Starting July 1, 2023 a new Indiana law requires every school in the state to tell parents within five days any time a student asks to be called by anything other than their official name. This law also applies to pronouns and nicknames.
Informing parents isn’t always a bad thing. However, this can be dangerous for many transgender kids all over Indiana. For some, it isn’t safe for them to come out at home, so notifying someone at home seems harmless, but, can put a student in danger. Prior to HB 1608 school could be a student’s safe place, using their preferred name and pronouns, now however, this isn’t the case. Because of this law, some kids may feel uncomfortable at school, being unable to ask their teachers to call them by their preferred name. This law can also be beyond annoying for kids who go by their middle name or a shortened version of their legal name and having to tell parents year after year.
This law can also be difficult for teachers because now they not only need to remember the names of all of their students, but they also need to remember to email counselors and administrators asking for approval about every student they have that goes by a different name. Students and staff in schools already go through a lot of stress daily so this law just adds to that load when it comes to the first day of the school year or semester. Is it really necessary to add more stress to those teachers? For example, someone named Elizabeth could go by Lizzie, is that something that needs to be taking up the time of our administrators?
This law also applies to pronouns. Some students may not be safe at home or able to come out, but when it comes to school, then they previously got to be called their preferred pronouns. Now, since students’ parents have to be notified and give their approval, some student don’t feel comfortable making this request to their teachers, unless they want to be outed by their teacher. For some students, coming out may be harder than it is for others, so by practically forcing them to come out at home in order to go by a different name or different pronouns at school. It’s not right.
At NAHS there are more than 1,700 students. This means administrators likely have to go through hundreds of emails from teachers regarding name requests. There may be up to seven emails per student, taking up hours if not days of administrator time. This law also puts teachers in a sticky situation when a student asks to be called by a different name. Whether the student asks them not to email the administrators or not the teachers then have to decide whether to break the law or possibly out their student and have to put them in an uncomfortable situation.
This law also applies to elementary and middle school students. The elementary school teachers already have to worry about their really young students and now they have to worry about emailing parents about every Katherine that goes by Kate and every Nathaniel that goes by Nate.
Needless to say, this law is very unnecessary and oversteps boundaries that schools shouldn’t be worried about. Having to tell parents about their child’s nickname every new school year is very tedious and can get very annoying. This law also makes schools less safe for trans youth and they are already in a lot of danger as it is.
