Red- state attacks on transgender Americans
A year after the murder of 19 students and two teachers at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School, the Texas legislature could be trying to curb the state’s easy access to deadly firearms.
As thousands of poor people lose the temporary access to Medicaid gained during the COVID pandemic, it could rectify the state’s shameful status as one of only 10 rejecting the Affordable Care Act’s offer to extend health care coverage to thousands.
Rather, the Republican- dominated body continues to respond mainly to conservative political priorities by targeting society’s most vulnerable members, notably joining the national GOP drive to prevent parents from undertaking gender- affirming treatments for their transgender children.
Ironically, their agenda represents a reversal of the GOP’S long- time governing philosophy: limited government, power closest to the people, individual rights, the primacy of the family.
Measures aimed at transgender children are only part of an agenda heavy on social issues since Republicans tightened their majorities in recent elections. Last year, they barred almost all abortions except in the case of a medical emergency involving the mother.
Meanwhile, legislators are again singling out Harris
County ( Houston) — two- thirds Latino or Black -- for new voter rules despite the absence of significant fraud. And Gov. Greg Abbott is pushing a plan that would weaken the public school system by giving parents of private school students access to state education funds.
Their focus on social issues is hardly unique. It mirrors the way Florida Gov. Ron Desantis and a supine Florida legislature passed an array of conservative measures designed primarily to bolster his presidential bid.
Indeed, the Texas legislature is soon likely to pass its version of Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill, a measure to ban “instruction, guidance, activities, or programming regarding sexual orientation or gender identity to students enrolled in pre- kindergarten through 12th grade.”
Meanwhile, similar agendas, singling out transgender youth and curbing abortions, are also being enacted by most other Republican governors and GOP legislative majorities.
Their target is a tiny proportion of the 330 million Americans. UCLA’S Williams Institute estimated there are 1.3 million transgender adults in the United States, including 92,900 in Texas, and 300,000 between the ages of 13 and 17, including 29,800 in Texas.
So far this year, according to the Trans Legislative Tracker, 73 bills aimed at transgender people have passed in 21 states and nearly 400 remain under active consideration, including the pending Texas measure to bar hormone treatments and puberty blockers for Texans under 18.
The independent research group monitoring those efforts says most restrict transgender treatments, bar transgender women from participating in sports or limit changing gender assignments made at birth.
Meanwhile, some Democratic controlled states like Michigan and Minnesota are moving in the opposite direction, protecting parents of transgender children, while codifying a woman’s right to an abortion and making voting easier.
In Michigan, for example, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a new law permanently barring discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity and protecting gender identity as well as expression. She also signed a law revoking the state’s 1931 ban on
system and the Veterans Administration have long performed abortions in cases defined by law as “covered abortions” because of rape, incest, or the life and health of the mother are endangered.
Tuberville would have us believe that he is only objecting to the DOD spending federal resources aiding and abetting non- covered abortions with travel expenses and paid leave, but his website makes it clear that his religious beliefs — “as a Christian” who “believes life begins at conception” — drive his public policy decisions. He also signed onto a brief in support of the Mississippi abortion ban before the Supreme Court. His radical views on abortion are no secret.
How far would
“Coach,” as Tuberville refers to himself on his website, go to protect
“the God- given rights of the unborn”? In the name of his religious beliefs would he force women in his home state to pee in a cup before boarding an airplane or crossing state lines? Would he confine or imprison women seeking abortions?
I wonder how young women in the University of Auburn’s ROTC programs feel about “Coach” these days. Simply put, Coach wants women serving in the military in his home state to be beholden to Alabama’s strict, newly- enforceable, abortion ban.
Bennet called hogwash on Tuberville’s attempt to claim his hold on promotions is not about controlling women serving in his home state.
“When they heed the call and they say sign me up, they don’t get to decide where they serve, the Pentagon does,” Bennet said, responding to Tuberville’s disingenuous argument that his hold was about taxpayer dollars and not abortion. “Before Dobbs was decided, our troops had at least some assurance that wherever the Pentagon sent them they would have minimal access to reproductive care as a constitutional right. They knew that for 50 years … no matter where they served. That is no longer true. The Supreme Court stripped that right away.”
Coach probably thought himself quite clever when he devised this stunt. I can’t help but hope that it backfires spectacularly with the upcoming decision of where to place the U. S. Space Command.
Colorado was a strong contender for the U. S. Space Command headquarters given that the state is home to the
Space Force, North American Aerospace Defense Command, the Air Force Academy, and four Air Force bases. Oh, and Colorado is already the temporary home of the Space Command.
Reports indicate that the DOD put an emphasis on the cost of living and the cost of construction. I’m certain that Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville would come out ahead of Colorado Spring’s Schreiver Air Force Base on those two measures.
But not everything cheap is good.
For example, Alabama has one of the highest poverty rates in America, with more children who are going hungry (“food insecure”) than almost all other states. Lawmakers in Alabama refused to join the Medicaid expansion, meaning that residents there who would qualify for Medicaid in other states based on their income level do not receive the federal benefit and many either go uninsured or buy insurance they can’t afford.
Some of the worst outcomes in America for pregnant women and infants are in Alabama.
The state has one of the highest rates for all of these outcomes measured by the CDC: pre- term birth, stillbirth, low- birth weight, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and most disturbingly, preventable maternal death.
A staggering 36.4 Alabama women per 100,0000 live births dies either during childbirth or immediately after. Tuberville doesn’t seem to care, at least not according to any of his press releases or Tweets in recent months.
The rate of stillbirths — babies who die in utero after reaching 20 weeks of gestation — is much higher in Alabama than in other parts of the country with a rate of
8.87 stillbirths per 1,000 live births. In Colorado, the rate is 5.53 stillbirths per 1,000 live births.
Coach spends a substantial amount of time and money opposing abortion, but he doesn’t really care about babies. If he did, he’d spend at least some of his time focused on the horrible health outcomes for women and children in his state. Perhaps he could focus on preventable miscarriages like those caused by listeria, the stillbirths that can be prevented with medical interventions like cesarean delivery, sudden infant death syndrome, and other fatal childhood diseases. Increased SNAP benefits for expectant mothers could reduce the rate of pre- term labor and increase birth weight.
Coach could use his position as a U. S. Senator to push for his state’s newly launched focus on a “count the kicks” program to prevent stillbirths. He is clearly less worried about the troubling public health crisis that is the increased rate of stillbirths than he is about the non- existent problem of transgender high school kids being allowed to compete in sports. I’ll let you guess which pressing issue he held a press conference about a week ago.
“Coach” should stay in his lane — football — and leave women’s health care and national defense to those who truly care about women and children and those who don’t jeopardize DOD activities for political stunts.