 So last week on the program, we talked about how Texas is investigating parents with trans children and treating them as if they are child abusers if they seek out gender affirming care for their trans children. And there's an update to that story with regard to Texas, but I want to talk about Idaho who decided to copy that law, but somehow found a way to make it even more draconian. Idaho's house just passed HB 675. It passed by a vote of 55-13. It would make providing gender affirming care to trans teens a felony with a life sentence. Worse, it makes leaving the state with your trans teen to move elsewhere and provide them with care a felony as well. In other words, if you are a doctor who provides gender affirming care to trans teens, which is medically necessary and life-saving, well, you may be charged with a felony if this bill becomes law in Idaho. And if you are a parent who sees these laws and the attempt to criminalize trans existence in this state and you choose to flee the state, well, you might be charged with a felony too. It is absolutely ridiculous and it's just tyrannical. As Ravenna put it, this is ridiculously unconstitutional for a variety of reasons, but worse, it's fucking murderous. These state legislatures are trying to legislate trans people out of existence. These laws will kill people. And she's right about that. That's going to be the result. These laws will kill people. If you are not allowing trans youth to get gender affirming care, which is medically necessary and appropriate for specific ages, HRT is appropriate for teens according to the experts, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association. If you reject that and you refuse to let them get that care, it increases the likelihood that they may attempt or actually commit suicide. So it's gross. And these Republicans know that this is going to be the case. But back to Texas, the state that kind of kicked off this effort to criminalize the existence of trans youth. So an update to the story that we talked about last week. Thankfully, there was a temporary block of the first investigation that we talked about for that family. But I mean, investigations are still taking place. The broader outcome, or I guess I don't want to call it a law because it's just a new order from the Texas Attorney General, but it's still in effect and families are still very much being investigated if they have trans children. And one particular family under investigation, it just shows how craven the GOP is in particular, Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas. As Dia Gill of the Daily Beast explains, a family now under investigation in the wake of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's February opinion, equating gender-affirming medical treatment with child abuse, once crossed more intimate paths with the top legal officer. In 2016, when Texas saw protests against attempts to regulate bathroom usage for transgender students, Amber Briggle invited Paxton to her home to have dinner with her eight-year-old transgender son. Briggle recalled to the 19th how Paxton and her son washed up for dinner together. He turns around and looks and says, this is nice. It's been a while since I had kids this age, Briggle said. But now the Briggle family is under investigation for child abuse due to gender-affirming medical care they've provided for their child. So far, having been interviewed by a Child Protective Services caseworker and undergone a home inspection, raising a transgender child in Texas has been one long political emergency, they said in a statement. It always seemed like this day would come, now it has arrived. So just let that sink in for a moment. This family knew that Ken Paxton was a homophobe and what did they do? They did what they thought would make a difference. They see that he's ignorant, perhaps he's not inherently hateful, so they invited him over to dinner and there was a moment where he bonded with their transgender son. And now this family is under investigation for child abuse. When he knows this is a loving and caring family, this is not an abusive family, but what he is doing is hurting families like this for political purposes. It's truly just monstrous. It is monstrous. Now, because of this order and opinion from Ken Paxton, one children's hospital in Texas has announced that they will no longer be offering life-saving gender-affirming care to trans youth. And Ken Paxton took to Twitter to gloat about this, saying, glad to hear that today Texas Children's Hospital halted their child abuse procedures. So he's calling this child abuse. When he had dinner with a family who had a trans kid, he bonded with their trans son. He broke bread with them and now he's saying this is child abuse. What a terrible, terrible person. Just awful. Now moving on to Florida, the state senate just passed its don't say gay bill, despite backlash in school walkouts. And now it heads to Governor Ron DeSantis' desk. And the question is, will he sign it or will he do the right thing and veto it? I, for one, don't have very high hopes because when he was asked about the don't say gay bill at a press conference, he snapped at the reporter who dared to ask a question. Does it say that in the bill? Does it say that in the bill? I'm asking you to tell me what's in the bill because you are pushing false narratives. It doesn't matter what critics say. It says advanced classroom instruction on sexual identity and gender orientation. For who? For grades pre-K through three. So five-year-olds, six-year-olds, seven-year-olds. And the idea that you wouldn't be honest about that and tell people what it actually says, it's why people don't trust people like you because you peddle false narratives. And so we disabuse you of those narratives. And we're going to make sure that parents are able to send their kid to kindergarten without having some of this stuff injected into their school curriculum. Yes, because we all know that once your child starts kindergarten, they begin teaching about the fundamentals of homosexuality in week two. It's just ridiculous. And the subtext here is that we have to keep gayness out of schools because this will teach children to be gay when it doesn't work that way. They are the ones politicizing this issue. Not children who have gay parents or teachers who happen to be gay. But the point here is to marginalize gay students or students with gay parents. And David Dole made a really great point about this in a recent video. Take a look. I know some people out there are going to watch this and think, oh, grades K to three, what's the big deal? Putting aside the other aspects for a second. Grades K to three, what's the big deal? You know, these are adult conversations. These kids shouldn't be talking about sexual orientation in grades K to three. Well, put the shoe on the other foot. So you're okay with kids not being able to discuss their mom and dad? Of course not. That'd be dumb. So why can't kids discuss their mom and mom or dad and dad? Why is it weird to have those conversations? You have to be able to reanalyze how you view the world, what is considered normal to you, and what is normal to other people. So, yes, banning this conversation in grades K to three is not a good idea. It is a horrible idea. What you end up doing is you end up ostracizing those students, those younger kids, and then they feel bad about having two moms or two dads and not being able to have these conversations and be open about their life. So it is so incredibly discouraging to see that in the year 20 frickin 22 that bills like this are getting through. Yeah, he is exactly right. Now, I'm going to link you to his full video in the description box. If you want to watch it, I would highly encourage you to do that because his video actually injected a little bit of hope into this conversation about how kids in schools in Florida are rising up and speaking out against the don't say gay bill. But the question is why now? I mean, it's not like the GOP in this country, you know, and these state legislatures ever took a break from waging an all out assault on trans and LGBTQ plus youth more broadly speaking. But why are they all doing this right now seemingly in unison? Well, Chase Strangio of the ACLU had a take. And I think that what he says here makes a lot of sense. It's because this is an election year and this is how they throw red meat to the base. What we're seeing nationally is an effort to leverage and weaponize misinformation, particularly about trans people to mobilize a political base in the lead up to 2022 and 2024. And this is happening in state houses across the country that are deeply gerrymandered that have shifted incredibly far to the right as a result in large part of the Supreme Court's decision in 2013 to gut the Voting Rights Act with the Shelby County versus Holder decision. So we can't understand this national context without understanding the voter suppression that is happening, without understanding the efforts to restrict access to reproductive health care. There is a dynamic process that is mobilizing state control over people's bodies through voter suppression structures in order to make it harder for people to survive in the lead up to major national elections in 2022, the midterms and then in 2024 with the presidential election. And that's what we're seeing from GOP leadership, you know, not just in in Florida, but also in places like South Dakota and Texas as well. So Republicans are doing this because they believe that this will yield some sort of political payoff. They're using LGBTQ plus youth as a political football, waging an all out assault on the lives of children because they want to win elections. It's just to say it's monstrous. It feels like it doesn't do what they're doing justice. This is evil. It's morally reprehensible. It's it's gross, right? Now, mark my words about this. So we've talked about this before because we've heard inklings of this in the past. But if they successfully get Roe v Wade repealed at the Supreme Court or overturned, I should say at the Supreme Court, their next target is going to be Obergefell. They're going to go after marriage equality. So that way, if you live in one of the states controlled by the far right, well, and you've been married for almost what eight years now. Too bad. We're going to try to overturn that too because the goal here ultimately isn't just to, you know, wage this assault on LGBTQ plus youth to win an election. The goal, the ultimate goal for them is to criminalize the existence of LGBTQ plus identities. And since LGBTQ plus adults legally have a lot more rights now, since we've made a lot of progress, well, they have to go after children and attack children under the guise of protecting children or fighting child abuse. But make no mistake about it. They absolutely want to go after marriage equality next. And they will do what they can to further marginalize and criminalize LGBTQ plus identities and existence. And they do this because they believe that this is ultimately what the base wants. So I hope that the base proves them wrong. And I hope that if you are conservative, but you have a family member who's gay or trans, you stop supporting this party. If you don't like Democrats, fine, just don't vote. But to vote for this party to affirmatively support this. I mean, you're telling your, your loved ones or LGBTQ plus that you don't care about them and that their existence to you is meaningless and that you don't value them. So this is absolutely morally reprehensible. And we have to fight this at every step of the way, because we can't allow them to undo the progress that we've made with regard to LGBTQ plus rights. I mean, we're never going to stop fighting because this will always be a fight. Unfortunately, that we need to have because homophobia will never go away. But to see them just go all in on this particular issue with everything else going on in the country. It shows you how craven and gross these Republican Party ghouls are.