Esse Quam Videri, Y’all

Legislative News by Nelda Holder –

Let me see if I can get this straight….

A person elected to a two-year term in the NC General Assembly has the right—nay, the obligation—to write, vote for, and impose a law telling parents in North Carolina what legitimate, accepted medical procedures of documented efficacy they are not allowed to access, in conjunction with their licensed physician, for their own child.

Sit with that for a moment.

What I said—slightly modified now—is that a majority of this state’s legislators (and yes, it was the Republican majority) voted to pass into law House Bill 808. This was originally called the “Youth Health Protection Act,” but then became “An Act to Prohibit Gender Transition Procedures for Minors.”

Now, sit with that for a minute. Do you personally want North Carolina legislators whom you in all likelihood do not know and maybe did not even vote for making health decisions for your family?

I can give you my answer to that question: “(Expletive) no!”

Hands off MY child, Legislator! You know nothing of the personal situation in any given household…the physical and mental conditions that call for a family’s need for medical advice and potential treatment when dealing with the realities—physical and mental—of gender “variance.”

And now, HB 808 has run smack into (1) a gubernatorial veto, and (2) an intriguing set of court rulings in Arkansas and Florida. An Arkansas law banning gender-affirming medical care for minors was blocked by a federal judge last month, and the next day a federal judge in Florida ruled against restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors.

Meanwhile, here in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper (D) vetoed HB 808 on July 5, along with two other bills affecting the rights of children in this state. His statement regarding HB 808: “A doctor’s office is no place for politicians, and North Carolina should continue to let parents and medical professionals make decisions about the best way to offer gender care for their children. Ordering doctors to stop following approved medical protocols sets a troubling precedent and is dangerous for vulnerable youth and their mental health. The government should not make itself both the parent and the doctor.”

The other two vetoed bills pointedly imposing a restrictions on transgender youth in the state were SB 49 (“Parents Bill of Rights”) and HB 574 (titled “An Act to Protect Opportunities for Women and Girls”). The latter would allow team sports only within three strict categories of male, female, or coed/mixed, specifying that “a student’s sex shall be recognized solely on the student’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”

Then there’s SB 49. It started out as was a 12-page list of parental authority. (Given the aforementioned HB 808, it’s interesting that one of those enumerated rights was: “To make health care decisions for his or her child, unless otherwise provided by law….”)

Cooper’s position on HB 574 was straightforward: “We don’t need politicians inflaming their political culture wars by making broad, uninformed decisions about an extremely small number of vulnerable children that are already handled by a robust system that relies on parents, schools, and sports organizations.”

The governor’s veto of SB 49 deserves pondering: “Parents are the most essential educators for their children and their involvement must be encouraged, but this bill will scare teachers into silence by injecting fear and uncertainty into classrooms. This ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill hampers the important and sometimes lifesaving role of educators as trusted advisers when students have nowhere else to turn. The rights of parents are well established in state law, so instead of burdening schools with their political culture wars, legislators should help them with better teacher pay and more investments in students.”

Cooper’s summation regarding these three bills: “A doctor’s office is no place for politicians…. Ordering doctors to stop following approved medical protocols sets a troubling precedent and is dangerous for vulnerable youth and their mental health. The government should not make itself both the parent and the doctor.”

A funny thing happened on the way back to the Senate

The cumbersome SB 49 “disappeared” post-veto, with no attempt to override the governor. But in its place we now have something (a proposed House Committee substitute/revision of SB 90) called the Children’s Laws Omnibus—26 pages of changes to various laws related to children.

(Folks, as the grandmother of two young girls (ages 13 and 10), I admit to reserved dismay at the fact that this bill outlines a “reproductive health and safety education” unit beginning in the seventh grade.)

Of course, given our experience in the past few years with attempts at book banning, there is a nice long session outlining what happens if any library book receives more than 10 letters of objection, and pointedly determines that—for fiction and narrative nonfiction (including memoirs and biographies), there must be a determination that a book:

• Is integral to the instructional program
• Reflects the learning needs of the students and school personnel
• Is appropriate for the reading levels and understanding of students
• Is included because of the library book’s literary or artistic value
• If narrative nonfiction, presents information with accuracy and clarity.

The proposed bill is big on “parental consent.” It would be required to participate in clubs, programs, activities on campus, including book fairs.

Lots more in this proposed bill’s 26 pages. Light reading, if you want to try it.

And they haven’t even got a budget to study yet.

Esse Quam Videri

Yes, the state motto. You did learn what it means back in public school, right? “To be rather than to seem.” What you might not recall is that it was adopted in 1893, after its selection by jurist/historian Walter Clark, making North Carolina the last of the original 13 independent states in this country to select a state motto.

And what you might not have known at all is that as a colony, the great seal of North Carolina carried a different Latin motto: Quae Sera Tamen Respexit which, referring to the figure of Liberty on the seal, meant “Which, though late, looked upon me.” (Thanks to the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources for this history of origins. Go check them out!)

Liberty. Truth. Weighty concepts chosen as guides for this system of state government and citizen allegiance to a cause that should subsume petty—or party—politics. It’s hard to find those ideals in government these days.

Nelda Holder is the author of The Thirteenth Juror – Ferguson: A Personal Look at the Grand Jury Transcripts.