Tennessee lawmakers are considering a bill that would bar schools from requiring students to use transgender teachers’ preferred honorifics. The GOP -backed bill under consideration in the state House would stop educators from requiring preferred honorifics in the classroom. Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ + news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter. Tennessee Rep. Aron Maberry, a Republican , said he filed the legislation because a transgender instructor at a school in his district asked students to refer to them using the title “Mx.” instead of “Mr.” He doesn’t want pupils or parents facing consequences if they refuse to do so. “The reason I brought it up is there is a teacher in our district that is wanting to become called by the wrong honorific,” Maberry told the House Public Service Committee in February. Related : Texas teachers are being forced to deadname transgender students under a new state law Related : Even Republicans are against Tennessee’s trans health ban “I think it’s important that in our education system that we teach objective truth, and your biological sex is important is part of that objective truth. So to confuse a child in a classroom or to ask someone in authority to ask a child to call them something that they are not is problematic to me.” He said the legislation expands on a law signed last year by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee that allows individuals to sue teachers who request the use of they/them pronouns. The bill has drawn pushback from LGBTQ+ citizens, who are upset that the change in law would encourage deadnaming and bullying. Dahron Anneliese Johnson, a trans rights advocate, said the legislation authorizes and encourages harassment. Johnson, as a parent, said they encourage their own child to always be considerate of others at school, but this bill teaches the opposite message. Related : Meet the gay man who will be Tennessee's first out LGBTQ+ school board member “It is a matter of human rights that this legislation expand the number of ways the faculty and staff of these institutions could have opted to be rude to him or dismissive of us,” Johnson testified in the House. The legislation has also generated fear among instructors in the state. Maxwell Jasper Bearden, a transgender educator in Clarksville, has asked teachers to use the name “Teacher B” instead of a traditional honorific, they told ABC affiliate WKRN in Nashville. “My students have never had a problem with that,” Bearden said. “I have a whole folder of art made by my students that all refer to me as Teacher B. It’s got my little crutches or my little cane in it, and it says ‘Teacher B’ or ‘Techer B,’ whatever their spelling. None of my students have ever had a problem with it. It’s only ever been the adults.” The bill has been tabled three times in the House State & Local Government Committee, but a Senate bill has already passed.