‘I also enjoy passing laws for things that aren’t happening’: The internet is destroying Marjorie Taylor Greene’s rampantly transphobic proposal
Blegh. Marjorie Taylor Green has reared her ugly head once again.
This time it’s with a new transphobic proposal titled the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” another piece of trans-bashing legislation to add to the steaming pile of anti-trans bills (664 of them in all) currently working their way through the guts of legislative bodies across the nation. If there’s anything children need protection from, it’s Marjorie Taylor Greene herself.
What is the Protect Children’s Innocence Act?
Coming to you directly from the horses’ mouth (Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Twitter account) the Protect Children’s Innocence Act does as follows:
Charges any person who knowingly performed gender-affirming care on a minor with a Class C Felony (10 to 25 years in prison or maximum $250,000 fine).
Prohibits all taxpayer-funded gender-affirming care.
Prohibits institutions of higher education from providing instruction on gender-affirming care.
Deems aliens who have performed gender-affirming care on a minor as ineligible to receive visas or be admitted to the United States.
As reported by The Hill, The Protect Children’s Innocence Act would outlaw over a dozen medical treatments that are used to treat gender dysphoria in youth, including puberty blockers, hormone blockers, and a number surgeries.
What does the internet have to say?
“I also enjoy passing laws for things that aren’t happening,” said one user. “Funny because no one is doing that to children” said another. They’re right, the so called horrors that Marjorie has taken to Twitter to describe are not happening. Gender affirming surgery on minors is exceedingly rare, despite what right-wing extremists would have you believe. Though right wing pundits have suggested that children as young as toddlers are able to receive gender affirming surgery, this is, unsurprisingly, not the case. According to nationally recognized guidelines around transgender care, only children over the age of 15 qualify for certain gender affirming surgeries, and only in highly specialized circumstances. In the case of bottom surgeries, current medical guidelines recommend delaying these procedures until a person has reached the age of 18. Nevertheless, Donald Trump himself has taken to repeating the lie that schools are performing gender affirming surgeries on minors. They most decidedly are not.
When it came to the idea of the government meddling in people’s personal lives, another user was quick to point out right wing hypocrisy. Referencing Republicans’ tendencies to force their own moral and ethical standards upon the American populace, the user drew comparisons to the practices of autocracies and theocracies around the world.
Another user lampooned Majorie Taylor Greene’s proposed prohibition of higher education institutions from “providing instruction on gender-affirming care”. “Coming soon: medical education banned, science books tossed out, but hey, the kids will be ‘protected’…from knowledge” said the user. It’s all par for the Republic course, as GOP legislators have been waging anti-intellectual war upon higher education institutions for years now. From the Stop WOKE Act which sought to ban Critical Race Theory from Florida’s universities, to the ever growing list of books banned from numerous red state schools, the right wing crusade against education is alive and well.
One user had a simple admonishment: “there are bigger fish to fry”. There certainly are. Maybe rather than hyperfixating on a surgeries that already aren’t happening, she should worry about other things… like how she supports a convicted rapist and felon holding the nation’s highest office. Just a thought.
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