we have I have here a recent Washington Post article in the title is in states with laws targeting lgbtq issues School hate crimes have uh quadrupled School hate crimes targeting lgbtq people have sharply risen in recent years climbing the fastest in states that have passed laws restricting LGBT student rights and educ and Analysis of FBI data fines in states with restrictive laws the number of hate crimes on K to 12 campuses has more than quadrupled since an onset of divisive culture wars that
is often centered on the rights of lb lgbtq Youth and at the same time calls to LGBT youth crisis hotlines have exploded so that's the real harm that we're doing with this piece of legislation there's a real consequence and lastly this bill started off as a bill that everyone could support uh related to mental health for athletes and it was sad to see some of the Advocates watch this bill get destroyed by adding these other four or five bills um how how upset they were that the Senate chose to d
o this with a with a good measure that they felt really enhanced um Advance the cause of helping our children cope with mental health issues so I do want to point that out as well so basically it's a um amalgamation of a whole number of wrong-headed culture War bills that I I don't think that this uh body should put forward so I'll be voting no and I'm happy to answer any questions you do have a couple questions recognize senator from 36 thank you Mr President does the senator you certainly my f
riend from p uh Senator could you elaborate a bit on this uh question that you touched on early on and that is the uh longstanding um rankings of our state uh in teen pregnancy and um putting that Al alongside Draconian laws against abortion how is it that we think these young people going to get through life get through school and make those hard and big decisions that face particularly uh young girls and young teens and women young women uh around how to keep themselves safe how to keep themse
lves uh from untour events happening to them from being uh exploited we have it here a lot in this chamber isn't it true about uh exploitation and trafficking and that that whole sort of thing that incredible damage that's done uh to uh young people that are uh trafficked yeah is it your opinion that trying to silence uh solid sex education that has been vetted now for many decades uh they're trying to silence that and make and and Outlaw that uh for for sixth gr anybody that's not sixth grad or
older is just Paving the way uh for people uh for young people to be exploited trafficked uh misused pregnant uh the list goes on and on can you kind of connect those dots for us in case it's not obvious enough well I I you make a good point uh senat from the 36th and and I should note that teen pregnancy rates have always been highest in the south across the country it's always been the highest in the South and and tremendous progress has been made we know that the outcomes of children born to
teen mothers are not very good they're not good and it's also not good for that teen mother herself because her ability to work go to school Etc um is then more limited and so that does have more risk of trapping you in a cycle of intergenerational poverty so the reason one of the reasons that it's always been much higher in the south is because of this I suppose well- intended but completely wrong-headed notion that you by not talking about sex you might somehow bury it and it won't happen or
something well that's just crazy that's just crazy and it's false it's completely false in fact the opposite will be true they will have information it will just be bad information it will be erroneous information one of my friends kids got told by a friend on the on the classroom U on the Playard he was like well what's um I know what sex is oh really what is it it's when two people hug each other and jump up and down and just stuff like that you're going to hear without their clothes on I mean
you're just going to all this wild stuff and kids won't know how to protect themselves and that's what leads to unfortunate outcomes which you laid out very very well about unwanted pregnancies abuse trafficking having no idea what forms of birth control are available having no idea how to say no to unwanted advances or even that you have the power to say no unwanted advances so the risks are it's a lot more than just sex and pre preventing teen pregnancy it's actually about understanding your
body your rights your autonomy and Paving a and and and and charting a future for and choosing a future for yourself for both boys and girls but it is particularly important for girls since they're the ones who can get pregnant and and are more likely to be abused and one further question if you will yield sure um so isn't it accurate to say that this policy that's was slapped together willy-nilly as as has been described this this mud ball of bills has been all through of issues of cultural War
issues that have been thrown together but that we'll get we will see outcomes exactly the opposite 100% of what the supporters of this say they want to see 100% talk to your kids about sex because if you don't you can be assured everybody else is thank you you have one more question Senator recognize senator from 27 thank you Mr President uh chairman Le sorry of course of course um I want to go to the lines 369 in the bill and S my question really is why are you conflating youth sports with int
er Scholastic Sports which is what this bill tries to deal with you referenced the you called it the skills advantage that does emerge in the seventh and eighth grade I think becomes pretty pronounced as you get into high school and certainly enter adulthood I'm going to assume that you and I agree on that based on what you said there um so given that don't you think that it's reasonable that we do eliminate that skills advantage in middle school and high school so it it all depends I think and
and we I think had a little bit of an exchange like this um in committee I appreciate what you're saying your agreement or tacit agreement about my point about prepubescent you Sports I I welcome that I think that there's a lot of evolving discussion happening around um you know for example the the ioc the international Olympic Committee the NCAA they all have their organizing bodies that are well equipped to handle this question based on facts science and the situ the re the re the reality of a
ny situations in a way that I think is makes them the appropriate body to make those decisions versus sort of political Advantage bills do you further Yi certainly so as it relates to high school sports in Georgia you want us to Outsource that decision-making ability to the international Olympic Committee commission no no no I think we have our own um organizations that that are already dealing with this issue right I mean that's we passed that bill a few years ago do you f the yield sure I thin
k my concern Senators I I'm hearing you conflate Youth Sports which are not mentioned in this bill with inter Scholastic Sports which are mentioned in this bill while you simultaneously admit the reality that there is a competitive advantage that emerges in middle school there might be and and my concern which gets to my next question isn't it true cator that the real concern has nothing to do with youth sports that if we were to amend this bill and made it very clear that this did not have anyt
hing to do with Elementary age sports that you members of your party would still oppose this because at the core you're not opposed to biological males competing against biological females even in high school sports I disagree with the premise of your question would do do you for the yel yes what's the premise that you disagree with your blanket statement about me my party and everyone in this chamber and your your views on what we would do on a question not in front of us okay then do you furth
er yield sure I if I further if I amend this bill to further clarify what I think is inherently in this bill to make it clear that it does not include Youth Sports but it only applies to middle school and high school sports would you be agreeable to what this bill does stating that you must that a mail must biological male must compete against biological males and biological females must compete against biological females so we probably don't have as much time as it would take for me to answer t
his a I don't agree with you about Middle School B I already explained that I think we're not the appropriate body to be making these calls and that there are um organizations that have been set up in law by us and you know the house and everybody else that are far better equipped and are the appropriate people to consider these comp comp uh complicated questions andd thirdly the point the the part that I think would take a long time and we don't have time for right now is a lot about what what
exactly is the purpose of high school sports right now I I agree that in rare instances in high school sports you are getting into a space where you may be looking for a Collegiate scholarship or you may you know be an elite athlete I think there's a big difference between Elite Athletics in any form and general us Sports to include high school so I'll leave it at that thank you for answering my question Senator thank you for asking y the wel you have no further questions [Music] Senator Okay so
we've got senator from second followed by the six and then the senator from the 14th will have the Minority Report so recognize senator from the second speak to the bill thank you Mr President uh colleagues I've got a a couple concerns uh about the nature of this bill and how I read it a couple weeks ago we heard that for the need for SB 233 to pass that we had failing schools and the school districts were terrible the schools were terrible and parents needed educational Freedom that's what we
heard and as I flipped through the bill and I wanted to just misst understand who was included uh in this bill in section one uh it talked about each local Board of Education had talked about other public school governing bodies shall establish policies and procedures of students enrolled at the time talking about the library but I noticed uh this code section didn't address private schools and then I thought well maybe you can't address private schools in this legislation so here we have public
schools public school mandates for public schools but I thought well certainly maybe we can mandate private schools because I was told that you can't do that but then last week I said that and then you said you can't do that and then I decided to go and read this bill a little longer and I brought my reading glasses Mr President just in case uh my eyes fail me and so as I flipped through the bill again I got to section 1-2 and then I saw that it said on line 60 talked about public school public
school materials being available Public Schools again and only Public Schools mentioned in this code section only public schools that have to follow these rules that relates to libraries I thought about what about the private schools what about the for-profit schools what about the schools that we had to pass the educational Freedom what what about the SB 233 schools should they not have any accountability I thought well maybe that's not the case but I got to section 3-2 in the bill and then I
I found on lines 205 when it came to talking about trans kids participating in sports we can mention private schools then it says on line 205 multiple occupancy restroom changing area means they're in a local school system public school system or participating private school building that is designed to designated to be used by one of more individuals at the same time in which one of more individuals may be in the various stages of undressing the presence of other individuals and it had mention
of those schools but I thought we couldn't talk about mandates for private schools but we can if it's mutually agreed upon but then I kept going through the the bill and I found on line 372 it says no local school s a public school a private participating private school in this state shall operate in Scholastic Athletics that permit a person whose sex is male to use any multiple occupancy restroom I said man my my my what a tangle web we weave when we weave one to deceive so you got some rules i
n here about private schools when it comes down to transgender children participating but when it com comes down to the accountability of those same public school children that will leave and go to private schools you don't have no mandates for what those Librarians do you don't have any mandates for what happens at those schools you don't have any mandates about those parents getting notifications for all of the library books that those those children take books out so why not be consistent in
what you're doing my grandmother used to tell me what's good for the goose is good for the gander so again colleagues if if you say that this is true and you believe it 200% why don't you put the the burden on the private schools as well let them follow all of the rules that you got for the public schools but here it is a double standard a separate group and colleagues I'm telling you right now if you going to do something do if you do anything just be consistent in what you do if you're going t
o be about principle cuz one thing about me Mr President the senator from the second I'll die on principal and I'm going to die on principal on this if you're going to do something for one do it for everybody be consistent in how you legislate don't pull folks out for certain things and not for everything because you just told me last week schools were failing can't count on local school districts to do the right thing but you can count on private schools to do the right thing for everything oh
no well we trust them on everything but this one thing but we'll let them go on everything else be consistent and true to what you said on paper be true to what you said in 233 make it follow make it mirror you knew that this was coming this should be consistent with everything else we've done but it's not because when it says local school system that means another mandate for another local school system doesn't mandate anything for a private school doesn't mandate anything for for-profit school
they on the way you got a voucher with 6,500 because we need educational freedom but freedom is only applied if you leave a public school and go to a private school that's where Freedom exists but again you got rules for these public schools because there's not freedom in public schools but if you do go to a private school and you do need educational Freedom then you got it because the Bill's not there the language is not there it's only on certain parts Parts it's not consistent throughout the
rest of the statute and it says local school system Local District when you want to talk about private schools you put a comma and you say private schools but that's not consistent throughout this bill because the intent is not to apply to them so rules for some not rules for all rules for thee but not for me and with that Mr President I yield it well the senator has yielded all right so we're upon us now for the uh unless any other Senator has anything we're going to let the senator from the 1
4th uh give the Minority Report recognize senator from the 14th thank you Mr President well given that I'm speaking to maybe not even a quum of the Senate and given the Beautiful presentation for the senator from the 34th this morning I thought it was an amazing tribute that she deserves every bit of I have decided my dear colleagues in the room and those mawing down on Donuts in the anti- room who can hear me on the TV one second late I have decided to dedicate this speech to the senator from t
he 34th and I'm going to pick a theme that I think resonates with all of us uh because we have heard her say the theme so many times you know the stage let me set it for you we're about to adjourn the Senate has this little game we like to play house does it too where you know there's a motion to adjourn by the majority leader and then maybe two people say I and everybody else says no really loudly but the chair says the eyes clearly have it right what does the center from the 34th say every tim
e when the nose shout it goes she goes I and then the nose go no and then the senator from the 34th shouts weak and that's what this bill is it is weak let's go through real quick cuz my colleagues have covered the nuts and bolts let's just sum it up because that's what a Minority Report is for Banning sex education before sixth grade weak the reason is because kids by the age of seven maybe even earlier are already dealing with the threat of abuse gender identity forming real world interactions
on the playground like the center from the 402 talked about so the train is moving but the parents might be lagging behind what is this bill it is nothing more but Banning everybody from talking about sex so that a few parents who feel uncomfortable don't have to until later in life weak the Mayo Clinic actually has standards on this pediatricians obtain consent from kids at the age of five to even touch them for a physical exam they have to explain the concept of autonomy and consent to a smal
l child and there are reasons there are good reasons why parents might delay the sexual health talk this is from the Mayo Clinic website religious familial social cultural Traditions badly handled sexed by their parents discomfort with imagining your child as a sexual being all understanding but to change all of Georgia state law because you have issues to work through in preparing your child for the real world is weak and we should not be afraid to say that there are two more parts of the bille
r problematic that we'll talk about right we've already discussed transports players and bathrooms we'll start with bathrooms forcing kids to go into an uncomfortable setting and make other kids uncomfortable because you don't want to acknowledge that they're having the feelings that they're having at that age weak and unintended consequences stem from this do you recognize that a bathroom Bill forces a trans man a ma a male presenting individual to go into a women's bathroom just think about th
at if you're afraid of trans identity which a lot of the Republican base is then you're forcing a person who looks like a man because they are a man to go to a women's restroom you'll say you're worried about Predators you say you're worried about Optics people feeling uncomfortable you just jacked it up to 11 and then there's the sorted reality that a transwoman has to go to a mail locker room where they're subject to empirically they are subject to a higher risk of harassment and physical assa
ult because they're different let's also talk about studies which have been done on the 28 states that have passed laws like this that draw hard lines in the sand on gender identity and trans rights in those States the increase in violence against lgbtq people has been greater than in the states that haven't passed these laws and it's not that hard to figure out why because we here wearing suits and ties and business attire the people who are supposed to be mature and have it together are codify
ing into law that these people are different they are other we have to be protected from them so what do you think kids do in response to that when their parents are saying it and their legislators are saying it they go to school they call kids queer they say go kill yourself already this is documented and they do it because they feel like we give them license to so to change the law to try to protect your own feelings about something that you have yet to understand is weak now the last one is t
he most difficult one for Democrats I'll acknowledge this that's the trans Sports issue and the reason it's difficult is because the polling there is some polling if you poll the word fairness or if you poll uh ma biological males in women's sports there are poll numbers that suggest that a majority of people might want fairness in sports that means an anti-trans Bill I've seen those polls but let me tell you what polls even worse what polls even worse is when the government decides to spend thi
s much time passing a bill that targets a handful of kids in the entire State because they're different from us what's even worse than a perceived lack of fairness in the polls is being a bully and what do you learn about bullies from your parents growing up deep down bullies Who present as angry violent what are they actually they're afraid they are weak again I want to stress that it's not wrong to not understand something it's not wrong to think something's new and unfamiliar it's not wrong t
o need guidance or to look for help or to go to therapy or to go through the development you need to go through to confront difficult realities about your kids or to learn about people who aren't like you none of that's wrong in fact Democrats owe everybody an obligation to be understanding and receptive when people come to us and say hey I heard what you said on the floor I want to know a little bit more about it because I just don't think I've been exposed to all of the science and the things
you're talking about but that doesn't make it any less weak to change the entirety of the law to protect yourself from having to go through that process people want to talk about snowflakes people want talk about what's soft in the last few years the left is woke safe spaces this bill creates the biggest safe space of them all and that is a safe space for a fraction of the public that doesn't want to acknowledge the reality of trans people and lgbtq people generally and it says those people neve
r have to confront the existence of those people and what it means instead they can hide behind Georgia state law and that my friends is weak thank you Mr President all right Senator is closed debate so recognize senator from the 45th to thank you Mr President I'm shocked uh by The Minority Report and you know some of the rhetoric that that was spewed from them up here at this well simply what this bill does is it protects children and it empowers parents it allows parents to get information on
books that their children check out from school it also prevents sex ed from being taught before sixth grade children only have a finite amount of time of innocence and we we want to we should be wanting to protect that and I I'm shocked by some of the comments that I heard from the well and we're just I don't know and as far as dealing with any type of abuse or anything like that that that was also spoke from the senator from the 42nd uh there's a carve out for that uh teachers can talk to Chil
dren about that uh before sixth grade so it had nothing to do with that as well um and talking about girls and and protecting the sanctity of their Sports is something that that when women have fought for for 50 years and you're just going to claw that back and when you've got a biological male when someone's born a male it's on their birth certificate and as they start going through puberty as we heard from the center from the 42nd as well as puberty starting as early as in in Elementary School
uh for some children they have men have a or boys have a distinct advantage over females and we need to protect that and also talking about the changing rooms I mean I I'm a father of three and I've got two daughters I would be I won't say what I would be or what I would do if I knew there was a male changing in in my daughter's restroom I mean there's a story uh I went to an event uh with Riley Gaines who's actually a college student uh who was had to was forced to change uh with a biological
male claiming that he was transgender of course he did beat her just barely uh in a swimming meet at the college level but then she was forced to change with him and he was still fully intact a fully intact male and hear her talk about how horrifying that was for her as a college student and y'all think it's okay for kids that are in elementary middle school or high school to be exposed to that I I just I'm flabbergasted but uh again this bill simply empowers parents and protects kids with that
Mr President I'll yield well all right does any other Senator wish to speak for against the measure ch here on is there objection to the previous question being ordered chair here's Z previous question is ordered question is on the adoption of the committee substitute is there objection to the adoption of the committee substitute hearing none the committee substitute is adopted is there objection to agreeing to the report of committee which is favorable to the passage of the bill chair hears non
e report of committee is agreed to is there objection to the main question being ordered chair here's none the main question is ordered questions on the passes of the bill by substitute all those in favor of the bill vote yay oppose nay secretary will unlock the machine e on the pass of the bill the y r 33 the n r 21 this bill having received the rec constitutional majority is therefore passed by substitute
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