Republican in Frankfort are fast-tracking a bill, HB 470, to cause more teen suicides in the Commonwealth.
Of course, they don’t call it that. With all the irony only right-wingers can muster, they have named it the “Do No Harm Act.” Which is right there with calling the Holocaust “population management.”
You thought Wise’s “can’t use pronouns” bill was bad? This one tops it by leaps and bounds.
First of all, HB 470 outlaws all “gender transition services” in the state of Kentucky for anyone under 18. What does that include? Everything from actual medical treatment, to discussion of gender, to counseling, to even just using preferred pronouns.
Don’t believe me? Here’s the definition, right from the bill:
“Social transition services” means any gender-affirming care, encouragement, affirmation, or advocacy for gender transition, including but not limited to affirming the person’s name change, pronoun adoption, dress and grooming, and sex-role specific behaviors that vary from those behaviors typically associated with the person’s sex.
Oh but wait, there’s more! The bill also makes it possible for a person providing such help to teenagers to be sued for damages, for up to 30 years after the help is provided.
And here’s the kicker – the bill requires any teacher or school counselor who hears any student express thoughts about their sexuality to tell the student’s parents. So now we’ve got state-mandated outing of possibly-trans children.
This is nothing but “performative hatred” on the part of the Republicans. What is performative hatred? It’s acts of hatred carried out to gain political points rather than out of actual hatred.
The bill currently has 36 Republican sponsors in the House. I find it impossible to believe that all 36 actually hate trans people. Hell, most of them have probably never met a trans person.
They are doing this for one simple reason: to score points with the people in their district who actually DO hate trans, and gays, and anyone whose sexuality doesn’t fit their missionary-position mindset. Come 2024, they’ll all be able to tell their voters “That’s right; I voted to stop that there Woke Agenda. We’re not going to have any of that LGBTQRZM stuff in OUR county!” {cheers}
Let me be clear. If you think the title of this is harsh, consider this: it’s also accurate. If this bill takes effect, more teens will “endure in silence,” as one young person said in an interview yesterday, until they finally have had enough and kill themselves.
This bill WILL cause more teen suicides. But the 36 Republicans sponsoring it don’t care. All they care about is their performative hatred, and the applause of bigots. And that has to be called out.
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