Bathrooms, ban on discussion of gender & more. What could be added to anti-LGBTQ+ KY bill?

The first of several bills seen by many in the LGBTQ+ community as anti-transgender is closing in on final passage in the Kentucky legislature — but it may change significantly before it does.

Senate Bill 150 has been branded by sponsor Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, as a bill to protect parental rights.

Many LGBTQ+ advocates and Democrats have decried the fact that the bill would allow teachers to decide whether or not to use a student’s pronouns if they don’t conform to the student’s sex assigned at birth.

The bill will change considerably, though, if two sponsors of more controversial anti-trans bills get their way.

Representatives Josh Calloway, R-Irvington, and Shane Baker, R-Somerset, were working on just that Thursday, collaborating and marking up bill drafts with leaders of the socially conservative nonprofit The Family Foundation on a table near the steps up to the House of Representatives floor.

Calloway told the Herald-Leader that he and Baker are hoping to add on parts of their respective education-related bills – House Bills 173 and 177 – to Senate Bill 150 via a committee substitute or floor amendment.

“We don’t have it totally decided yet. All things are being looked at and we’re not fully decided which direction we’re going to go,” Calloway said. “… The goal would be to pass the strongest parental rights and protection for children bill that we can possibly get passed this session. That’s the goal.”

Both Baker and Calloway’s bills are much broader in scope, tackling gender issues and parental rights in education, than Senate Bill 150.

Neither of the legislators’ bills have moved in the House, but House leadership has indicated that Senate Bill 150 is likely to clear the House.

Baker’s House Bill 177 includes provisions similar to a so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law in Florida but goes further, banning discussion on gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or sexual relationships for students of all grades.

Calloway said he thinks every topic in his bill, House Bill 173, is “relevant” to the discussion of what to add onto Senate Bill 150, but some portions might be “more relevant” than others. He did not indicate which parts of his bill he would add.

“It’s a process, it’s a consensus, it’s a team effort, and we’re working together to collaborate,” Calloway said.

The Family Foundation is currently running advertisements on Facebook rallying users to “tell KY legislators to strengthen SB 150 with stronger protections.” It adds: “Parental rights are fundamental!”

House Bill 173 includes a provision barring transgender students from using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity – an idea forwarded in years past, most notably when a bill doing just that failed following the testimony of the late Henry Berg-Brousseau, the transgender son of Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, who took his own life late last year. Similar bills that have become law have drawn significant controversy in other states.

Also on the topic of transgender identity – a preoccupation of the legislature this session – both bills require educators to report to parents if a student requests to use pronouns different than the ones assigned to them at birth.

Calloway’s House Bill 173 also provides a framework for books to be challenged based on the grounds of obscenity and requires schools to work towards not making any such material available to students.

Also under House Bill 173:

• No instruction time could be spent on partisan political positions or teacher-led political advocacy “with respect to controversial subject matter.”

• Educators could not display, within view of students, emblems associated with sexual orientation inconsistent with biological sex.

• Educators could not assert that possessing any set of “immutable characteristics” makes a person responsible for the suffering or adverse experiences experienced by a student or a group of people. That provision appears to speak to conversations involving race.

• Drag performances, including story hours where drag queens read to students, would be banned.

It’s not clear that massive changes to Senate Bill 150, which has drawn less fire in recent weeks compared to Senate Bill 115 banning public drag shows and House Bill 470 banning certain gender affirming care, would well-received in the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, said earlier in the session that Wise and Senate President Pro Tem David Givens, R-Greensburg, are working with House members to make minor changes to the bill.

Senate Bill 150 is not being heard in a meeting of the House Education Committee on Monday, but House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, noted that it could be heard in the same committee later in the week.

It has already received the two readings necessary for a vote on final passage in the House floor if it passes a committee vote. If changes are made to it, the Senate would need to concur with those changes.