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Missouri Democrat pledges to fight state's slew of anti-queer bills: 'Makes me sick to my stomach' [1]
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Date: 2023-01-23
Missouri state Sen. Greg Razer, the only openly gay person in the Missouri Senate, spoke to The Kansas City Star in an interview about the slew of anti-queer (and especially anti-trans) bills coming out of Missouri this year already.
Razer, who represents Kansas City, told the outlet the bills hurt for him, especially because he himself was a “suicidal gay kid” at 17. “I know what that pain feels like,” he said. “It hurts.”
How many bills are we talking about? Several dozen, coming in at a whopping 27. All have been introduced by Republicans, surprising no one.
Bills to bar gender-affirming health care include attempts to ban all gender-affirming care for people under 18 as well as efforts to bar physicians from providing such care, threatening them with potential lawsuits. One variation of the bill wants parents or guardians who try to help their minor access gender-affirming care to be charged with child abuse. It would also punish physicians by taking their medical licenses away.
Other bills include variations of the infamous Don't Say Gay bill, which, similarly to Florida’s, aims to bar discussions of LGBTQ+ identities and histories from public school classrooms. In Missouri, however, this would actually apply to all grades, not just elementary school, making it even more extreme. Another bill seeks to allow public school teachers to misgender and deadname trans students provided they’re going by their legal name.
Anti-trans sports bills are still in the works, too, in spite of the fact that there is reportedly just one openly trans-student-athlete in the entire state in the 2021-2022 school year. Bills seek to limit sports teams to those that match one’s sex as assigned at birth, not their actual gender.
“What I have to do is make sure that those kids out there and their parents and the people that love them know that somebody in the Senate is standing up for them,” he continued to the outlet. “I may not be able to stop everything,” he added. “But there’s going to be a fight.”
Conservatives in the state are also going after drag shows, which seem to be the latest conservative frenzy. Conservatives want minors to be banned from drag shows (in spite of the fact that some are explicitly family-friendly) and from being held in public spaces, like parks. What happened to parental rights and parental consent, anyway? Who says parents can make decisions for their own family, right?
“They let us die in the ‘80s and behind closed doors laughed,” Razer told the outlet. “Now they’re going after kids. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
He’s absolutely right, and it should make all of us sick. And motivated to keep working to change and save lives.
You can check out a short but meaningful address to LGBTQ+ folks in general in light of Missouri’s anti-queer efforts below.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/23/2148825/-Missouri-Democrat-pledges-to-fight-state-s-slew-of-anti-queer-bills-Makes-me-sick-to-my-stomach
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