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Transgender community Protests Arkansas’s soul-crushing legislation

Transgender activists and allies gathered in Little Rock Arkansas Thursday to protest the half dozen anti-transgender bills winding through the legislature.

Willow Breshears was there to protest HB 1570 a bill that prohibits trans youth from accessing transitional medical care even with parental consent.

Breshears transitioned when she was in school. She says the messages behind the proposed bills create division.

“This really sends a clear message to trans children that we don’t want you in Arkansas. We don’t see you as valid,” said Breshears.

American Academy of Pediatrics Excoriates Bills Harming Transgender Youth

“There is no group of people too marginalized, too bullied, too forgotten that the #arleg won’t punch down on and demagogue.” attorney Jesse Gibson said in a tweet. “This is the worst, most damaging, and most hateful session in my lifetime. Today was only another sad #arpx chapter in the race to the bottom.”

Fear and loathing at the Arkansas legislature: The anti-LGBT laws

  1. Existing law allows people to use religion as a pretext to discriminate against LGBT people in employment, housing, and public services.
  2. A proposal from the governor to remove Arkansas from the list of four states without hate crime laws is stymied because opponents don’t want to add penalties to people who commit crimes inspired by hatred rooted in sexual orientation or gender identity
  3. A pending proposal requires advance notice to parents and curriculum review of any school course material that mentions sexual orientation or gender identity.
  4. A pending proposal allows any medical provider or insurance company to refuse service if they have moral objections to LGBT people.
  5. A pending proposal prohibits transgender girls from participating in girls’ athletics, kindergarten through college.
  6. A pending proposal prohibits transgender students, boys and girls, from participating in athletics other than in sports designated for the gender on their birth certificate.
  7. A pending proposal prohibits medical services — including desperately needed counseling — for transgender minors. The father of a transgender child was arrested for speaking past his two-minute limit in a committee hearing on this bill.
  8. HB 1749, from Rep. Mary Bentley, with Sen. Gary Stubblefield as Senate sponsor, takes the devotion to this cause to a new level of cruelty. It says: A public school employee shall address a public school student by only the name and sex designated on the public school student’s original certificate of birth.

These 31 major medical associations approve of the gender-affirming procedures that HB 1570 would do away with.

American Academy of Nursing
American Academy of PAs
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Psychiatry and The Law
American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry
American College Health Association
American College of Physicians
American Medical Association
American Medical Student Association
American Medical Women’s Association
American Nurses Association
American Pediatric Surgical Association

American Psychiatric Association
American Psychological Association
American Public Health Association
Association of American Medical Colleges
Association of Nurses in AIDS Care
Doctors for America
Endocrine Society
GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality
HIV Medicine Association
LBGT Physician Assistant Caucus
National Association of Social Workers
National Council for Behavioral Health
National Council of Asian Pacific Islander Physicians
Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine
Society of General Internal Medicine
Society of Physician Assistants in Pediatrics
The Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists
United States Professional Association for Transgender Health
World Professional Association for Transgender Health

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