OPINION: Alabama Legislature fails state's transgender youth
Mar. 5—Alabama's Legislature lurks along the fringes of the absurd. When it dives into the fray, codifying its reputation among the most ardent defenders of conservative politics, it jettisons any hint of care for those it serves.
Legislating is its game, nothing more. Legislation becomes headlines, drives narratives, decorates political resumes, wins elections. That's what Alabama's lawmakers care about.
A decade ago, they installed a xenophobic anti-immigration bill that the courts tore apart. Four years ago, they persuaded Gov. Kay Ivey to sign a ridiculous bill that hid its core intention — protecting the public legacy of the unredeemable Confederacy — behind a supposed wall of historic preservation. Two years ago, they passed a sweeping anti-abortion bill that didn't survive legal challenges.
Instead of targeting immigrants of color, rather than supporting racist imagery, in addition to attacking women's rights, this spring they're going after transgender students in Alabama. Why? Because every Republican-controlled state legislature has seemingly made this its post-Trump culture war for 2021, and damned if our lawmakers can't avoid the dispiriting fun.
It's a game to them, another mettle-proving opportunity.
But it's not a game to Phineas Fleming-Smith, of Jacksonville. Two days ago, a number of transgender teenagers and their supporters gathered in Montgomery to protest two bills slinking through the state Capitol. Fleming-Smith was there and spoke to Brian Lyman, a former Anniston Star reporter who writes for The Montgomery Advertiser.
"I currently am not comfortable in my own skin," said Fleming-Smith, a sophomore who is transgender. "But testosterone and hormone treatments and all of these gender-affirming surgeries, for some it means life or death."
Lawmakers on this anti-transgender crusade, though, don't care. It's early March and already there have been more than 180 anti-LGBTQ bills filed in U.S. statehouses this year, according to Slate. Sixty-five have specifically addressed transgender rights. The most common method is a two-bill approach pairing an effort against transgender health care with one targeting transgender sports participation in public schools.
Alabama's Legislature is a lemming; it blindly follows. Thus, the Senate has already passed a bill by Sen. Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, that would prevent transgender teenagers from getting puberty-blocking and hormone treatment. In the House is a bill from Rep. Scott Stadthagen, R-Hartselle, that would bar transgender children and teens from playing sports with the gender with which they identify.
Shelnutt's stated desire is to "protect children," which is laughably generic. Only sociopaths don't want to protect children. But The Advertiser's Lyman has documented how parents of transgender teens and doctors have testified before legislative committees and gutted the core of Shelnutt's bill.
They explained that the treatments have positive psychological impacts on transgender children. They confirmed that genital surgery is not performed on minors. Shelnutt's bill would even prevent medical care or counseling sessions for transgender teens, a particularly heinous forbiddance given how deeply this topic divides some families.
Allison Scott, the director of impact and innovation for the Campaign for Southern Equality, further gutted Alabama's anti-transgender effort. In a statement, she said this bill "lacks a fundamental understanding of transgender young people" and ignores recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association. "Patients along with their health-care providers, not politicians, should decide what medical care is in the best interest of a patient — and a preponderance of research shows that affirming and supporting trans youth is essential to their well-being."
What Alabama's lawmakers want to "protect" the state from is a world grown too diverse, too inclusive, too equitable for their comfort. They want binary societies that permit no acceptance for anything, or anyone, that strays outside conservative norms. That thinking once outlawed interracial marriage, fought the most basic of gay and lesbian rights, and campaigned against same-sex marriage.
If only the lawmakers behind this national bull-rush of anti-trans legislation were in the majority. But they're not. Gallup polling shows mountainous levels of U.S. support for all forms of LBGTQ rights, from employment and marriage to adoption and education, though the partisan divide on transgenders serving in the military remains expectedly stout. In a Public Religion Research Institute survey, 62 percent of Americans said they have grown more supportive of transgender rights over the last five years.
Yet, we know how this will go. These bills will become law — in Alabama and elsewhere with large GOP representation. Lawsuits will be filed. And proponents of anti-transgender laws would surely salivate over the opportunity for the conservative-leaning Supreme Court to decide the issue.
Until then, Alabama's lawmakers should admit the obvious. This isn't about protecting children. It's about making those they don't like, those they see as too abhorrent and too radical, go away.
Email: ptutor@annistonstar.com
Phillip Tutor — ptutor@annistonstar.com — is a Star columnist. Follow him at Twitter.com/PTutor_Star.
