After the North Dakota House passed a controversial school pronoun Bill, it was sent to Governor Burgum’s office and was vetoed. Lawmakers, on Friday, were unable to reach the 2/3 majority needed to override the governor’s veto. Those who supported the bill have argued, that it would free teachers from worrying about how to address each student and create a better learning environment.
Reportedly, Burgum reaffirmed, in a letter to state lawmakers announcing his veto, that the First Amendment already protects teachers from speaking contrary to their beliefs, and existing law protects the free speech rights of state employees. He then added –
"The teaching profession is challenging enough without the heavy hand of state government forcing teachers to take on the role of pronoun police,"
-Governor Doug Burgum, North Dakota
According to an earlier report by Breitbart-
“North Dakota's Republican governor vetoed a bill that would generally prohibit public schools’ teachers and staff from referring to transgender students by pronouns other than those reflecting the sex assigned to them at birth.
The state Senate voted 37-9 to override the veto Thursday afternoon, just hours after Gov. Doug Burgum's office announced his decision. The House, which will convene Friday, must still vote on the override, The Bismarck Tribune reported. The House approved the bill 60-32 in February, three votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.
If the bill became law, public school teachers and employees would be barred from using a transgender student's preferred pronoun unless they have permission from the student's parents as well as a school administrator…
The bill would have prohibited public school teachers and employees from acknowledging the personal pronouns a transgender student uses, unless they received permission from the student’s parents as well as a school administrator.”
-Breitbart
Further, had the bill became law, it would have also prohibited government agencies, from requiring employees to acknowledge the pronouns a transgender colleague prefers.
Across the U.S. ,Republican lawmakers have drafted hundreds of laws this year to push back on LGBTQ+ freedoms. Including bathroom use, athletics, gender-affirming health care, and drag performances. These laws have been seen, in particular, to regulate certain aspects of transgender people’s lives.
The concept of gender confusion has seemingly, of late, taken the nation by storm. It has become the new racist category of the left. That Republicans are pushing back, identifying laws that are already on the books demonstrates that not all persons are confused about the freedoms they already have. In this case, it also reveals that gender confusion is not the priority - but education is.
“The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.”
-John F. Kennedy