State law could now require schools to out queer students
Gov. Mark Gordon announced Tuesday he will let the “parental rights” bill pass into law without his signature. Opponents warned the new law could also make child abuse more difficult to detect.
A bill that might require school districts to out transgender students will soon become the law of the land.
On Tuesday, Gov. Mark Gordon announced he was letting the bill pass into law without his signature. But in a letter explaining his decision, the governor took the opportunity to “enumerate” his issues with the new law.
“This legislation, in its current form, at best does little more to protect parents’ rights than existing law,” he writes. “At worst, it has the potential to interpose government between parents and their children … by creating an expectation that a few parents could force a point of view upon others who may not hold the same thereby infringing upon the rights of those other parents.”
Senate Enrolled Act 8 (which began its life as Senate File 9) will require schools to notify parents about any “change in the student’s educational, physical, mental or emotional health or well-being.” Innocuous though that might sound, opponents warned that such a provision could require schools to inform parents if their child comes out as gay or transgender — even if that means outting the child to intolerant family members.
The central tenet of this bill — requiring schools to notify parents of “changes” in their child’s well-being — is not new. Similar language made up one-half of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill passed in Florida in 2022 and attempted in Wyoming last year.
But the “Don’t Say Gay” bills in both Florida and Wyoming went further, banning the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in at least some classrooms. It was this prohibition that earned the bills their informal moniker.
The limitation on classroom discussion was originally absent from this year’s bill, but Rep. Sarah Penn (HD-33) tacked on an amendment that will require school districts to: “Obtain written or electronic permission from each student’s parent or legal guardian not less than one (1) day prior to the student participating or receiving instruction in any trainings, courses or classes that address sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The new law also establishes that parents must opt-in to any health screening the school provides to their children. It forbids schools from administering these screenings without obtaining prior parental consent — unless those screenings are “audiology, vision, scoliosis or body mass index assessments required by federal law.”
“Before administering a well-being questionnaire or health screening tool to a student or a group of students, each school district shall make available the questionnaire or information on the health screening tool to the parent or guardian and obtain written or verbal consent from the parent or guardian to administer the well-being questionnaire or health screening tool to the student,” the law states.
Education advocates warned that this measure will enable child abuse.
Tate Mullen of the Wyoming Education Association has told lawmakers on multiple occasions that school health screenings are an outside check on a child’s wellbeing and as such are the state’s “frontline defense” against child abuse. The law effectively allows abusive parents to avoid the very health screenings that might alert others to the abuse they’re inflicting on their child.
In the letter explaining his decision to let the bill pass, Gordon said the new law flies in the face of “local control” and might lead to “unintended consequences.”
“Neutering the authority of locally elected officials and impeding their ability to effectively manage education policies tailored to the unique needs of their communities is contrary to the government of the people and by the people that we hold dear,” he writes. “Rather than confirming a parent’s right and ability to guide the fortunes of their children, this law may actually enable the specter of a self-appointed group to exercise the very same sort of doctrinaire interference that this bill is ostensibly supposed to defeat.”
Nevertheless, he won’t stand in its way.
“This act is within the constitutional powers granted the legislature, and, therefore, in light of these considerations and the broader implications of this legislation, I have decided not to affix my signature but to allow it to pass into law,” he writes.
It is the second time in two years that Gordon has allowed an anti-trans bill to become law in this fashion, following his refusal to stop a “draconian” transgender sports bill last year, the first anti-LGBTQ law passed in Wyoming in two generations.