Burton bill dubbed the Tattletale Bill

 

A bill Fort Worth state Sen. Konni Burton pre-filed for the current legislative session that is concerning LGBT advocates is coming to be known as the Tattletale Bill. If passed, it would require school personnel, including teachers and counselors, to let parents know if the school personnel have information that their child was LGBT.
Josephine Tittsworth, writing on behalf of the National Association of Social Worker as its Texas LGBT Equality Committee chair as well as executive director of the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit, wrote that school employees must build relationships of trust with student.
“If this relationship is betrayed then the student may choose to either withdraw from school, become suspicious of the employee, or act out in an adverse manner, thereby effecting the child’s academic standing in that school,” she wrote.
And if parents are notified that their child claims to be LGBT, they, in many cases, will force the child out of the home or become violent toward the child. So this bill brings in safety issues.
“Betrayal has many side effects and these potential consequences are just some of the options,” Tittsworth wrote. “The homeless children on the streets in Texas are largely members of the LGBT community. They go to the streets to avoid the abuse from family.”
She said the issue is basic safety of children already on the streets and those living at home with their families.
While bathroom bills and tattletale bills are consuming the energy of the state Senate so far this session, the Quorum Report reports that Sen. Finance Committee Chair Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, is following the lead of House Speaker Joe Straus. Straus said taking care of children is one of the state’s most basic duties. On Monday, Nelson directed her committee “to come up with completely new ways to pay for public schools.”