Proposed legislation in the Georgia General Assembly and its implications for high schools

Graphic by Melissa Liu, Editor-in-Chief

Melissa Liu, Editor-in-Chief, Disha Kumar, Features Editor & Sydney Mulford, Staff Writer

SB 435: “Save Girls’ Sports Act”

According to a survey of 116 Northview students, 36.2% of students will be impacted or know someone who will be impacted if SB 435, which seeks to prevent transgender student athletes from competing in the gender of their choice, becomes law. On Feb. 24, 2022, the Georgia Senate passed the bill by a 34-22 vote, moving it to the House floor.¹

As of now, Georgia high schools follow Georgia High School Association (GHSA) rules, which give individual schools the power to determine students’ genders and eligibility to compete in sports. The GHSA does not entertain appeals of schools’ decisions. Under SB 435, schools would not be able to override the bill and make these decisions.

Alan Beattie, a transgender junior at Northview, feels that though some legislators and supporters of the bill appear to have valid concerns, most are just trying to suppress transgender individuals.

“The concern is mainly unfounded because [it] is about skill, not testosterone level,” Beattie said. “If it really were about testosterone, then [sports] would be segregated by testosterone level as many cisgender women have higher testosterone levels.”

Instead of being organized based on gender, he believes sports should split athletes into divisions by testosterone level. This would allow athletes of all genders to be included. However, senior Jaxon Deems still views the inclusion of transgender individuals in athletics as unfair.

“It'd be easier for me to succeed in weightlifting, just because of [my] biology as a man,” Deems said. “Naturally, men are stronger compared to females.”

He recalls how this works to transgender atheletes’ advantage in weightlifting and body building competitions, citing Laurel Hubbard, a transgender female weightlifter who represented New Zealand in the 2020 Summer Olympics, as an example. To address this issue, Deems proposes dividing athletes into four categories: cisgender women, cisgender men, transgender women, and transgender men.

Sam², a non-binary student at Northview, is concerned that SB 435 will hurt transgender student athletes. Sam believes genetic differences are not a valid reason to exclude them.

“[The bill is] targeted towards transgender women and the stereotype that they're inherently sexual predators,” Sam said. “Genetic advantages occur in cisgender women all the time; tall girls playing basketball have a greater advantage, and that is not based on their gender.”

At Northview, Principal Brian Downey consults students and parents when considering cases involving transgender students.

“[For students] under the age of 18, the parent is ultimately going to be the one to make the determination here, not the school,” Downey said. “If the parent is in line with the student, there are some processes that we can do to change a person's name and the pronouns we use to identify the individual. However, that doesn't typically change the gender that they're still identified in our student record.”

In the end, he must follow what is written in the GHSA rules, and if SB 435 becomes law, he must adhere to it as well.

“I can't act on what I think is the right thing to do,” Downey said. “I have to act on what I'm legally able to do, so my opinion on the matter doesn't matter.”

Because he has never had a transgender student formally step forward about participation in sports, Downey sees SB 435 as an attempt by legislators to stir up controversy over a nonexistent issue and rally their voter base.

“[Legislators] are inventing boogeyman to chase here for political gain,” Downey said. “We're chasing ghosts.”

Groups like the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition (GYJC) have been organizing testimony against the bill to prevent it from gaining further support among legislators. These include statements from transgender students, their parents and friends, and transgender adults. GYJC is also organizing press events to give transgender students a safe space to share their thoughts, since these students may feel attacked during committee meetings.

“[The bill] discriminates against transgender students in ways that are probably in violation of federal laws,” Alex Ames, an organizing director for GYJC said. “It builds spaces that make our schools less safe for transgender kids.”

HB 1220: Consent in Sex Ed

Transgender participation in sports is not the only topic up for debate at the gold dome. Last November, Georgia Rep. Jasmine Clark of District 108 pre-filed HB 857, the predecessor of HB 1220, which would add the teaching of consent to the sex education curriculum.

“Georgia law already requires that we teach about sexual abuse and that we start teaching about that very early in age,” Clark said. “But this is different. This is more of empowerment for the individual, understanding that ‘yes’ is ‘yes’ and ‘no’ is never ‘yes.’”

Clark introduced the bill after students expressed interest in seeing improvements in the current sex education curriculum, which covers topics such as abstinence, but not consent and healthy relationships. At Northview, 96.6% of students support the bill, according to the aforementioned survey.

“You have to know that what you're doing is okay with the other person, and [schools] just don't teach that,” Brooke Hartman, Northview sophomore, said. “We could prevent so many things from happening—so much sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. I don't want anyone to have to go through what I went through.”

Despite seeing widespread support for the bill among students at Northview and other Georgia schools, Ames fears the bill is unlikely to pass.

“These big bills sponsored by Democrats have a 3% chance of passing according to the AJC,” Ames said. “[Republicans] are not leaving room for these good bills [after] years of a pandemic, 20 years of underfunding our schools, and 10s of billions of dollars [being] held back from students who needed them.”

With this impediment in mind, Clark carefully selected her co-sponsors. She chose Rep. Park Cannon to tailor the bill toward HIV prevention, Rep. Gregg Kennard to focus on education, Rep. Scott Holcomb to manage the backlog of rape kits, and Rep. Kasey Carpenter, a Republican who works on higher education in Georgia schools, to make the endeavor bi-partisan.

“Each one of those people brings something different to the table when it comes to this issue, but when it comes to bills passing, the reality is that we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Clark said. “There are hundreds of bills that never get a hearing in the Capitol, and there’s never a guarantee that a bill, even a bill that a lot of people think is a good idea, will get a hearing.”

Ames believes the best way to get the bill passed is to ensure it gets a hearing before Crossover Day, the day a bill is supposed to pass between legislative chambers. If the bill stays in committee, it will die before the end of the session, and the process would have to restart next January, meaning at least another year without consent in the sex education curriculum.

“People need to be more educated on [consent] because in schools [teachers are] like ‘We don't want to talk about it,’” Hartman said. “So, where are kids getting their information from?”

According to Downey, Northview has already made seven referrals to the district’s Title IX office to report instances of sexual assault and harassment both on and off-campus in this school year alone. While the jurisdiction of the school varies, the general procedure is for the office to determine if a violation occurred and then decide to move forward with the process. Fulton County Schools (FCS) can then send personnel to ensure that the school is compliant with federal statutes.

“As teenagers explore sexuality, they’re exploring things like alcohol and drugs that impair their decision-making,” Downey said. “I question how much our teenagers understand about the legal—never mind the moral, ethical, and physical—implications around consent.”

Downey believes that adding consent to the sex education curriculum will not only help students make informed decisions when it comes to sexual activity but also ease the process of delivering consequences for Title IX violations since students will have been taught about the short-term and long-term implications of consent.

“Starting in their teenage years, students begin to explore sexuality,” Downey said. “We can help walk kids through that, arming them with an education about sexuality and everything that’s involved in it, including the idea of mutual consent—that’s really valuable.”

Regardless of the progression of HB 1220 in the House and Senate chambers, students, faculty, and legislators alike agree on one thing: the prevalence of sexual assault cases among adolescents must be addressed.

“Teaching consent is associated with a reduction in sexual assault, and by reduction, I mean a reduction in both perpetration of sexual assault as well as being a victim of sexual assault later on in life,” Clark said. “We should never stop seeking solutions to reduce things like sexual assault, especially with the rate at which they happen.”

SB 226: “Sale or Distribution of Harmful Materials to Minors”

SB 226 has sparked controversy since it was introduced in the Senate on Feb. 22, 2021.³ Under this bill, parents can submit complaints about instructional materials they find harmful to minors, including books, to the principal (or his or her designee), who must investigate complaints and determine whether to ban these materials at the school. Unsatisfied parents can appeal to the local school board.

Although the bill focuses on sexually explicit content in its definition of “harmful to minors,” Northview language arts teacher Ashley Ulrich believes seemingly harmless bans like this can be used to silence LGBTQIA+ voices and people of color.

“Big sweeping bans can be a curtain hiding the real intention,” Ulrich said. “Superficial elements of texts are being used as the justification for why books can be banned.”

Ames agrees, pointing out how an anti-gay parent could easily get a queer book banned for an entire school by submitting a complaint about a homosexual sex scene in the book. She notes that the bill allows a single parent’s opinion to deprive countless students of the opportunity to explore their identities through books since there are likely to be students who are people of color or LGBTQIA+ in every school.

“It's not actually about the books; it's about deciding who is and who isn't recognized and valid,” Ames said. “If I am a student of color or a gay student in a school, and the books about people who look like me and people whom I have descended from aren't allowed, what does that say to a child growing up in our schools?”

The Senate passed SB 226 on March 8, 2021 by a 35-16 vote, and the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee offered an amended version on Feb. 10, 2022. To prevent the bill from progressing further, GYJC is organizing events at the Georgia Capitol and local school boards, where community members can share how meaningful it was for them to read certain books that could be banned. FCS Superintendent Dr. Mike Looney and members of the Fulton County Board of Education have acknowledged these concerns and emphasized their commitment to drawing a clear line between protection and censorship.

“When I think of literature, I think of mirrors and windows—I see myself, and I also see other people,” Franchesca Warren, District 4 Board member and mother of three FCS students, said. “I don't want my child reading anything obscene, but I also want to make sure that as a district where we have lots of diverse students, we're not handicapping teachers.”

Despite reassurances, Northview language arts teacher Tania Pope fears that under the bill, students will no longer be exposed to texts that challenge them to become dynamic, nuanced thinkers. Though students could access any banned materials outside of school, Pope notes that they would still miss out on classroom experience.

“When we study a whole text as a class, where we dig into this deep meaning of what it is that the writer is getting at, that's laid within an insulate scholarly environment with a teacher who knows the book really really well and can guide students through that experience,” she said. “[We have] discussions and that interaction that you wouldn't get at home if you were just reading a book by yourself.”

In addition, Northview media center specialist Darryl Paul believes SB 226 fails to give the principal (or his or her designee) adequate time to investigate parental complaints.

“It’s a lot of pressure on the principal,” Paul said. “Especially if it's a big book, you have got to knock it out in 10 days and come to an informed conclusion.”

Under current FCS operating guidelines, the media specialist convenes a media committee, which consists of one student, one parent, one teacher, and the media specialist, after a parent submits a complaint against instructional materials. The committee has 30 days to consider and respond to the complaint, and the parent can appeal to the school principal if he or she is unsatisfied with the committee’s decision.

Downey noted that if the bill becomes law, he would feel uncomfortable determining whether books are inappropriate without consulting students and teachers.

“That authority should really never rest with one individual,” Downey said. “It’s so subjective.”

Paul expressed similar concerns about the bill oversimplifying the complaint resolution process by skipping the media committee step currently included in FCS guidelines.

“There are obviously legitimate reasons to be offended by material,” Paul said. “We should consider that as a community and not as an individual. [SB 266] could rob some of our community members of representation.”

¹The Messenger reached out to the 25 senators who sponsor SB 435 and the Georgia Senate Press Office. All 25 senators failed to respond.

²Sam is an alias chosen by The Messenger staff to protect the identity of a student who has decided to remain anonymous. Any similarity to real student names is purely coincidental.

³The Messenger reached out to the 18 senators who sponsor SB 266 and the Georgia Senate Press Office. All 18 senators failed to respond.