Tennessee's strong record of protecting children and family values is important

The 113th General Assembly has adjourned for 2024, and it was a very successful year. We have taken measures for Tennessee to be a better place to live, work and to raise a family.

Protecting children and family values is a top priority in Tennessee. Over the years we have taken steps to continue to strengthen our laws to protect children from harmful procedures and inappropriate sexual content.

Tennessee has been at the forefront of the fight to stop hormone treatments in children to change their gender identity. We led the nation when we took our first steps to ban hormone treatment for children in 2021 (Public Chapter 460, 2021).. Since then, we have expanded those efforts and now under current law, medical “transition” surgeries that remove body parts to enable a minor child to identify as a gender different from their biological sex are banned (Public Chapter 1, 2023).

In 2023, we passed a law to protect children from inappropriate entertainment (Public Chapter 2, 2023). The 2023 law prohibited sexually explicit adult entertainment from being performed in front of children or where children could be present. The law bans obscene performances from taking place in public parks or private venues that are non-age-restricted

This year we built on those efforts and passed the Protecting Children from Social Media Act (Public Chapter 899, 2024). This new law restores parental authority online by requiring social media companies to verify the ages of account holders and obtain parental consent for minors to create a social media account.

We also took action this session to curb access to online pornography for minors. The Protect Tennessee Minors Act (Public Chapter 1021, 2024) requires online media companies and operators to verify users’ ages in order to access sites with explicit adult content.

In our digital age, the internet has many benefits to improving our quality of life. However, we must be diligent with how children use the internet because it can have extremely harmful long-term impact on young developing minds. We must take proactive steps to protect children from harmful and inappropriate content online.

The Age-Appropriate Materials Act

In 2022, I was proud to co-sponsor The Age-Appropriate Materials Act which increased transparency and oversight of instructional materials and literature used in public schools (Public Chapter 744, 2022). This law requires public schools to post online a list of the materials in their libraries and have a standardized review framework to ensure school library collections are periodically evaluated for age-appropriateness. If a school should find a material is not age-appropriate based on student, parental or employee feedback, then the school would have to remove it.

In 2023, an additional step was added to the process of evaluating materials in school libraries by requiring complaints to first go to the local school district for resolution prior to going to the local board of education for review (Public Chapter 472, 2023).

This year we continued to strengthen the law and clarified that obscene materials must be kept from public school libraries (Senate Bill 1060, 2024). We also established that parents have standing to file civil action against their LEA to enforce the Age-Appropriate Materials Act (Senate Bill 1858, 2024).

Keeping inappropriate material out of public schools

In 2023, the General Assembly passed a law making it a Class E felony offense to knowingly sell or distribute obscene material to a public school. (Public Chapter 278, 2023)

Then, in 2022, a law was passed that required the State Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission to issue guidance for LEAs and charter schools to use when reviewing materials in a library to ensure that the materials are appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who will access them. (Public Chapter 1137, 2022) Another law passed in 2022 requires vendors to take steps to block inappropriate content on school computers. (Public Chapter 1002, 2022)

Our children are the most precious and innocent among us. It is our moral civic and moral duty to protect children and ensure they are not exposed to content that can harm their brain development and negatively affect them into adulthood. I am proud of the progress we have made in the General Assembly to protect children, but our work is not done. We will continue to build on our efforts and protect Tennessee children.

You May Contact

Senator Hensley at

425 Rep. John Lewis Way N., Suite 742

Nashville TN 37243

615-741-3100

Toll Free 1-800-449-8366 ext. 13100

Fax 615-253-0231

855 Summertown Highway

Hohenwald TN 38462

Phone 931-796-2018

Cell Phone 931-212-8823

E-mail: [email protected]