Students and teachers in public schools across the state are having their rights restricted by HB 81, with students having their right to personal expression stripped away from them and teachers having to risk losing their job for simply using a nickname in the classroom.

HB 81 is a bill that requires school employees (including teachers) to refer to their students by their given name and pronouns, even if asked to do otherwise by the student. This hurts not only LGBTQ+ students, stripping queer students of the right to dictate their own identity and be supported by their educators, but children who have been using a nickname for their entire life. This also puts the careers of teachers at risk, as they will face punishment for simply referring to students as anything other than their birth name. Teachers should worry more about educating their students than if they can call them a certain name. 

Parents are allowed to write to the school to grant permission for different names to be used by students, but that is incredibly asinine. Parents have better things to worry about than a piece of paper allowing their son Timothy to be called "Tim." 

My name on my birth certificate is Julianne, but everyone, friends, family and teachers, have always called me Juju. This bill would put teachers in a position where calling me a name I've been called all my life could put their job at risk. This bill would require my working parents to submit a request to the school, schools that are already drowning in paperwork, for them to call me something they've been calling me since I was a baby. The language in the bill is clearly meant to only target trans students, something that is on its own disgusting, but targets every student in Louisiana. It has no net benefit to the general public, other than making it seem like our legislation is actually doing something useful for its constituents.

News flash: if it's passing bills like this, it's not.

We need to get this petition signed before the session is over, to show that we will not have our right to identity or free speech stripped by our legislators, that we will not put our teachers at risk of losing their jobs for something embarrassingly stupid, that we will stand with our students no matter what name they wish to go by.