After months of inaction, a previously stalled bill that would limit LGBTQ+ education in North Carolina’s public schools and force teachers to inform parents about transgender children gained momentum on Wednesday. State legislators are racing to finish policies before the session ends.

The North Carolina House Education Committee has advanced a bill that requires all public school teachers to notify parents in most situations before calling a student a different pronoun or name. The bill would also ban instruction on gender identity and sexuality for K-4 students, which critics have compared to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

The bill was passed by the GOP-controlled Senate in February. However, House Republicans fell one seat short of a supermajority. They would need some Democratic support to make it law. During the four-month period that the bill sat in the House, Mecklenburg County Rep. Tricia Cottim switched from Democrat party to Republican. This gave the GOP a veto proof margin and a clear way to advance conservative policies. The following day, Republicans introduced six bills that targeted trans youth.

Before it can be voted on in the House, this proposal has to pass through one more committee. Some Republicans said Wednesday that they would amend the bill in the future so it could also be applied to charter and private schools, or extend the curriculum restriction to the fifth grade. House Speaker Tim Moore said that he is confident the bill will be passed by his chamber during this session.

Roy Cooper, the Democratic Governor of North Carolina, has denounced it as “wrong” and harmful. However, he now has little power to block it. Roy Cooper may have denounced the bill as “wrong”, but he has no power to stop it.

LGBTQ+ youths and their supporters claim that the bill would undermine trust between teachers, students and parents, and make schools unsafe for them to explore and discover their identities.

Galey stated that children don’t have any rights against their parents. Parents have the right, unless they are abusive, to educate their children and provide them with training.

Teachers are often the first confidants for transgender children, such as Griffin Rogers, 17, of Raleigh. They help them feel comfortable before they can talk to their parents or other peers about gender identity.

Rogers says he worries a lot about his transgender friends who have unsupportive parents if the bill, and other bills that are moving through the legislature affecting LGBTQ+ youths in the near future, pass. He said that several of his friends have different pronouns or names at school compared to what they use at home. They are “terrified,” he added, about the possibility that their teachers will be forced to tell their parents.

Rogers stated that “I have many friends who are transgender and know that they will be beaten or kicked out if their parents or family find out. They are my closest friends.” It makes you feel trapped not to be able talk about this stuff.

Teachers in North Carolina are already planning protests against the new restrictions.

Gretchen Phillips is an art teacher at Orange High School, Hillsborough. She sponsors the Gay-Straight Alliance and has assured her students she will never compromise their safety by exposing them without their consent. She expects that many teachers will either refuse to comply with the law or look for loopholes.

A bill exception would prohibit parents from accessing records of schools if they have reason to believe that it could lead to abuse or negligence. Phillips, however, said that the mere idea of outing a LGBTQ+ child “will lead to abuse” regardless of whether or not the school anticipates it. She said that one of her students was thrown out of his home because of his gender identity by their parents earlier this year.

Phillips explained that if she tries to limit her options, “I won’t have the ability to be there for kids who are the most in need of an adult speaking up for them.” “My job is be there to support them while they figure out who they are. If I can’t do that, I can’t begin to teach them.”

She is concerned that the “forced-outing” provision will lead to more parents sending their children to conversion therapies, which are discredited practices that aim to change someone’s sexual identity or orientation. North Carolina doesn’t ban it outright, but does prohibit using taxpayer funds to perform the practice on minors.

Rogers, and other transgender students, said that being able express themselves and finding acceptance at school, “gives us the chance to feel human,” which, living in the South is not something we get a lot.