‘Suspicious and politically convenient.’ The KY GOP’s empty ‘gotcha’ in governor’s race | Opinion
Last spring, in the midst of all the overheated debate over transgender issues in Frankfort, Rep. James Tipton did a very sensible thing. He wrote a letter to a University of Kentucky healthcare clinic to see if they performed any gender-affirming surgery.
It turns out UK’s Transform Health Clinic had performed some mastectomies on transgender teens, so small a number that they wouldn’t even say how many because it might violate HIPPA laws. (In my experience with UK, that means fewer than five cases.)
But then, Tipton did the political thing. He turned the UK letter over to Republican leadership. It was mentioned in a floor speech by Sen. Lindsay Tichenor in March. But instead of using the letter to answer a lot of questions, or hold a press conference, they sat on it until the governor’s race got heated up, then released it to a right-wing media site called the Washington Free Beacon.
That left a lot of people — including Gov. Andy Beshear, LGBTQ advocates and some media — with egg on their face because they had said gender reassignment surgeries don’t happen in Kentucky. UK could have also made this issue more clear, but they were keeping quiet in the middle of a political maelstrom, caught in the constant trap of trying to do the right thing, like provide non-surgical healthcare to trans children, without annoying the legislative GOP super-duper majority which thinks they know better than those children’s parents.
In truth a lot of people don’t think of mastectomies or “top” surgery as gender reassignment surgery, but the general public does. Chris Hartman of the Fairness Campaign said his group didn’t do any open records requests, but in constant conversations, it was well known that gender reassignment or “bottom” surgery didn’t happen here on minors. Nonetheless, there’s a good adage to use here: “Trust but verify.”
Still, this issue is dumb because the one thing that everyone — Republicans, Democrats, Gov. Beshear, LGBTQ advocates, your Aunt Sue and cousin Jack — agree on is that it’s fine to have a ban on gender reassignment surgery for anyone under 18. Beshear has said so repeatedly. He vetoed SB 150 not because it banned such surgery but because it was a cruel and unnecessary bill that violated medical privacy, took rights away from parents, and added onerous problems for our teachers and schools. He absolutely did the right thing.
“This is a wholly politically manufactured story,” Hartman said. “It is suspicious and politically convenient that they sat on this letter for half a year and waited until election season.”
It’s been a good gotcha, in which challenger Daniel Cameron got to score off the governor for a hot minute. But it’s strange Cameron would pick up this particular cudgel when it worked so poorly for the person who really embraced it, third place primary finisher Kelly Craft. In the end, trans issues affect about 2,000 kids statewide, .068 percent of a Kentucky population that suffers from some of the worst educational, health and employment outcomes in the country.
Culture wars are what happen when you don’t have much policy to run on.
It’s also a tenuous culture war. In March, polling from Data for Progress asked voters about the more than 400 pieces of legislation working their way through statehouses, “aimed at limiting the rights of transgender and gay people in America.” Sixty-four percent of respondents, including 55 percent of Republicans, sided with the statement “This is too much legislation. Politicians are playing political theater and using these bills as a wedge issue.” A later Fox News poll found that 57 percent of registered voters said that attacks on transgender children and families are a “major problem.”
One reason Republicans have embraced anti-trans rhetoric is they no longer have abortion as the red flag to bring the party faithful to the polls. And that may be a risk as well, as we can see from Ohio, a red state where voters rejected GOP attempts to limit their ability to put abortion rights on an amendment. Most people regardless of party do not want government getting between them and their doctors, whether they’re pregnant, transgender, or getting a checkup.
“Real people are so fatigued by the fascination and focus that GOP legislators have on a population that is so small,” Chris Hartman said. “It’s shocking that Cameron would do it after it failed in a Kentucky primary. He’s putting his eggs in the wrong basket.”
No one is fooled by the idea that these laws gives parents more rights. But political campaigns abhor nuance, facts or rationality. No reason why the most publicized governor’s race in the nation should be any different.
This story was originally published August 10, 2023 at 2:37 PM.
