FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — Yesterday, Kentucky’s Senate passed SB 150. The bill doesn't require teachers to use students preferred pronouns. The bill's sponsor, Senator Max Wise, said in committee that it was meant to protect the first amendment and to empower parents.
He said, "This is about, once again, parental communication, and even today, I spoke in the rotunda as related to empowering parents, having parental rights, and for them to have communication."
However, LGBTQ advocates have concerns about what this will mean for students. Senator Karen Berg of Louisville says the bill started much differently, then took a turn.
"Basically, saying that regardless of my preference as a parent, regardless of what healthcare professionals tell me I need to do to affirm my child, they will not require anybody in their school district to comply,” says Berg.
This is personal for Berg. Her transgender son, Henry Berg-Brousseau, was an advocate for LGBTQ and human rights for most of his life. As a teen and an adult, he went on to work for the human rights campaign. But at the age of 24, he died by suicide. As a parent, she says she knows how important affirmations can be.
She says, "Nobody is funding a whole lot of research on trans children right now so we don't have the good empirical data that we would like to have to know how to go forward, but the studies that we have are unequivocal."
She says there also needs to be more access to mental health resources. Senator Berg says now the work and the advocacy her son started must continue.
She shares, "In the week before he killed himself, my son had talked to both me and my husband, about the fact that, you know, sessions were getting ready to start, and he was aware of the legislation that was coming. And he just didn't know how he was going to face the hate....somebody else can lead the charge for a while. Well, somebody else is going to have to lead the charge for a while, and that's why I’m here."
Senator Berg and other LGBTQ advocates say they will continue to make their voices heard.
