Public schools and state agencies in North Dakota would be prohibited from referring to students and employees by any pronouns that don’t reflect the sex assigned to them at birth, under a bill approved by the legislature.

The House approved the bill 60-32 on Wednesday. It passed the Senate last month and now awaits the signature of Republican Gov. Doug Burgum.

In 2021, Burgum vetoed a bill that would have restricted transgender students from participating in public elementary and secondary school sports. But Burgum has not said publicly if he supports this latest measure.

The bill is among hundreds nationwide that are taking aim at nearly every facet of transgender existence, from pronouns to bathroom use to health care to athletics. In North Dakota, similar bills to restrict transgender athletes have passed the House this session with veto-proof majorities. The Senate has not yet voted on them. Last week, Wyoming became the 19th state to ban transgender athletes from playing on girls or women’s sports teams.

“It’s another week of a legislative session, and we have another bill that’s telling certain people that they have value or don’t have value in our state,” Democratic Rep. Josh Boschee of Fargo said as he urged lawmakers to vote against the pronoun bill.

Right before the vote, Republican Rep. SuAnn Olson of Baldwin countered: “Five years ago, this whole pronoun thing wasn’t a thing. It puts teachers in the very difficult position” of keeping up with students who switch their pronoun, she said. “It’s just a common-sense bill that deserves a green vote.”

The bill would not criminalize teachers or state employees. And if a teacher received approval from a student’s parent or guardian — and from the school administrator — the teacher would be allowed to use the pronouns a student prefers.

Although the measure also affects state employees outside the schools, Wednesday’s debate focused mostly on educational staff who would be affected. Supporters said the bill would ease burdens on teachers and create better learning environments for students

The bill would allow teachers to “rest with relief that they only need to remember one name and (one) set of historically recognized biological pronouns,” Republican Rep. Lori VanWinkle, of Minot, said in support. She added that the bill would instill confidence in parents that their kids are safe at school and create learning environments without “social distractions.”

Opponents including Democratic Rep. Mary Schneider of Fargo cited the testimony of countless people who argued the bill would harm LGBTQ youth: mental health therapists, school counselors, social workers, suicide prevention advocates, church leaders and more.

Schneider noted that these experts said the bill would not protect kids or promote learning, because “the real threats to children are poverty, hunger, lack of health care, gun violence, bigotry, social pressures, mental health and bills like these.”

Democrats and Republicans voted against the bill.

A survey by The Trevor Project in 2022 found that 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the previous year, but that those who were supported socially or at school reported lower rates.

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Trisha Ahmed is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her on Twitter: @TrishaAhmed15

DETROIT (AP) — The Chevrolet Camaro, for decades the dream car of many teenage American males, is going out of production.

General Motors, which sells the brawny muscle car, said Wednesday it will stop making the current generation early next year.

The future of the car, which is raced on NASCAR and other circuits, is a bit murky. GM says another generation may be in the works.

“While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured, this is not the end of Camaro’s story,” Scott Bell, vice president of Chevrolet, said in a statement.

The current sixth-generation Camaro, introduced in 2016, has done well on the racetrack, but sales have been tailing off in recent years. When the current generation Camaro came out in 2016, Chevrolet sold 72,705 of them. But by the end of 2021 that number fell almost 70% to 21,893. It rebounded a bit last year to 24,652.

GM said last of the 2024 model year of the cars will come off the assembly line in Lansing, Michigan, in January.

Spokesman Trevor Thompkins said he can’t say anything more about a future Camaro. “We’re not saying anything specific right now,” he said.

If GM revives the Camaro, it almost certainly will be electric, said Stephanie Brinley, an associate director with S&P Global Mobility. “It would be unlikely to see another internal combustion engine vehicle,” she said.

GM has said it plans to sell only electric passenger vehicles worldwide by 2035.

Brinley said the push to sell more electric vehicles makes it likely that all new muscle cars will be powered by batteries. But if there’s still a mixed combustion and battery fleet on sale in 2030 or 2040, some gas-powered muscle cars could survive.

Thompkins said GM has an understanding with auto-racing sanctioning bodies that the sixth-generation car can continue racing. GM will have parts available and the Camaro body will stay on the race track, he said.

NASCAR said that because the Generation 6 Camaro was in production when GM originally got permission to race, it remains qualified to race in NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Xfinity Series races.

GM will offer a collector’s edition package of the 2024 Camaro RS and SS in North America, and a limited number of high-performance ZL-1 Camaros. The collector’s edition cars will have ties to the first-generation Camaro from the 1960s and its GM code name “Panther,” the company said without giving specifics.

GM’s move comes as traditional gas-powered muscle cars are starting to be phased out due to strict government fuel economy regulations, concerns about climate change and an accelerating shift toward electric vehicles.

Stellantis, will stop making gas versions of the Dodge Challenger and Charger and the Chrylser 300 big sedan by the end of this year. But the company has plans to roll out a battery-powered Charger performance car sometime in 2024.

Electric cars, with instant torque and a low center of gravity, often are faster and handle better than internal combustion vehicles.

Stellantis, formed in 2021 by combining Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA Peugeot, earlier this week announced the last of its special edition muscle cars, the 1,025 horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. The company says the car can go from zero to 60 mph (97 kilometers per hour) in 1.66 seconds, making it the fastest production car on the market.

In addition, Ford rolled out a new version of its Mustang sports car in September.

The Camaro was first introduced in 1966, two years after Ford’s wildly popular Mustang.

GM retired the Camaro nameplate in 2002, but revived it as a new 2010 model with hopes of appealing to enthusiasts and younger buyers. The 2010 version was similar to its predecessors, with a long, flat front and side “gills” that evoke the original, while still sporting a modern overall design.

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AP Auto Racing Writer Jenna Fryer contributed from Charlotte, North Carolina.

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