If you listen to right-wing talk radio even for a few minutes, you will hear plenty of flag-waving, Constitution pounding, nationalistic rhetoric, all designed to make you think they are the true freedom-loving Americans. But if there’s one thing this past year has taught us, it’s that this couldn’t be further from the truth. From restrictions on voting access to women’s reproductive care, the GOP has chipped away at our freedoms.
Nowhere is that more evident than in states which have proposed dozens of bills restricting the rights of transgender citizens. Now, the Kentucky GOP, in an egregious government overreach, has pushed HB 150 to the Governor’s desk and he has subsequently vetoed it.
Kimberly Kennedy
It restricts not only the rights of transgender youth to get the medical and mental health care they desperately need to feel whole and happy but also those of their families to provide the care and support their children need to thrive and of medical professionals to deliver the standard of care approved and recommended by legitimate medical associations.
Ignoring this, supporters of the bill plowed ahead, misinformed, holding steadfast to their unsupported claim that gender-affirming care is child abuse, despite their lack of evidence.
The legislature now has the opportunity to override the Governor’s veto.
You should question the wisdom of pursuing this course, considering the following:
The Consequences for the Victims
• Legislators inserting themselves between patients and their doctors takes away patients’ rights to bodily autonomy.
• Research shows that when trans youth are denied care, depression increases, often leading to self-harm and suicidality.
• Trans youth who cannot receive hormone blockers will find that their physical appearance looks less aligned with their gender identity, thus inviting more persecution.
• Family members desperate to help their children will either risk legal penalties by seeking assistance through illegal or underground channels or feel forced to relocate or seek medical care out of state, creating unprecedented financial burdens.
• Supportive community members, like teachers, counselors, or religious personnel, will face similar risks.
• Medical professionals will lose their livelihood.
The Consequences for Kentuckians
• Taxpayers will pay for enforcement.
• We’ll pay for the legal challenge—which is coming—because denying FDA-approved medications for one medical or mental-health issue while allowing them for others violates citizens’ constitutional rights.
• Businesses and families will be deterred from doing business with or relocating to Kentucky because of the perception that Kentucky is backward.
• We will suffer because our friends, family members, and neighbors will suffer.
With so many more pressing issues facing Kentucky, like the disproportionate rates of infant and maternal mortality as well as opioid deaths and the higher rate of underprivileged children, does it make sense to waste time removing the rights of an already marginalized group?
I’m reminded of the words of German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller, who was imprisoned by Nazis despite being non-Jewish:
“First they came for the Socialists, but I did not speak out—because I was not a Socialist…Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”
The transgender community needs your voice — today!
Kimberly Kennedy is a writer and the parents of a young adult LGBTQ+ community. She lives in Northern Kentucky
Mental health is mental health…address those issues and let parents control and direct the lives of THEIR children. We do not need teachers and schools and school boards grooming, indoctrinating and facilitating the path of deviancy. We DO need them to be educating and instructing our children to be better citizens, more productive citizens and greater educated citizens. Our ACT/SAT scores are at 30 year lows. We need academic improvement, not social sensitivity indoctrination. Other nations await the fail of America and lowering our educational achievements, our productivity, our morality, falls into their plans for our nation and its demise.
The schools, the teachers and the school boards do not OWN our children., they work FOR us and should not be working AGAINST parents and their wishes. If you call that “right wing extremism” then most parents who care about their children probably fit in that category. At least the FBI has labeled them as such.