TWIBS: Missouri Rep Proposes Criminalizing Teachers Using a Trans Kid’s Pronouns
State Rep. Jamie Ray Gragg introduced this absolutely bizarre bill that would jail teachers and have them register as sex offenders if they contribute to the social transition of a student.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
The Republicans are truly working their way towards scorched earth lately. As if more than four hundred anti-LGBTQ+ bills being introduced in 2024 wasn’t bad enough—need I remind you it is March?!—the content of some truly nasty legislation recently put forward in Missouri is downright appalling.
screenshot from a portion of a law that would criminalize supporting the social transition of child
Your eyes aren’t lying to you! That’s Missouri House Bill 2885, introduced by first-term Representative Jamie Ray Gragg, a winner if I’ve ever seen one. Jamie thinks it should be a Class E felony to use a child’s preferred name and pronouns. Only if they’re trans, I assume; the itty bitty cissy kiddies can have as many nicknames and pronouns as they want, as long as they aren’t accidentally doing any of that icky gender.
In Missouri, a Class E felony charge can net you a year in a county jail if the judge is nursing a hangover, or up to four years in state prison if they don’t like your haircut. They can also slap you with a fine of up to $10,000, which you can surely cover on a Missouri teacher’s salary of… twenty-five to thirty-eight thousand dollars annually.
Shit. Good luck!
If four years in the big house and ten grand out of pocket hasn’t got you quivering in your boots, you might like to know that HB 2885 isn’t a proposal to pass a whole new bill… it’s intended to repeal two Missouri statutes and enact two new statues in their place.
Pertaining to who, in the great state of Missouri, must be placed on the sex offender registry.
That’s right, Representative Gragg, per line 71 of HB 2885, wants to add to the list of included sexual offenders any teacher in the state who happens to use the right fucking name for a transgender child. But don’t worry, you’ll just be a Tier I sex offender. You only have to report to your local chief law enforcement official every year during your birth month to verify your name, home address, employment status, what sort of car you drive, and what your email address and phone number are. And if any of that info changes, you have to report it within three business days.
You know.
For being kind.
To a child.
If you’re curious what other sorts of crimes land you on the Tier I sex offender registry in Missouri, they include: possession of child pornography, sex with an animal, and child molestation in the second degree. Not the sort of bedfellows you expect when you compliment a kid’s haircut or ask what pronouns they might like you to use when you talk about them!
But is it any surprise that this sort of ghoulishly transphobic legislation can take shape with the likes of Attorney General Andrew Bailey in charge? He is, to nobody’s surprise, an absolute piece of work. He’s up for election this year and one of his most fervent donors is, I shit you not, the wealthiest woman in Missouri. Besides that obvious dark money black hole, Bailey helped block gender-affirming care for minors and adults in Missouri prior to the state legislature passing their own draconian ban, and he used supposed whistleblower Jamie Reed’s unconfirmed testimony as justification.
Folks, this is a state that once declared war on Mormonism. What happened? How have they fallen from such lofty heights? Are Mormons… good now?
No… no, of course not.
The only silver lining here is that, according to the Los Angeles Blade’s sources, the bill is likely to die in committee. That’s where it is now, because in Missouri your bill must be read three times, once upon introduction, again upon referral to a committee, and finally upon approval by the constitutional majority of a chamber. Right now HB 2885 is in committee and, even if it makes it to the floor, the Blade’s sources say it’s unlikely to pass.
Still, I worry this is only the beginning. The wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in America this year has reached an absolute fever pitch. Last year was terrifying, and we’ve already lapped it. Many of these hateful bills get jammed up in committees or outright defeated, but some of them pass. HB 2885 may not survive, but what about the next bill that’s just as harshly punitive?
Can you imagine being a child in a state where your lawmakers hate you with such a passion that they want anybody who tries to love you to go to prison for it?
I can only hope that the countless brave, passionate people fighting these kinds of bills all across the country see more success than defeat.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer and video games nerd who hails from Appalachia but lives, laughs, loves in Rapid City.