GOP Gov Makes Bold Stand to Protect Her State's Children, And the Left Is Up in Arms
The left’s current focus for its Two Minutes Hate is GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, he of the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill that doesn’t say gay once. Give it a week or two, though, and there’s a good chance Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey could be replacing him.
Mind you, Ivey isn’t a 2024 presidential hopeful and Alabama is nowhere near as populous as Florida. However, on Friday, Ivey signed the first law criminalizing the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapies or transgender surgeries to minors, according to The Hill. Violators could be subject to up to 10 years behind bars.
(Here at The Western Journal, we’ve been documenting how these drugs are mostly untested on children and how the evidence for their use is more ideological than medical. The facts have proven us right — and yet, the left continues to insist nothing’s wrong. We’ll keep fighting them tooth and nail, even as Big Tech tries to starve us of ad revenue for doing so. You can help our fight by subscribing.)
In addition to criminalizing the use of the experimental therapies on minors, the law also requires students to use facilities that match their gender and prohibits instruction in gender identity or sexual orientation until sixth grade — going even further than Florida’s bill, which only prohibits it until fourth grade.
“There are very real challenges facing our young people, especially with today’s societal pressures and modern culture,” Ivey said in a Friday statement, according to WIAT-TV.
“I believe very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl. We should especially protect our children from these radical, life-altering drugs and surgeries when they are at such a vulnerable stage in life.
“Instead, let us all focus on helping them to properly develop into the adults God intended them to be.”
Only one other state — Arkansas — has moved to block access to the drugs for minors, although a federal judge has blocked its enforcement until a lawsuit is decided. Over 30 bills are in the works in other states, as well.
As for the law’s restrictions on what facilities students can use in school, Ivey called it common sense.
“Here in Alabama, men use the men’s room, and ladies use the ladies’ room — it’s really a no-brainer,” she said.
“This bill will also ensure our elementary school classrooms remain free from any kind of sex talk. Let me be clear to the media and opponents who like to incorrectly dub this the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ amendment: That is misleading, false and just plain wrong. We don’t need to be teaching young children about sex. We are talking about five-year-olds for crying out loud.
“We need to focus on what matters – core instruction like reading and math.”
There are plenty of organizations that disagree with that assessment, starting with the American Civil Liberties Union, LGBT organization Lambda Legal and the Transgender Law Center, all of which are threatening lawsuits.
“If the state moves forward in passing this unconstitutional bill, we’ll see them in court,” said ACLU staff attorney Kaitlin Welborn.
The ACLU’s Tish Gotell Faulks, meanwhile, also claimed the legislation was unconstitutional and said the organization plans to go to court “[t]o prevent the state of Alabama from interfering in the relationship between trans kids, their parents, and their medical providers.”
Democrats on the state and national level also took aim at Ivey.
State House Rep. Neil Rafferty, a Democrat, called the bill “an assault on decency” during a speech on the state House floor Thursday.
“Every single one of them is going to affect somebody that lives in each one of my colleagues’ district,” he said.
Speaking to members of the LGBT community, Rafferty said, “I understand that you’re scared. I understand that you feel that you have a target on your back. But I want you to know … I still got your back, all right?”
Yes, Rafferty still has their back — by allowing their parents to consent to medical procedures they cannot fully comprehend as a treatment for a mental condition with a high rate of desistance once patients exit puberty. He may have someone’s back, but it’s probably not his constituents or their children.
Furthermore, the bill caught the attention of the White House — and it wasn’t long before Peppermint Patty herself, White House press secretary Jen Psaki, was giving Alabama the what-for from the Brady Press Briefing Room podium.
“Alabama’s lawmakers and other legislators who are contemplating these … discriminatory bills have been put on notice by the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services that laws and policies preventing care that health care professionals recommend for transgender minors may violate the Constitution and federal law,” Psaki said Thursday.
Of course, the timing of this isn’t necessarily stellar. In spite of a massive offensive against the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill (which doesn’t say gay), it remains popular among Florida voters — including Democrats.
It remains to be seen what voters think of Alabama’s legislation, but it comes as revelations emerge that studies that found “gender-affirming” care — a pleasant euphemism for puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgery — for young transgender individuals was effective was funded in large part by pharmaceutical companies who stand to benefit if the therapies see wider use, according to the Daily Caller.
Now that the DeSantis backlash has mostly fizzled, perhaps the left can turn its propagandistic guns on Ivey. It’s likely to be a little harder, however, and not just because of those inconvenient facts. After all, erroneous though it may have been, “Don’t Say Gay” was a rhyming and catchy slactivist slogan. “No Hormones for Hector,” try as they might to make it work, doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
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