Beshear's Veto

A perennial complaint against editorial cartoonists is that we never have anything nice to say.

So I hope someone out there will appreciate my offering a reprieve from all the cartoons about bloody classrooms, Putin and Xi standing over dead Ukraine, banks crumbling, and David with his DeSantis hanging out.

I'm paraphrasing Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear in this week's cartoon before quoting him directly in the last half of the dialogue. After vetoing the Republican legislature's bill outlawing all gender-affirming therapy for minors regardless of parental and professional medical judgment, Beshear told reporters, 

“At the end of the day, this is about my belief — and, I think, the belief of the majority of Kentuckians — that parents should get to make important medical decisions about their children, not big government."

The vetoed bill, hastily passed at the close of the legislative session, does more than tread on families' personal medical decisions. As outlined by the Human Rights Campaign, the 

• Ban gender affirming care: The bill will prohibit transgender youth from accessing best practice, age-appropriate medical care – care delivered after careful consultation with the young person’s parents and doctors. It would also force doctors to detransition transgender youth who have been receiving – and thriving – under their care plan.
• Force teachers to disclose confidential conversations they’ve had with students about their sexual orientation or gender identity to the student’s parents, even if that would put the student in danger at home: This bill will make it more difficult for LGBTQ+ students to seek assistance from trusted adults in school, and could put children in real danger if they are not safe being out at home. The bill also requires teachers and students be allowed to misgender their own pupils and classmates, and prohibits schools from recommending or requiring any policies on pronoun use.
• Ban transgender students from using school restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.

The first and third provisions listed above were added with minimal notice at the last minute to a bill which originally dealt only with the material in that second bullet point. That allowed the bill to pass through the statehouse's education committee rather than one concerned with health care.

The legislature's bill is a deliberate slap in the face to one of their own members, grieving the suicide of her transgender son just this past December.

"My child is dead, but I have parents from all over the Commonwealth and literally all over the country coming up to me, writing to me, calling me — look, these children exist," [Sen. Karen] Berg tells TODAY.com. "These children have all always existed. They're just asking for a space to be. If I can't use my own life learnings to protect other people, and what am I doing here? What's my purpose?

"I cannot bring my child back," she adds. "But I can help other families. I can."

The Republican General Assembly has already overriden Governor Beshear's veto, and the state Senate is sure to follow.

But I give Mr. Beshear his due for standing up for principle.

And shame on the assholes passing these mean-spirited bills in state after state after state after state after state after state after state after state after state after state after state after state after — well, perhaps you get the idea.