A plea to just leave children alone

Abbott, Paxton don't mess with Texas teens

If you’ve ever wondered how the Texas Republican Party has been able to be the state’s dominant political force for so long, it is instructive to look at how major Republican candidates are dealing with parents who are trying to help their children make a transsexual transition.

This must be an agonizing decision for parents, many of whom might have never pictured themselves in such a position. They might have even been strictly opposed to anyone going through that process, much less their own child.

Or perhaps by the time the need for such transition becomes obvious, it isn’t as difficult as those of us from the outside might think.

For those you’ve reared for years, watching them struggle with their sexual identity, watch them get ostracized and bullied by classmates and hear their pleas for help, it might simply be the only clear path to take.

Whatever the case, this is an intensely personal and private decision and process. No one else should be involved and certainly not a government agency.

However, Republicans know a “wedge” issue when they smell it, and they aren’t about to pass up such an opportunity. Texas Democrats have done this, too, back in the middle of the last century, when they held sway and found they could exploit racism to keep power.

Racism still works as a wedge to some degree, I suppose, but it is no longer as potent as sexual politics, especially those that concern those who don’t walk, talk or do their lovin’ the way “real” Texans do.

It has given Republicans someone new to fear and hate. Compassion is a sign of weakness, right?

Well, no, but Gov. Greg Abbott and his mini-me, Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, don’t use much compassion in their calculus, anyway. For them and some other Republicans, the important thing about allowing youth to transition is how they can leverage that to create outrage among voters.

It isn’t that much of task, especially not in East Texas where “different” means “bad” for many people. Republicans looking for votes rub on that tender spot like they were polishing the genie’s lamp.

There are a number of transgender youth in East Texas, real people who could be hurt or, worse, hurt themselves by being shamefully pointed out as different.

These same Republicans try to say that it is the parents they are after but targeting parents puts a bulls-eye on the children. They say parents are “abusing” their children by giving them any sort of therapy that aids in a gender transition.

Forgive me if I don’t think that they really have the interests of the children at heart.

These same Republicans, and others, also play the sad tune that deserving high school girls will be locked out of winning competitions because some boy-turned-girl has taken their place unfairly.

This is clearly a sham argument. No boy is going to go through the transition process just so they can be a girls’ volleyball champ, or to win a wrestling title. There aren’t any figures that show how many transitioning boys even want to play sports, or transitioning girls, for that matter.

Maybe there are a few and that “maybe” is enough to get Republicans to shout as if, suddenly, girls’ basketball teams will be full of boys who have changed their genders.

It’s just a lot of baloney, but it might garner some votes, so they will ride that wave as long as it lasts — or, more likely, until something better comes along.

Some people oppose any sort of rights for the LGBTQ, period. They want to give them the Old Testament treatment. We shouldn’t give these cynical people the chance to do symbolically what they would like to do literally.

Unfortunately, this ploy has worked dozens of times before from every kind of political race from party precinct chairman to president. There’s no reason to believe that it cannot work one more time.

The only thing that could possibly stop it is an electorate determined to not be fooled again, to uncover the facts from the bull excrement.

Yes, I know, it’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it, or we will have another four years of bad state government. This time a Republican victory would be at the expense of children who want most of all to just be left alone.

Can government just do that, leave people alone? The Republicans say that’s just what they want to do. Believe them if you wish but they don’t fool me even a little bit.

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