Arkansas anti-trans law defies science, logic, and Ronald Reagan

Republicans love to rail against big government. “Keep government out of our lives,” they say.

To quote Ronald Reagan, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” And, even more to the point: “Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”

Yet that’s exactly what a new law in Arkansas does: It bars physicians from providing gender-affirming treatment for trans people younger than 18.

Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor, vetoed the bill, calling it a “vast government overreach” that’s “a product of the culture war in America.”

“You are starting to let lawmakers interfere with health care and set a standard for legislation overriding health care,” Hutchinson said. “The state should not presume to jump into every ethical health decision.”

Whether you agree with Republican principles on small government or not, at least you can say Hutchinson upheld him with his veto. The Republicans in his state’s legislature? Not so much. They voted by a combined 96-32 in the state’s two houses to override Hutchinson’s veto.

They argue that minors are too young to make decisions about transition-related medical care. That, however, flies in the face of scientific evidence that people are aware of their gender from an early age. A study of more than 300 transgender children ages 3-12, the largest sample to date, found that “transgender children showed a clear pattern of gender development associated with their current gender and not their sex assigned at birth.”

Red herring

Even if one were to accept the unsupported idea that children are too young to make such a decision, that argument goes out the window if their parents — who obviously are old enough by anyone’s standard — support it.

Yet the Arkansas law bars doctors from providing gender-affirming care regardless of what the parents say, either. So the whole argument that “kids are too young to make such a decision” is nothing but a disingenuous red herring that allows government to do precisely what Hutchinson (and Reagan) said it shouldn’t: Make people’s medical decisions for them.

Why target doctors? The answer’s simple, really: Because doctors don’t agree with them.

The American Academy of Pediatrics actually had the audacity (note sarcasm) to put scientific evidence and the interests of their patients ahead of bigoted Republican culture warriors’ idiocy.

In a statement last month, AAP President Lee Savio Beers made its stand plain: “The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that youth who identify as transgender have access to comprehensive, gender-affirming, and developmentally appropriate health care that is provided in a safe and inclusive clinical space. [The] legislation would allow policymakers rather than pediatricians to determine the best course of care for our patients, and in some medically underserved states, it could mean losing an already limited number of pediatric practitioners who care for transgender youth.”

Arkansas lawmakers’ objective in passing their anti-trans law is clear: Stop doctors from doing what they believe is right for their patients, what their patients believe is right, and what the patients’ parents support. Talk about government intrusion. That’s a trifecta. They’re defying science, logic, and Ronald Reagan all in one fell swoop.

Hutchinson’s right: This is all part of our insidious and ill-conceived culture war, and Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot.

Unfortunately, they’re targeting trans people, who are the victims of far more than collateral damage.

Stephen H. Provost is a former journalist and author of three books about the Trump presidency, available on Amazon.

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Featured photo: Ted Eytan, Creative Commons 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons