Seemingly out of nowhere, a bill drafted last January–House Resolution 2616 (HR 2616)–has not only been revived, but it’s also swiftly made its way to the United States House floor and passed in a vote of 217 to 198, with 15 abstentions. Eight Democrats crossed the aisle to align with their Republican colleagues, supporting a bill that would revoke students’ rights, autonomy, and access to books and information in public schools nationwide.
Of course, the bill’s quick revival and passage isn’t actually a surprise. We’re in the days before a long weekend and the kickoff of summer, with gas prices nearly 50% higher than one year ago and the cost of living continuing to skyrocket. Pushing the conservative’s pet project of discrimination against children and queer children couldn’t be more apt. More specifically, a return to focusing on trans people and trans kids is par for the course in the run-up to a midterm election season where the GOP is doing all it can to retain power that it only holds through lies and theft–they wouldn’t be rushing to gerrymander and undermine the Voting Rights Act otherwise.
What is HR 2616, the “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act?” This bill differs from HR 7661, the national book ban bill, introduced by Illinois Republican House representative Mary Miller (a fan of Hitler). The two bills are closely aligned, especially as Republicans expanded HR 2616 in light of several other anti-LGBTQ+, and specifically anti-trans, education bills.
Under the guise of protecting “parental rights”–which parents’ rights being the question, of course–HR 2616 requires that any school receiving federal funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 require parental permission before using a student’s preferred gender, pronouns, or name on any school form or allowing them to use the bathroom or locker room that most aligns with their identity. The bill also prohibits teaching “gender ideology” in public schools receiving federal funding, as defined in Trump’s Executive Order 14168. Executive Orders aren’t laws, and in today’s conspiracy-as-fact landscape, it’s especially concerning that the targets are children.
This bill forcibly outs kids to their parents, regardless of how dangerous the situation would be for the child. It would also limit what can and cannot be taught in classrooms, inevitably meaning the wholesale elimination of concepts from the curriculum and the removal of swaths of books from classrooms and libraries. Trans people and trans history would be banned. As has been said from the beginning of the race to ban books in 2021, none of this has been about the books themselves. It’s been about the eradication of people that don’t slot into the imagined cishet, white Christian ideal. Bullying trans children allows grown adults to feel good, even if it doesn’t provide any solutions to the actual problems in contemporary America.
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For the party that doesn’t believe in small government, there is a real fixation on individual identities nationwide, including, and especially, children. This is one of many bills pursued by the right that spend time lingering on trans children, and it continues under the guise of not only “parental rights,” but also “defending women.” We know “parental rights” means the rights of those who align with GOP ideology; we know “defending women” means only some women. Both are boogeymen in an assault on Americans’ rights to be individuals. In the case of HR 2616, children’s lives are once again valued less than those of others in this country. The bill further codifies children as property of their parents, rather than as autonomous individuals.
As noted above, eight Democrats voted in favor of the “Don’t Say Trans” bill. They are Henry Cuellar (TX), Don Davis (NC), Cleo Fields (LA), Laura Gillen (NY), Vicente Gonzalez (TX), Marcy Kaptur (OH), Marie Glusenkamp Perez (WA), & Eugene Vindman (VA).
HR 2616 is not law yet. The bill now goes to the Senate, where it has a taller hill to surmount. Again, this bill is not the same as HR 7661, the nationwide book ban bill. It is an on-ramp to that bill, and because the language is so vague, HR 2616 would have a similar impact on what young people would have access to in their public schools.
This is the time to call your representatives in the Senate and tell them you oppose this unnecessary, cruel bill intended to bully children and create a mass chilling and censorship movement in public schools. Young people will die as a direct result of this bill, and they’ll also be indoctrinated with an education that erases entire groups of people and movements in history. In an era where the federal government has shouted about taking a “hands off” approach to education in the country–that’s the claim behind their shuttering of the Department of Education, as education is a “states” concern–bills like this one are tremendous overreach. Likewise, the amount of time elected congresspeople spend thinking and talking about what is or isn’t under a child’s clothing and whether it matches their exterior appearance or preferences is not normal. Those same lawmakers have not spent a fraction of their energy seeking justice for victims of pedophilia perpetrated by some of their colleagues in the government; they’ve instead worked to protect those whose cruel crimes against children are laid out in the Epstein files.
Don’t stop at contacting Senators in advance of the bill, though. Contact your representatives in the House, too, and make sure they know you’re watching what they’re doing. Send a positive note to those who voted against this. It is important to indicate approval of legislative decisions, as much as it is imperative to register your anger and disappointment. If your representative is one of the eight Democrats who voted in favor of bullying trans children, remind them that their seats are always on the line. Remind them, too, they’re complicit in the harm that will come from such a bill being implemented.
It is impossible to know when or where this bill will show up in the Senate. HR 2616 sat for over a year before House representatives decided it was crucial to attack children in public schools right now. You can keep an eye on when or where the Senate may take up the bill by monitoring the bill’s tracking page (which has not updated as regularly as it should). The Senate’s Hearings and Meetings schedule can be useful, too.
While you’re reaching out to your representatives in both the House and Senate, take the time to also advocate for continued funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for Fiscal Year 2027. You can use some of the same talking points from last year’s successful fight to preserve the only federal agency dedicated to public libraries and museums. Among the new talking points you can incorporate? The two successful lawsuits filed against the government’s gutting of the agency in March 2025–both the lawsuit filed by 21 state attorneys general and the lawsuit filed by the American Library Association and AFSCME were ruled and settled in favor of the IMLS.