Lawmakers down to Alabama.
They passed two bills now, [LAUGH] as the Republican Party continues their
aggressive assault on TRANS and LGBTQ rights in the country two more bills
where they're looking to stop general civil rights for folks in the country.
Let's start with that first one because Alabama lawmakers have now passed one on
Thursday that would criminalize gender affirming healthcare for
transgender youth, with the threat of 10 years in prison for medical providers.
There's a lot to this now.
The Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act is what they call it.
It would make it a felony for doctors to prescribe puberty blockers or
hormones to miners who identify as transgender.
Doctors are also prohibited from performing surgeries that help miners
transition.
So according to the bill, nurses, counselors, teachers, principals and
school administrators at any public or
private school in the state are forbidden from withholding from a minor's parent or
legal guardian information related to a minor's perception that his or
her gender or sex is inconsistent with his or her sex.
Republican Representative West Allen, he likened this initiative to laws that
prevent minors from getting tattoos or buying nicotine products.
He says, we make decisions in this body all the time that are there to protect
children from making decisions that could permanently harm them.
So there's also the second part about this, I was mentioned, there's two bills.
This other part is more of an amendment that was added to a bill that we already
could have guessed would have happened down Alabama.
Let's jump into that one.
So the Alabama Senate also passed a bill that would require students in public
schools to use bathrooms or
changing rooms that match the gender of their original birth certificates.
This part is where I was talking about.
The amendment that was attached that bill now has to go back to the House for
a vote and that would prohibit classroom discussion on sexual orientation or
gender identity in certain grades.
That sounds a lot like the don't say gay bill down there in Florida that
Rhonda Santis does not want people to call that.
Lastly, what they said about that particular edition there, we just don't
think it's appropriate to be talking about homosexuality and gender identities.
What Senator Shay Shelnutt said, you know, they should be talking about math,
science and writing, especially in elementary school.
I wanna unleash you guys on this subject.
But first, because there was a lot of thoughts I had and
I don't wanna filibuster too long because this really got me to a point where
I was like, let's look up and find out exactly what it is that they're doing and
why they're doing it.
But first I want y'all starts first have at it, what do you guys want.
[LAUGH] >> Yeah, this is okay.
So this policy is really, really infuriating because to my understanding,
to my knowledge, there's not any exemption for people who are already on hormones.
So in effect, anybody that is 19 or
younger in Alabama right now that is currently doing HRT will be
forced to de-transition because of this law being put in place.
So first and foremost it's already horrific.
And if you're talking about like the impact off of health, right,
it's actually believe it or not, not great to force people to de-transition if
they're already in the transition process and it can do a lot of harm and
slow down somebody's transition.
Additionally, on top of this, forcing schools to tell parents when children
don't feel comfortable telling their parents, they don't feel comfortable for
a reason, right?
Kids know whether or not their kids, but whether or not their parents, for
the most part are gonna be accepting.
And there's a huge crisis right now among LGBTQ youth, especially trans youth,
being homeless because their parents will kick them out of the house.
So what we will see as a result of this is both an increase in like depression and
potentially suicide as a result of forcing people to de-transition and additionally,
we're probably gonna see a huge spike in homelessness of trans youth who are being
outed by their school administrators to their parents who are on accepting.
>> So many bad things here, man, I mean, [COUGH] where to start?
Number one, why are these people so against science?
Why are they not willing to listen to any science?
I read the article,
the article states that this is not a common thing that's happening every day.
This is the state lawmaker who said, we stop kids from getting tattoos and
nicotine because they don't want to do harm to themselves.
First of all, hey, state lawmaker,
tattoos are no longer considered doing harm yourself.
Tattoos, every kid has it.
I don't know what decade this guy's living in tattoos are all over the place.
Now, that said, I'm not a tattoo guy.
I know that some people get some really bad tattoos and then regret it later, but,
that said it's too late bro.
And secondly, he's making it sound like a gender transition is a decision
that's just made at the counter like a pack of gum.
No man.
Where's the science?
The science says that when somebody who's young decides they wanna go through this,
they go through a lengthy period.
It's like buying a house, but a million times more in depth you see people,
you talk to people, it's not like you just walk into an office and
someone goes, boom, you're done.
No.
So, these people and their resentment of science and
they're neglecting science and as Ben said, it leads to more depression.
It leads to more people living in bad situations.
And it's a shame because a lot of these people have had to live in an oppressed
state their whole lives, have been oppressed by their religion.
And I think that a lot of times, religion is at the base of a lot of this stuff.
I'm not a religious person.
I'm all for anybody who is religious and
their religion helps them and it's good for them.
But you try to impose it on other people, this all comes from there.
It comes from imposing your religion on these youths, these young people.
What's the plural youth, youths?
>> Youths. >> Anyway, imposing this,- youths,
imposing this on these people who are, you know what?
We're making some progress before we started this call, Ben and
I were talking about this feels like it's Groundhog Day.
These people seem to pick a subject every few months or years and
they go to their old catalog, they go, well, you know what,
let's bring out, let's play the old LGBTQ record again.
Remember that one, the anti LGBTQ odds back.
My God, let's remember one.
Let's do that.
I mean, it's just I'm sorry, but I can't I,-
>> No, I think the time frame,
the random timeframe that you're talking about is every election cycle.
That's about the time.
That's why we saw the caravans coming that we're here about the caravans coming up
from the south.
They're coming to invade your country.
They're coming to take your jobs, kill your children and
also haul all those drugs from up through the southern border.
That was the pushing the point during midterms before and after that all ended
back to normal situations, we're not hearing about caravans anymore.
Ben I wanted to go off of what you said because that's right a lot to say,
I'm gonna try and make this quick because first of all, the thought process from
people like this, from these legislators down Alabama is we're protecting parents.
That's what Rhonda Sanders in Florida saying, we're here for parents rights,
they need to know what's going on with their children,
if schools are keeping it from them, then we're excluding parents.
Okay, this particular bill has a doctors, nurses, counselors,
anyone who talks to a kid about this and it becomes a trusted person with that kid,
that they then have to immediately tell their parents they're gonna have all
these problems or a doctor who goes about some of the processes.
What if there's a parent who supports their child?
You see the assumption there is that these parents don't support their children,
who they are and who they have told them that they are, and
probably most cases of a parent who's paying attention to their child,
they're not that surprise of who their child is.
So the first thought is none of these parents are gonna accept their kid for
who they are, which is a hateful stance to take.
Which actually is pretty negative if you think you're protecting parents who
are rejecting their children and then you pointed out,
there's a good percentage of folks that don't do that.
Now some of these people could be seen as a mandatory reporters.
I looked up the Alabama department of child abuse and neglect prevention,
there's rules about mandatory reporters.
And if one of those children comes and says,
I'm afraid at home my parents will reject me, they might kick me out,
I might end up homeless, I'm having suicidal thoughts.
There's mandatory reporting that they have to do.
So as mandatory reporters go, these individuals are not only vital to
the reporting process again, according to Alabama, but
can also be very helpful in the follow up services with someone's life.
So also reporting abuse to a supervisor does not relieve the mandatory reporters
legal responsibility to personally file a KAACAN report of abuse or
neglect to the state as to go to authorities.
So if they determine that a parent is probably gonna kick their kid out or
abuse them, they have to report it.
How does that work when it jibes with the law when they're trying to get people who
would report it or who would talk to these children confidentially,
we'll put them as the criminal.
There's gonna be a collision from my search of the law.
As far as reporting goes, it's gonna be a collision to which one of these
folks is gonna be not within the law, because they're too busy concerned
about trying to inject themselves in other people's lives and
almost they wanna put their thoughts and their beliefs on someone's life.
There's more to this because you mentioned homelessness,
Ben, there's also suicide rates.
LGBTQ are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
The Trevor Project's 21 national survey on LGBTQ mental health found that 42% of
them seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year,
including more than half of transgender and non binary youth.
That's what happens.
Also, I got more.
Transgender and non binary youth face elevated risk of depression,
thoughts of suicide and attempted suicide compared to youth who assist gender and
straight including assist gender members of the LGBTQ community.
I'm sure they haven't thought about the fact that there's different varying levels
of folks within that community as well.
They're all just horrible crazy people, right?
Continuing on.
Since we're talking about how suicide rates come, the assumption,
I'm sure they would say is, well, yeah, of course that they're considering suicide
because their parents have abused in their whole lives to make them believe
that they're not who they really are, who God made them to be.
Weird, how this study and science behind reality actually disproved those points.
The minority stress model is the point here.
It suggests that experiences of LGBTQ based victimization and
the internalization of these experiences and these anti LGBTQ messages,
which again is in this law, can compound and produce negative mental health
outcomes and increase suicide risk among LGBTQ individuals.
LGBTQ youth who reported experiencing four types of minority stress,
which is physical harm, discrimination,
housing instability and change attempts by parents were 12 times at
greater odds of attempting suicide compared to youth who experience none.
So, okay, there's three more pages of this, but it's constant stats
statistics studies reality based on what it is that pushes folks to suicide and
also homelessness and being detached from their parents.
But who cares about all that?
We're concerned about protecting the parents who we deem would hate their
children and number two about these children.
So what about the children that are killing themselves?
How much the republicans in the Alabama house care about children who are killing
themselves?
I thought there the pro life party, well,
it's the right kind of person that they wanna have.
I could read further and I've already gone far enough with this.
Last thoughts on this because this really annoyed me that this is their approach
because again, to get votes in the midterm elections not to protect children and
definitely not to look out for parents.
>> JR before I let Ben talk, I will say to you,
you just stated a bunch of scientific facts.
They don't wanna hear about science.
They wanna live in their la la land.
And then that real quickly they have the hypocrisy to criticize someone like
the Taliban in Afghanistan being anti women, anti LGBTQ.
And here in Alabama, I'm gonna call them the Talabama.
They're the Taliban of America, Talabama.
Go ahead Ben.
>> Yeah.
And I mean like what you touched on I think is really important especially
because like what JR said is true and
we need to understand that like the suicide rates, the rates of depression,
all these things drop down significantly whenever the community is supportive.
But this is the thing, I think these Republicans know this.
I think that these Republicans know this.
They know that sending a message to trans youth, to queer youth that they are not
allowed, not accepted in the schools, not accepted by healthcare providers and
that they have to be reported on by their the school administrators.
I think that this is an attempt by the Republicans to escalate,
to make the problems worse, to increase depression, to increase suicide rates.
If these Republicans wanna prove me wrong, then they can read through all these
facts, I don't know, do a whole homework report on it for me.
I mean seriously because at this point I have to assume that these Republicans have
seen these numbers.
It is the year 2022.
They know exactly the impact of the law that they are trying to pass
that they passed and I think that that's exactly what they want.
>> I think that's one point that I would love to have fleshed out because I wonder,
man, I don't think they take it far enough.
There's the laziness with these types of legislators and
it's strictly based off of appealing to the most hateful group of their party,
look what they did with Donald Trump because when he came out they hated him.
But once they discovered that he can generate some votes for
them suddenly they're all about Donald Trump.
There's not much of a thought process that goes and
by the way if it does to that point which I actually I don't completely write off,
that shows even more how nefarious this thought process is.
We just don't care about those folks lives, we just don't care about it.
Last thought because you point out how community helps more on this,
on the discrimination fact those who experience discrimination,
they did all that and it twice amount of here's another part about it.
Affirming spaces and activities,
it says especially at school since we're talking about school.
The Trevor project researchers found that LGBTQ youth who reported having at
least one LGBTQ affirming space had 35% reduced odds of
reporting a suicide attempt in the past year.
This the strongest association being with LGBTQ affirming schools.
They're fighting against anything that would help folks that are trying to find
their footing.
And by the way, if we're worried about people in school talking about pro
LGBTQ topics, I think everyone who's ever been through school knows.
We've all heard about LGBTQ topics.
We just hear it from friends,
we hear it from enemies, we hear from bullies all the time.
But it's always negative.
So are those things not allowed in school?
What if I have a child that identifies this way and is in school and
it's getting bullied?
Do I as a parent get to hear about it?
You should be reporting to me how they're talking about LGBTQ topics in school,
right?
Little Billy Donna Hallway was screaming at my kid.
He's talking about it.
Shouldn't they not be talking about it in school?
No, you should not talk about it, if you're gonna say something positive,
that's what this legislation does.
It's disgusting.