By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
As harsh as this headline appears to you, it accurately describes what could happen to many transgender and gender nonconforming children and adolescents in the future.
Here are two hard, cold facts that most of our lawmakers ignored in the passage of Senate Bill 150 last Thursday:
More than 75 percent of these gender-challenged individuals say they have considered suicide and nearly half of them admit to having attempted it.
In addition to weak social support, these mostly young persons must cope with frequent assaults – verbal and physical – because they are different from others and easy targets for hate speech and other mistreatment.
Sen. Karen Berg of Louisville did her best to stop the anti-trans bill with her heartbreaking story of her son who committed suicide in 2022 after struggling with his gender identity for years.
She said of the bill’s impact:
“Transgender children exist, and transgender children deserve to exist. The Kentucky legislature has voted to remove basic rights from members of the trans community, their parents, and their doctors. Hate has no shame in this state.”
In my view, every Kentuckian should be angry that these self-righteous politicians, very few of whom have any medical training, decided to terrorize these children by making their lives more difficult than they already are by taking away the right to make health care decisions regarding their gender identities, even with the input of their parents and guardians, and on the advice of trained health care professionals.
Senate Bill 150 seeks to ban gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth, requires doctors to de-transition young trans people and prevents schools from discussing gender identity or sexual orientation with students of any age.
The lawmakers have gone home for the 10-day veto recess to give Gov. Andy Beshear time to decide where he should use his veto power. Without question, SB 150 should be the first legislation to be vetoed.
The Republican supermajority in the House and Senate can easily override his veto and surely this obscene, hate-filled document will be tested in the courts.
Perhaps those stalwart Christians in the General Assembly misunderstood the “suffer the little children” statement by Jesus Christ in verse 14 of the 19th chapter of St. Matthew.
He clearly did not say “make the children suffer”.
(Contact Keith at keithkappes@gmail.com).