California Needs to Fight Gender Bullying

[Shana A]

California Needs to Fight Gender Bullying
Filed by: Guest Blogger
April 30, 2011 12:00 PM

Vernon Rosario, MD, PhD and Sarah Herbert, MD, MSW are child and adolescent psychiatrists and members of the LGBT Committee of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry.

http://www.bilerico.com/2011/04/california_needs_to_fight_gender_bullying.php

After enduring repeated episodes of bullying, 13-year-old Seth Walsh hanged himself from a tree in his backyard in an effort to end the torment. His mother found him barely alive, and he ultimately died after a week on life support. His death shocked his community and the nation during a wave of similar cases of suicides of gay and gender atypical youth last autumn.

The California State Assembly is currently considering Seth's Law (AB 9). The bill would require school districts to establish detailed policies to prevent and handle harassment of children based on actual or perceived minority status - including sexual orientation and gender identity expression. The law adds urgently needed teeth to existing anti-discrimination laws which failed to protect Seth Walsh, for whom the bill is named.

[Vicky]

While I am in full favor of the law and am a Californian, I am dubious of it having quite the "TEETH" they refer to in the article since it is another area in which money will need to be spent on the education of the teachers and administrators themselves in order to put the law into practice.  The particular school district itself though is going to be a heavy test case, since one of the principal occupations in the town of Tehachapi is Prison Guard, and therefor, parent education too will be a heavy challenge, which of course leads into another Trans story of unacceptable hell.  I am afraid that a good and sorrowfully needed law will lose its teeth over funding thanks to our current state legislature et al. 

[Ann Onymous]

I have some issues with anything that has the effect of creating additional punishments for thought or belief-related conduct.  A beatdown is a beatdown and laws exist that address that conduct.  When the State begins creating enhancements for thought/belief conduct, they open the door to cases being reversed on appeal. 

Further, if a District is placed on notice of issues in the classroom environment and does nothing to prevent a problem, then the groundwork for liability vis a vis civil litigation can already be determined to have been layed. 

In the interim, the other component is that such laws have the potential to create unfunded mandates...