More than 75 Tennessee clergy have signed a statement opposing legislation targeting transgender children, saying it increases the likelihood they’ll drop out of school or commit suicide.

The bill by Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, and Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, bars public school students from using bathrooms or showers that correspond to their gender identities. Instead, they’d have to use the ones assigned to people of the sex that’s shown on their birth certificates. It’s on tomorrow’s agenda of the House Education Administration and Planning Subcommittee.

"Clergy in East, West, and Middle Tennessee are speaking out against this bill because at the heart of morality is how we treat those who are already marginalized," Tennessee Equlity Project executive director Chris Sanders says. "Transgender and gender non-conforming students already face significant bullying from their peers. It is devastating when legislators pile on with laws targeting them."

More than two dozen of these bills have been introduced in legislatures around the country as conservative Christians, upset by advances in gay rights in the courts, have started taking out their frustrations on transgender people. In Tennessee, Lynn is facing a reelection challenge this summer from a Baptist megachurch preacher in her party’s primary, so she’s trying to establish her gay-bashing credentials.

Advocates claim preposterously that transgender students could prey on girls in bathrooms. Opponents point out the bills open vulnerable transgender children to more bullying.

The bills seem to violate Title IX, the 1972 federal law that protects all public school students from gender discrimination and, if it became law, it could jeopardize Tennessee’s federal education funding.

The Tennessee clergy letter reads:



As clergy serving people of faith in Tennessee, we oppose HB2414/SB2387. This legislation is detrimental to transgender students by exposing them to violence and increasing the likelihood that they will drop out of school or take their own lives. Faith teaches us to cherish all people, especially those targeted by legislation that fails to recognize them as they are and subjects them to harm. We respectfully call on the Tennessee General Assembly to reject this bill.





