https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/08/us/missouri-lawmakers-felony-transgender-students-reaj/index.html
Some people weirdly think they have the right to tell others what to believe, what to wear, what to call themselves. The fundamentalist seem to want to force everyone to be like them, live like them, read only what they read. Hugs Scottie
4 minute readClouds pass over the Missouri State Capitol on Sept. 16, 2022, in Jefferson City, Mo.Jeff Roberson/APA newly proposed law in Missouri could charge teachers and counselors with a felony and require them to register as sex offenders if they’re found guilty of supporting transgender students who are socially transitioning.
Missouri state Rep. Jamie Gragg, a Republican, introduced HB 2885 last week. If passed and signed into law, the legislation would criminalize the act of “contributing to social transition” for anyone acting in an official capacity at their school, including providing informational or material support.
The proposed bill joins a string of anti-LGBTQ measures that have been filed in states across the US and comes amid a growing “parental rights” movement that seeks to empower parents to decide what can be taught in classrooms about gender, sexuality and race.
Numerous medical associations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, have said gender-affirming care, like social transitioning, is clinically appropriate for children and adults.
The bill defines social transitioning as “the process by which an individual adopts the name, pronouns, and gender expression, such as clothing or haircuts, that match the individual’s gender identity and not the gender assumed by the individual’s sex at birth.”
In Missouri, a person charged with a class E felony could face a maximum of four years in prison. A Tier I sex offender could also remain on the Sex Offender Registry for up to 15 years, according to another Missouri statute.
CNN has reached out to Gragg for comment.
In an interview with CNN affiliate KY3, Gragg said the goal of the bill is to “put the social learning development of our children back in the hands of the parents.”
“Ultimately, whose children are these? They belong to the family that they come from. If there is a situation where they don’t have that parental or guardian to go back on or to talk to, there is other help, professional help they can get,” Gragg told the outlet.
It is unclear if Gragg’s bill will be taken up in the state House and it has not been scheduled for a hearing.
‘Hateful and malicious’
LGBTQ advocates and Missourians have criticized the bill, including Gragg’s brother.
During a news conference Thursday, Charles Gragg, Jr., a retired and disabled veteran who lives in Springfield, Missouri, said he was shocked by the bill his younger brother authored and that the measure “took his breath away.”
“This bill is removing valuable support that is important for children. It needlessly targets teachers in addition to attacking those that they don’t agree with. It also attacks anyone who expresses compassion or tolerance and seeks to silence them. I believe it’s intended to remove them from the future conversations,” Gragg Jr. said.
Robert Fischer, communications director for PROMO, a LGBTQ+ policy and advocacy organization in Missouri that organized Thursday’s presser, said students and teachers have contacted the group to express concern about how the bill could impact educators.
“We will certainly have conversations with legislators to see what can be done, but also we’ll mobilize our community of LGBTQ+ Missourians and allies to fight back against this because teachers are an incredibly crucial part of our educational system,” Fischer said.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/22/us/pew-survey-curriculum-debate-reaj
GLSEN, an organization that aims to create safe and inclusive school environments for LGBTQ+ youth, also criticized the bill. Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, executive director of GLSEN, said the bill is “deeply transphobic.”
“While this egregious bill is expected to die in committee hearings, it is increasingly alarming to watch extremist state legislators peddle anti-trans hate and continue to introduce discriminatory policies,” Willingham-Jaggers said in a statement to CNN. “Hate speech, especially when enshrined into discriminatory policies like these transphobic bills in Oklahoma and Missouri, leads to hate crimes.”
Oklahoma’s governor signed a bill into law last year banning gender-affirming care for minors with the possibility of a felony charge for health care professionals who provide it.
Last month, Nex Benedict, a nonbinary high school student in Oklahoma, died a day after they told their family they were involved in a fight at school. Civil rights groups and advocates have blamed a heightened and hostile climate against the LGBTQ+ community for contributing to Benedict’s death.
In 2023, at least 510 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures, according to data from the American Civil Liberties Union. The organization is also tracking 478 bills in the 2024 legislative session that restrict LGBTQ rights.
Gragg Jr. said he has not spoken with his brother about the bill and does not know what would inspire him to sponsor it.
“It’s just hateful and malicious. This legislation will cost lives and recklessly destroy others just for the sin of being compassionate.”
CNN’s Jen Christensen contributed to this report.
Scottie's Playtime 
what the actual FUCK?????
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Hi Suze. Yes, supporting kids who are different from the majority is a criminal offense. No one is allowed to be not straight or cis. Everyone must conform to the bible as it was written 2,500 years ago before people knew to wash their hands. Every child must be forced into a 1950s mold of society, and any teacher that helps a child accept being different or accepts a nonconforming kid is a sexual criminal that must be punished with lifetime harassment. Hugs. Scottie
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makes me want to get my teaching cert back and go start hanging up my various rainbow flags all over classrooms! What utter tripe! Disgusts me that I actually live in a world where otherwise rational people can ignore or condone this attitude. I seriously want to hurt some people right now! ARGGGG!
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Hi Suze. Thank you. I love your feelings on this. Sadly the goal is to make everyone like you and other tolerant accepting people who are willing to teach targets for harassment. Well in truth they are targeting all of us that are tolerant and accepting. But Suze, while they want to be intolerant to others, they demand the rest of us be tolerant of them and accept their religious views as sacred. Normal people would give others what they wanted for themselves, but not these radical fundamentalist republicans. Hugs. Scottie
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I’m just waiting for laws that prohibit parents from supporting their LGBTQ+ kids’ lives and choices
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Hi E.A. Oh I think that has come. In Texas, the AG Paxton claimed that supporting a child to socially transition was child abuse and demanded the Child Protective Services Division to investigate and charge / jail parents of trans kids. The courts quickly shot it down, but at least two families were investigated, a lot of people in the division quit, and families that could moved out of Texas. Other republican right wing figures keep pressing this idea that supporting a LGBTQ+ kid and not forcing them into conversion therapy is child abuse.
E. A., it is a complete drive to erase all social gains since the 1950s, roll back all gains in equality and acceptance of those different, and to install a fundamentalist religious view of what should be allowed in society. They want to wipe all acceptance, all tolerance, all mention or view of LGBTQ+ people from society / public view.
In three red states, total bans on any gender affirmative care has been allowed to be enforced by the SCOTUS. So if you are a supportive parent of a trans child … well you can be prosecuted if you keep letting your child transition. The problem is trying to get the medical care for your child to do it.
What do these parents do? If they had the ability to leave they would have. What do the kids do, they have been transitioning and now are being forced to revert to what they were desperately trying to change? These kids will kill themselves.
Also in several red states laws protecting conversion therapy have been introduced. Not sure yet how many will pass. But it seems a total war on anyone being different from the straight cis Christian model. Thanks for the comment. Sorry this got so long, but there was a lot to say. Hugs. Scottie
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I really, really wish they’d address the huge problem of truly abused, molested, and raped kids, and enforce their “sex offender” statutes on those perpetrators. I think we know to whom I refer.
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Hello Ali. I agree. But we all know why they never will and why they go after the LGBTQ+ with the most made up crazy claims they can. First they can not crack down on the very people we all see reported in the papers as the perpetrators, the ones with huge multiple victims lawsuits against them, Because their base are supporters, followers, they are members of those organizations. Plus they can not go after the laws that allow minors to be … married because their base loves those laws and some of their own members champion them. Heck while I think 17 years old is old enough to decide to have sex, it is still illegal for Matt Gaetz to have had sex with that minor female.
And what infuriates me is the rhetoric they use the most outrageous stories and false claims to create anger and fear of the LGBTQ+ people and their supporters. It has been that way for a long time, they were telling boys in the 1950 / 60s to beware the homosexual man who will kidnap you, do a bad thing to you, and make you forever like them. And teachers are groomers wanting to have sex with or make trans your little child because they stopped the bully who was yelling slurs or they showed your clearly questioning child a book about maybe who they were feeling. It is about causing the other to be looked at differently / badly to gain political power. Look at the Mom’s for Liberty and the maga republican who ran on family values kill the gays platform who were involved in an extramarital affair with another woman, and this was not the first time. See why they can’t really do anything about the real villains. Hugs. Scottie
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