Bill Description: House Bill 538 would protect the right of students and government employees to decline to use someone's preferred pronouns. It would also prohibit schools from using fictional names or biologically incorrect pronouns without parental consent. 

Rating: +2

Does it violate the spirit or the letter of either the U.S. Constitution or the Idaho Constitution? Examples include restrictions on speech, public assembly, the press, privacy, private property, or firearms. Conversely, does it restore or uphold the protections guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution or the Idaho Constitution?

House Bill 538 would create Section 67-5909B, Idaho Code, titled, "Compulsory Gender Language Prohibited." 

The bill would say that government employees "shall not be subject to adverse employment action for declining to identify such employee's pronouns while acting within the scope of employment; or address a person using a name other than the person's legal name or a derivative thereof, or by a preferred personal title or pronoun that is inconsistent with the person's sex."

The bill would likewise protect employees of a public school or public institution of higher education who decline to "address a student using a name other than the student's legal name, or a derivative thereof, or by a preferred personal title or pronoun that is inconsistent with a student's sex."

Students at these institutions would be similarly protected from "adverse disciplinary action by the school or institution" if they decline to "identify such student's pronouns" or "address a person using a name other than the person's legal name, or a derivative thereof, or by a preferred personal title or pronoun that is inconsistent with the person's sex."

(+1)

House Bill 538 contains an additional provision protecting parental rights. It says that "an employee of a public school or public institution of higher education, regardless of the scope of such employee's official duties, shall not knowingly and intentionally address an unemancipated minor student by a name other than the student's legal name or a derivative thereof, or by a preferred personal title or pronoun that is inconsistent with the student's sex, without the written permission of the student's parent or guardian."

This prohibition addresses the growing problem of schools attempting to legitimize (and compel recognition of) a student's fictional identity without the consent or sometimes even the knowledge of the student's parents or guardian. 

(+1)