Score another win for jerks at the Iowa Statehouse.
This time, it’s a bill moving through the Iowa Senate that would bar school districts from punishing teachers, staff or students for refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns and names. It cleared a subcommittee last week.
Lawmakers never seem to run out of ideas for kicking trans kids and other students who don’t conform to Republicans’ rigid vision of “normal” The Trump administration is working overtime to demonize trans Americans.
Backers contend their speech rights are violated by compelled speech forced on them by school boards. I’m generally sympathetic to arguments for free speech.
But not everyone agrees.
“Teachers should be reprimanded if they cannot do their job with fidelity by protecting and treating all people in their classroom with dignity, period,” state Sen. Molly Donahue, D-Cedar Rapids, a longtime educator and behavioral specialist, said during the subcommittee hearing.
Another good point.
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But the most important question in all of this is why do we even need rules and punishments? Is it so difficult to just accept kids’ preferences? Maybe avoid embarrassing them, singling them out and making them some sort of example.
After being rebuked, these kids will sit in class, isolated, marginalized and scared of what might happen next. To them, this is one more attempt to wipe them from existence. They’re being attacked from all directions.
Does the bill create a learning environment where trans kids can excel? Nope. What if parents want the school to use preferred pronouns and names? Sorry, parents’ rights aren’t for you.
So, you’ve added to another human being’s difficulties and struggles by making it all about you and your beliefs. That’s pretty jerkish.
But this is, after all, a golden age of jerkism. Everywhere you look, there are jerks.
The president and vice president are jerks, just ask Haitian immigrants and women who own cats. Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth is a drunken jerk. Robert F. Kennedy Jr is a jerk who once claimed a journalist’s kid probably got leukemia because he and his wife got him fully vaccinated. Elon Musk is the world’s richest jerk.
So, jerks run America.
And I’ve heard many lawmaking jerks claim this tiny group of transgender people are going to invade bathrooms, annihilate women’s sports and destroy American society. None of this stands up under scrutiny, but it makes for damn good politics.
Oddly, they never mention the fact that gender identity has been in Iowa’s Civil Rights Code for going on 18 years. Surely, the sky will fall any minute now.
This ugly political battle is spilling into classrooms. Some teachers apparently believe using a kid’s preferred pronoun and name is a tacit endorsement of some sort of transgender agenda. It is not.
It’s just a gesture of kindness, a small courtesy and a dose of decency to make their day a little less scary. Empathy. I know, it’s now a dirty word.
No one is asking you to sell your soul. Just don’t pile on a kid who is making a very simple request. Don’t be another problem for kids who need support.
And most of all, don’t be a jerk.
www.thegazette.com
This time, it’s a bill moving through the Iowa Senate that would bar school districts from punishing teachers, staff or students for refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns and names. It cleared a subcommittee last week.
Lawmakers never seem to run out of ideas for kicking trans kids and other students who don’t conform to Republicans’ rigid vision of “normal” The Trump administration is working overtime to demonize trans Americans.
Backers contend their speech rights are violated by compelled speech forced on them by school boards. I’m generally sympathetic to arguments for free speech.
But not everyone agrees.
“Teachers should be reprimanded if they cannot do their job with fidelity by protecting and treating all people in their classroom with dignity, period,” state Sen. Molly Donahue, D-Cedar Rapids, a longtime educator and behavioral specialist, said during the subcommittee hearing.
Another good point.
ADVERTISING
But the most important question in all of this is why do we even need rules and punishments? Is it so difficult to just accept kids’ preferences? Maybe avoid embarrassing them, singling them out and making them some sort of example.
After being rebuked, these kids will sit in class, isolated, marginalized and scared of what might happen next. To them, this is one more attempt to wipe them from existence. They’re being attacked from all directions.
Does the bill create a learning environment where trans kids can excel? Nope. What if parents want the school to use preferred pronouns and names? Sorry, parents’ rights aren’t for you.
So, you’ve added to another human being’s difficulties and struggles by making it all about you and your beliefs. That’s pretty jerkish.
But this is, after all, a golden age of jerkism. Everywhere you look, there are jerks.
The president and vice president are jerks, just ask Haitian immigrants and women who own cats. Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth is a drunken jerk. Robert F. Kennedy Jr is a jerk who once claimed a journalist’s kid probably got leukemia because he and his wife got him fully vaccinated. Elon Musk is the world’s richest jerk.
So, jerks run America.
And I’ve heard many lawmaking jerks claim this tiny group of transgender people are going to invade bathrooms, annihilate women’s sports and destroy American society. None of this stands up under scrutiny, but it makes for damn good politics.
Oddly, they never mention the fact that gender identity has been in Iowa’s Civil Rights Code for going on 18 years. Surely, the sky will fall any minute now.
This ugly political battle is spilling into classrooms. Some teachers apparently believe using a kid’s preferred pronoun and name is a tacit endorsement of some sort of transgender agenda. It is not.
It’s just a gesture of kindness, a small courtesy and a dose of decency to make their day a little less scary. Empathy. I know, it’s now a dirty word.
No one is asking you to sell your soul. Just don’t pile on a kid who is making a very simple request. Don’t be another problem for kids who need support.
And most of all, don’t be a jerk.
Opinion: Using names and pronouns is simply kindness
Protestors stand at the intersection of 10th Street and 29th Avenue during a protest against the Linn-Mar school board’s passage …
www.thegazette.com
