Will NC schools limit LGBTQ discussion? It rests on this year’s legislative elections.

The fate of legislation that would restrict LGBTQ instruction in North Carolina elementary schools rests on the decisions voters make in this fall’s elections for state lawmakers.

The state House adjourned this month without taking action on the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” legislation that calls for new rules about discussing LGBTQ topics in public schools. Republican lawmakers didn’t have the votes to override a veto promised by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, so they hope to gain a super-majority on Election Day in November.

“If the Republicans have the votes to override a veto, this will be one of their top priorities,” Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the N.C. Values Coalition, said in an interview. “I encourage parents to go out and vote for people who believe they have the right to determine the education for their children and not the activists in schools.”

Allison Scott, director of impact and innovation for the Campaign For Southern Equality, said she is worried about the impact the election could have on LGBTQ rights.

“I’m a trans woman living in North Carolina, living in the South,” Scott said in an interview. “I’ve lived through previous iterations of bad bills. The real goal of all this is to make people like me not be full participants in society. That’s terrifying.”

Limits on LGBTQ discussion

House Bill 755 has been controversial since it was unveiled by GOP Senate leaders in May. Provisions include:

▪ Prohibit instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity as part of the curriculum in K-3 classrooms.

▪ Require schools to notify parents if their children are identified by different pronouns in school records, or by school employees. Critics said this could lead to LGBTQ students being outed, while supporters say parents need to know this information.

Other parts of the bill include guaranteeing parents have the right to access textbooks and other instructional material used in their child’s school.

The sections regulating pronouns, gender identity and sexual orientation have drawn the most focus, including protests by LGBTQ rights supporters. Similar legislation has been filed in other states.

“When bills like this are brought up, it brings a visceral reaction because it makes people think it’s protecting children,” Scott said. “It’s not truthful and not going to do that at all. The truth is LGBTQ people, especially transgender and non-binary students, are disproportionately affected by bullying and harassment in schools.”

But Fitzgerald points to a WRAL poll that found that 58% of respondents would support a ban about teaching gender identity and sexual orientation in K-3 classrooms.

“The vast majority of parents in North Carolina don’t believe in teaching children in kindergarten or early grades about sexual orientation and gender identity,” Fitzgerald said. “That topic should be left to the parents.”

Scott, though, blames the poll results on people thinking elementary schools want to teach about sexual acts rather than telling students that families can be two dads or two moms and not just a a mom and a dad.

Lack of Democratic support for bill

The Senate passed the bill with every Republican — but only one Democrat — in support. That wouldn’t be enough to override a veto.

House Speaker Tim Moore said the House would only take up the bill this year if the GOP had enough Democratic votes to override Cooper.

State lawmakers plan to return once a month for the rest of the year. But Terry Stoops, director of the John Locke Foundation’s Center for Effective Education, said GOP lawmakers told the organization that they don’t plan to bring back HB 755 until next year.

Stoops said the foundation was told there was too much disagreement between the House and the Senate to get the bill passed now. Stoops said some GOP lawmakers thought the bill went too far while others wanted to go further and ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity through the sixth grade.

House GOP lawmakers talked about dropping the K-3 ban to get Democratic support, according to Stoops, but he said it was uncertain if Senate Republicans would back the change. In the end, the decision was made to focus on getting the budget adopted.

Sex ed fight next year?

Waiting until next year will give GOP lawmakers a chance to see how the State Board of Education handles new health standards that are being developed, according to Stoops.

State Department of Public Instruction staff said at last week’s board meeting that it was too soon to say whether gender identity would be included in the new standards.

“We’re not giving up on it, and I don’t think they’ve given up on it either,” Stoops said in an interview. “We would have loved to see the bill reach the finish line this session, but we understand the reasons why it didn’t.”

The decision to apparently let the bill die this year was welcome news for opponents.

“We would like to believe that lawmakers considered the trauma that HB 755 might have inflicted on LGBTQ students of color and decided that moving forward would undermine their constitutional duty to educate ALL of North Carolina’s students,” Jerry Wilson, policy and advocacy director for the Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED), said in an email.

GOP wants supermajority

The legislation is likely to be an issue in campaigns across North Carolina. The election will come at a time when conservative groups in North Carolina and nationwide have complained about what they feel are sexually explicit LGBTQ books being in school libraries.

“I hope that parents will hold the Governor and his Democratic Party responsible when they go to the polls in November for not having a Parents’ Bill of Rights in place,’ said Fitzgerald of the N.C. Values Coalition.

In order to override vetoes from Cooper, Republicans would need to pick up an additional three seats in the House and two seats in the Senate in this fall’s election.

Moore has said Republicans are “very bullish” about their prospects of achieving a supermajority, and said the bill was “certainly the kind of issue that we can take up in next year’s session,” The News & Observer previously reported.

“As a trans woman, I’m always concerned about this,” said Scott of the Campaign For Southern Equality. “As a mom with a child in school. I don’t feel comfortable with any elected body having total control in my state.”