GOP lawmaker called out for his “hateful & malicious” bill by his own brother

Charles Gragg Jr., an Army veteran and the older brother of Missouri state Rep. Jamie Gragg (R), spoke out on Thursday about his lawmaker brother’s “hateful and malicious” bill targeting teachers for supporting transgender students.

First-term Rep. Gragg, an Ozark Republican, filed H.B. 2885 last week. The legislation would criminalize support “regarding social transition” for students in Missouri, and subject teachers and school counselors to felony charges for providing information or resources to questioning kids. If convicted, the bill mandates that supportive educators register as sex offenders.

Related:

GOP bill would require teachers to register as sex offenders if they support trans students

They could also get sent to jail just for using the right name and pronouns for their trans students.

“It is just malicious, and to call it ‘protecting children’ is just whitewash for hatred,” Gragg Jr. said of the proposed legislation.

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“For something so small and insignificant as just showing compassion to a kid who is having issues,” Gragg Jr. continued, “you’re going to put people on a sex offender registry” and “cost them their careers.”

The bill defines “social transition” as the “process by which an individual adopts the name, pronouns, and gender expression, such as clothing or haircuts, that match the individual’s gender identity and not the gender assumed by the individual’s sex at birth.”

Gragg’s bill also adds “contributing to social transition” to Missouri’s list of offenses that require those convicted to register as Tier I sex offenders, alongside crimes like first-degree sexual abuse of a victim over the age of 18, possession of child pornography, and second-degree child molestation.

Sex offenders in Missouri aren’t permitted within 500 feet of a school or daycare.  

Gragg Jr., who calls himself a “professional grandpa”, spoke about H.B. 2885 alongside Missouri LGBTQ+ rights group PROMO.

He said his family arrived in Missouri from Los Angeles when he was a teenager, and, as an outsider, he found comfort with sympathetic teachers.

“It frightens and angers me to think if this legislation was around then, that with a stroke of a pen, it could have ended their careers and destroyed their lives,” he says. “It’s just hateful and malicious. This legislation will cost lives and recklessly destroy others just for the sin of being compassionate.”

News of his brother’s bill “quite literally took my breath away,” Gragg Jr. said. “I truthfully and honestly can’t even imagine what his motivations are. That’s part of what’s so shocking about it.”

Robert Fischer, spokesperson for PROMO, added, “To say that we are very deeply disappointed in the introduction of this bill is an understatement. But we’d also be lying if we said that we were surprised by it.”

“The Missouri General Assembly continues to attack LGBTQ+ people with a singular goal in mind, which is to erase LGBTQ+ identities from our state,” Fischer said.

“Part of the desire here for the people behind this is not only can we punish people who disagree with our stance, but we can remove them from future conversations,” Gragg Jr. said. “It’s just hateful and malicious.”