Republican state Sen. Elaine Gannon of Missouri recently grilled a 14-year-old named Avery, who identifies as transgender and nonbinary, Vice News reported.
"Are you gonna go through the procedure?" Gannon asked the teen.
In an interview, Avery said that it was the first time an adult that wasn't a doctor asked any kind of question like that.
Avery's mom, Debi Jackson, added that they were squeezing her hand in that moment, "almost in an attempt to have myself not jump up."
An edited video of the encounter was promoted by the Human Rights Campaign, showing the way a Republican lawmaker attacked a teenager.
“You shouldn’t be asking—let alone a trans kid, any kid,” Avery explained when talking about Gannon’s question.
It was part of a series of conservative attacks that inevitably went back to allegations that transgender people are child sex abusers trolling for youth in the bathrooms of America.
Gannon described a hypothetical situation where someone could walk into "the ladies’ room," only to realize "somebody else is in there that doesn’t have a female’s—has a male body instead of a female’s body."
But the Missouri bill isn't about bathrooms, this time conservatives are trying to ban transgender children from sports teams that are divided by gender.
"Avery and Jackson had just finished testifying against that proposal before Gannon started her questions, which did not center on sports," the report explained.
"It was never about sports," Avery said. "They really still—after all this time—wanted to go back to: 'You want to go in the right bathroom? Nah.'"
“You think we’re going around forcing our genitalia into people’s face," Avery said in the video of Gannon. "We’re trying to go to the bathroom, and what you want to do is not let people do that? Your whole argument here is the fact that you don’t want people to use the bathroom. A bathroom no one—yes, no one—is looking at your…”
“I was seriously just curious,” Gannon said.
“You’re asking a 14-year-old, on public, record, about genitals and if people would see that,” said Avery's mom. “Kids aren’t going around exposing themselves. Kids want to play sports with their friends. That’s what this bill is."
Their overarching observation is that no one seems to care more about children's genitals than Republicans. Jackson went on to say that if any adult had ever asked a 14-year-old about their genitals they'd be arrested.
A Texas law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, also a Republican, will make parents of transgender children criminals if they allow their child to have certain rare surgical procedures. At the same time that Abbott is pushing a bill to rule how parents should raise their children, he's pushing a law that gives parents decisions on what is taught in classrooms.
Alabama and Idaho are both states looking to copy the Missouri law. Other laws would remove the medical license of doctors providing gender-affirming care, even if it's a psychologist. There are also the "bathroom bills."
See the video below:
Missouri Republican faces backlash after grilling 14-year-old trans teen www.youtube.com
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Marjorie Taylor Greene snaps at reporter who asks her about peddling Kremlin propaganda www.youtube.com
