“I guess we’ll have to go through this again,” Starla Miller said as the council chamber cleared.
Dozens of Alaskans recently testified against a bill that would expand the state’s restrictions on transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports. The House Education Committee overwhelmingly approved it despite substantial opposition.
One of the five bills currently being considered by lawmakers that would restrict the rights of trans children in Alaska is House Bill 183. They are part of a wider regional trend.
The number of bills that may restrict the rights of trans people in the United States has increased in the past five years, from a few dozen per year to hundreds.
Republicans in the House. The effort, which included the rights of trans youth in Alaska’s schools, was led by Mike Dunleavy.
None of the policies have yet to be ruled.
Student sports teams
Two House bills introduced this month would restrict Alaskan students’ sports participation to organizations that match their sex at birth. These laws have been passed in twenty-four states.
After a 2022 proposal failed in the Legislature, the governor’s officials on the state’s Board of Education and Early Development passed a resolution last year prohibiting transgender women from playing on high school girls’ sports teams.
Then, House Bill 183, sponsored by Rep. Jamie Allard, R-Eagle River, and House Bill 27, sponsored by Rep. Tom McKay, R-Anchorage, seek to extend that restriction to all school sports teams, including for elementary-aged children.
The majority of those giving testimony on these transgender-focused bills oppose the legislation, but they continue to progress.
— Rachel Bernard, parent of a transgender student
Allard co-chairs the House Education Committee, and her bill had its first hearings this quarter. McKay’s equivalent bill has not yet been heard in committee; he is a co-sponsor of Allard’s bills.
Allard argued that her bill will protect women’s rights to participate in sports under Title IX, a federal law that prohibits gender discrimination in education. The bills refer to trans women and girls as “biological men.”
“People will be disadvantaged once more if forced to compete against biological men. If men can compete as women, all of our progress for equity is dead,” Allard told the committee.
Riley Gaines, a University of Kentucky student who competed against Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who won a national title in swimming in 2022, also testified. Gaines is known for speaking out against transgender athletes in women’s sports.
Larry Whitmore, a retired Anchorage teacher and coach and another witness, claimed he had seen transgender women take track and field medals unfairly. He said when transgender women win, it is a “cancer”—”It’s going to spread through children’s sports and ruin them,” he said.
The bill’s opponents reiterated that it targets school-aged children and argued that it denies trans girls equitable access to play.
Dr. Lindsey Banning, a parent of a transgender child, said the bill was “hurtful” and that she would rather see the state address issues like eating disorders, injuries, and abuse.
“We’re discussing whether to enshrine discrimination into law so that trans children can’t be on a team with their friends and participate in games with them,” she said. “Alaskans have opposed this idea numerous times since it first appeared in 2021, but I suppose you want to do it once more.”
Another parent of a trans child, Rebecca Bernard, said that there is a funding crisis in education, not a crisis of LGBTQ youth.
“It’s painful to come and testify at these hearings over and over again,” she said. “The majority of those who are giving testimony on these transgender-focused bills oppose the legislation, but they continue to progress.”
The bill may be vulnerable to legal challenge under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which has been used to decide significant civil rights cases, according to Margaret Bergerud, an attorney for the Legislature.
“I think it is likely that, at least under the federal Constitution, this bill does not pass constitutional muster for equal protection,” she said.
Bathrooms and Pronouns
In addition, a proposal would require transgender students to be unable to use bathrooms in schools that reflect their gender identity. In the last ten years, ten states have passed laws that do this.
House Bill 382, which would require teachers to notify the parents of a student who chooses to change their gender pronouns, was sponsored by Rep. Ben Carpenter, R-Nikiski. Trans youth who believe their parents won’t accept their gender identity may not be able to come out if this kind of requirement, according to advocates for trans rights.
Other provisions of the bill include the requirement that new parents’ committees establish a “teachers’ bill of rights” and require that schools be supervised by them.
The bill should be informed if a child switches gender pronouns, according to Randy Griffith of Fairbanks, but he disagreed and said teachers shouldn’t be required to do so if a student is considering changing gender.
He suggested that the teacher should be “just understanding and kind of neutral and listen a little bit” and “every bit.”
Carole Bookless, a Juneau teacher, said she learned how to think about trans students from her kindergarten students.
A boy might feel he’s really a girl or a girl might feel she’s really a boy at a very young age, I learned. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The children saw it as well. They simply accept it with a shrug. If they can do it, so can we,” she said. ” It would be my suggestion that Alaska move in the direction of providing a non-gendered bathroom and a similar non-gender changing room in every classroom.
The proposed legislation, which Dunleavy proposed last year, would require parents to approve any pronoun changes for their child, and the bill follows in that vein.
House Bill 105 is awaiting a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee; its companion, Senate Bill 96, has yet to be scheduled.
Protecting Trans Rights
In many areas of state law in Alaska, the state government does not acknowledge equal rights for LGBTQ people. On the recommendation of Attorney General Treg Taylor, the state’s Commission on Human Rights reversed most of the equal rights it had in 2022 for sexual orientation and gender identity.
A proposal from Rep. Jennie Armstrong, an Anchorage Democrat and a member of the House minority caucus, would reinstate recognition of those rights.
In the state, the legislation would outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. According to her, it would align Alaska with a 2020 Supreme Court ruling outlawing such discrimination in the workplace.
Because it includes protections for government services and accommodations, the protections could override the legislation that restricts LGBTQ rights in public schools.
The bill is co-sponsored by 14 members of the House minority caucus and three rural majority-caucus members: Reps. Neal Foster, D-Nome, CJ McCormick, D-Bethel, and Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham.
When Armstrong attempted to have House Bill 99 bypass the largely conservative-leaning House Judiciary Committee last year, it split the Republican-leaning House in an 18 to 22 vote. It has yet to be scheduled.
Armstrong claimed that her office recently resubmitted a request for a hearing before that committee.
“This bill would return to the status quo,” she said on Wednesday. It would end “legalized discrimination in our state,” the statement read.
