing others. I want to protect all the kids but I also want people in their job to feel welcome, to feel respected and to be called the name and their honorific they want to be called.”
Maberry said the bill protects children from their teacher introducing ideas that contradict objective truth.
“Because what they’re doing is they’re planting the thoughts and the seeds,” Maberry told The Center Square in an interview. “That’s what a lot of this stuff is doing, to try to confuse children, and we’re taking a stance in Tennessee we’re not going to do that.”
The Senate passed the bill on March 9. It now goes to the governor for his signature.
