The state of Indiana is considering a bill that would:
- Criminalize transitioning for minors,
- Require parental notification of student behavior,
- Provide legal cover for teachers to use student names the student doesn’t want them to.
This is as hateful as it is impossible to maintain, as threatening as it is illogical.
Most of us can see how transparently repugnant these sorts of bills are. They are defined by the hate from which they spring.
We can also see the poor logic and the impossibility of bills like these. Much like the one less than a decade ago which criminalized miscarriages.
And we definitely can see the hypocrisy. The people shouting about freedom and “big government” want to bring it into the classroom.
Fewer of us, however, can see why bills like this even get this far. There are two reasons.
- They don’t care that the law is bad. They just like the outcome.
- They don’t care that the legal arguments don’t match. They just like the outcome.
Don’t try to connect the legal structure of this law. It doesn’t work. It restricts a doctor’s ability to practice medicine and a teacher’s ability to protect a student, but it gives a teacher the “freedom” to call a person by the wrong name. This only makes sense if you hate LGBTQ+ people.
Fighting back against these sorts of bills are tricky precisely because they are incoherent and illogical. Attacking the name part allows them to use the parental notification argument in a different way.
This is a mess. A cruel, vindictive, spiteful mess. And trying to stop it is bound to get some of that mess on everyone.