Omnibus student athlete mental health bill passes Senate with anti-LGBTQ tack-ons

An omnibus bill affecting transgender students, limiting sex education in public schools and giving parents greater insight into school curriculum passed in the Georgia Senate on Tuesday.

A five-part bill that originally addressed mental health issues among student athletes, HB 1104 passed in a 33-21 vote along party lines. The bill now returns to the state House for another vote.

In its current form, the bill restricts transgender athletes from participating in sports teams or using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity under a section borrowed from SB 438. It includes a section from SB 532, a bill preventing students from enrolling in sex education programs unless their parents opt into the program, and prohibiting students below sixth grade from receiving any sort of sex education. The measure also incorporates language from SB 365 which would notify parents every time their child checks a book out of their school library.

More: Tack-ons to bill to protect student-athlete mental health include transgender bathrooms, sex ed

The bill is a “very important piece of legislation to empower parents and protect kids,” said state Sen. Clint Dixon (R-Gwinnett), who presented the bill in the Senate.

“Each piece of the bill was vetted very well," Dixon added. “Kids only have a short, finite time to be children and we need to protect that. We can’t legislate bad parenting, but we can legislate what kids are taught in school and protect them during those youth years.”

Senate Democrats took the floor to protest the contents of the bill, as well as the way it was passed through the Senate Health and Human Services committee.

“HB 1104 combines several controversial culture war bills into one vehicle,” Senate Democrats wrote in a Minority Report on the bill. “The controversial portions of this bill were added moments before a committee hearing with no meaningful opportunity for review. Worse, it limited the ability of affected persons to testify against these bills. While we work within the constraints of a tightened session, the General Assembly should follow the transparency rules it’s trying to enforce on others.”

“This Frankenstein bill cobbles together some of our most draconian and backwards thinking, that if passed would not only betray these values, but also inflict irreversible harm on our students, and set our state on a perilous path towards legal turmoil and moral decay,” said Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes (D-Duluth), who spoke in opposition to the bill.

Outside the Senate chamber, advocates for the LGBTQ community gathered to protest the bill’s passage, with several individuals bringing signs and flags representing the transgender community.

“The anti-trans legislation this year is especially disturbing,” said Erin Baker, a trans activist who showed up to protest the bill. “They’ve taken good bills that passed the House with bipartisan support and extremists in the Senate have added these amendments to them that not only attack trans kids, but attack students in general.”

Opponents of the measure include the bill’s original sponsor, a freshman legislator who introduced HB 1104 as his inaugural piece of legislation.

“About an hour before I was able to present [in the Senate committee], I learned that there was about 17 pages tacked onto the bill, all of which contains content that I am ideologically opposed to,” said state Rep. Omari Crawford (D-Decatur). “It’s really hurtful, because my thoughts are very simple: If you have a piece of legislation that you feel strongly about, then debate it on its own. Don’t put it into someone else’s bill.”

The bill was initially aimed at supporting student athletes with mental health issues, an issue that Crawford said he was “intimately familiar with” as a former student athlete himself. He said he was shocked and disappointed by the Senate committee changes.

“The language that was added is probably going to exacerbate suicide rates,” Crawford said.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Trans bathroom, sex education bill passes Georgia Senate