The Republican leader made a huge step in protecting children in Alabama from genital mutilation as part of sex-change operations.
The "Vulnerable Child Protection Act" is one of two bills signed into law by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Friday, just one day after the BIden administration denounced the state's laws as "discriminatory." This bill, which is also known as Senate Bill 184, and House Bill 322 tackle controversial LGBT-related issues. Both bills were approved by Alabama's Republican-controlled Legislature mostly along party lines.
According to the Christian Post, the "Vulnerable Child Protection Act" prohibits state employees and public school district employees from "prescribing, dispensing, administering, or otherwise supplying puberty blocking medication to stop or delay normal puberty," ""performing surgeries that sterilize," "performing surgeries that artificially construct tissue with the appearance of genitalia that differs from the individual's biological sex," and "removing any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue." Anyone caught violating this law will face a Class C felony charge.
Meanwhile, House Bill 322 requires public K-12 schools to "designate the use of rooms where students may be in various stages of undress upon the basis of biological sex." This means that students are only alowed to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their sex at birth regardless of their chosen gender identity.
House Bill 322 also bans teachers of students in kindergarten through fifth grade from any "classroom instruction regarding sexual orientation or gender identity in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards," which is very similar to the recently passed "Parental Rights Law" in Florida.
Gov. Ivey, who is 77, took to Twitter on Saturday to defend her decision to pass bills prohibiting sex change surgery and other transgender healthcare, claiming that she did it "to protect our kids in Alabama."
"The first bill makes clear - boys will only use the boys' bathroom and ladies will only use the ladies' bathroom. That's Alabama common sense," Gov. Ivey declared.
Similarly, the Republican leader argued, "Here in Alabama, we're going to go by how God made us: If the Good Lord made you a boy, you're a boy, and if he made you a girl, you're a girl. It's simple."
Gov. Ivey went on to describe "woke radical nonsense" plaguing America's children today. Instead, she urged that people must "focus on protecting our kids" and maintaining schools as places where students "learn the fundamentals."
The move comes in a time when the transgender debate is intensifying in the U.S. For starters, Florida officially limited discussion on gender identity and sexual orientation in children's classrooms with the new "Parental Rights Laws." Meanwhile, the Biden administration declared its support for what it calls "gender-affirming care" or sex-change procedures, which gives the youth access to both invasive and non-invasive ways to change their sex at birth.
According to The Daily Citizen, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki recently described "gender-affirming care" such as sex change surgery and genital mutilation as "best practice and potentially lifesaving." This drew the ire of people who highlighted how hormones and surgeries actually do irreparable harm to children and teens.
