Juana Garcia/The Cougar
In recent years, the US has seen a massive wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation proposed in various state legislatures. A common refrain from the right is that these bills are needed to protect the safety and innocence of children. But if you look closely at the rhetoric and policies on display, it’s clear to see that the far right cares far more about limiting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community than they do about actually protecting children.
The influence of these policies has grown immensely in the past few years. In Texas alone, proposals were made to restrict drag performances and the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues in schools. While these proposals failed in the end, Senate Bill 14 passed, effectively banning gender-affirming care for trans youth in the state.
The situation doesn’t look too different in other states, with similar bills being proposed nationwide. Tennessee passed a bill banning “male or female impersonators” from performing near a minor. However, the bill was so broad that it was rejected by a Trump-appointed federal judge on First Amendment grounds.
But for every bill that was rejected, plenty of other similar bills ended up being passed elsewhere. In Arizona, former Governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson vetoed a bill banning gender-affirming care for trans youth only for the legislature to overturn the veto the very next day.
While critics of these bills say that they restrict individual freedoms, their proponents maintain that they’re necessary to keep children safe. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis claimed that the law banning classroom discussion of LGBTQ+ issues was made to prevent the sexualization of children. Conservative commentator Matt Walsh, known for his crusade against LGBTQ+ rights, often invokes the safety of children as well.
When it comes to conservatives using children as a talking point to argue against LGBTQ+ rights, this is by no means a new phenomenon. When Miami passed an ordinance prohibiting sexuality-based discrimination in 1977, singer Anita Bryant created an organization called “Save Our Children” to advocate for repealing it. Bryant claimed that gay people were trying to convert children because they “cannot reproduce, so they must recruit.”
Unfortunately, her efforts helped lead to the ordinance eventually being repealed. This rhetoric was eventually adopted by major conservative religious figures in the 1980s, further fanning the flames of homophobia. These movements ended up being instrumental in electing President Ronald Reagan, whose silence on the AIDS epidemic led to tens of thousands of deaths.
While the crusade against gay rights eventually failed, with the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling of 2015 and the Respect for Marriage Act of 2022 enshrining the right to marriage equality into law, the right has continued using the same rhetoric in the 2020s against transgender people.
In 2022, conservative figures like Chaya Raichik, owner of the Libs of TikTok X (Formerly Twitter) account, accused Boston Children’s Hospital and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) of systematically mutilating and castrating children for the sake of transgender healthcare. To back up this claim, conservatives cited a video of a physician discussing gender-affirming hysterectomies.
However, the doctor never mentioned children once in the video and the hospital’s website states that such surgery is only available to those 18 years and older. Of the five gender-affirming surgeries provided to minors since 2018 at Vanderbilt, all patients were over 16 years old, had parental consent and none received surgeries involving the genitals. However these facts did not stop both children’s hospitals from receiving harassment and death threats to staff, with Boston Children’s Hospital receiving three bomb threats following the campaign.
These threats put both the staff and the children themselves in potential danger. But even discounting these incidents, the far right frequently makes it clear how they feel more directly. If children were the primary concern, then it would stand to reason that conservatives like the previously mentioned Walsh would only support policies like banning gender reassignment surgery for minors or banning the depiction of trans people in media aimed at minors.
However, conservative pundits like Walsh go much further than that. Walsh has affirmed his support for banning transgender care at all ages, as well as expressing admiration for Russia banning gender-affirming care for all citizens regardless of age. Walsh has no interest in protecting kids; him and people like him just use them to advance their own hatred.
Perhaps one could argue that people like Walsh are a fringe group of right-wing extremists. However, the fact that Walsh spoke at the University of Houston last year and drew a crowd of dozens of people seems to imply otherwise. Moreover, this kind of rhetoric leads to real policy being put into place that can have immense consequences.
For example, look at the “Florida Parental Rights in Education Act” also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. Governor Ron DeSantis championed the law, claiming that it prevented the sexualization of children. But even from the outset of the law’s passage, the provisions left no doubt as to what the true agenda was.
Not only did the law initially ban classroom instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to third grade, but it also banned such instruction “in a manner that is not age-appropriate.” This last part leaves room for immense interpretation.
Theoretically, a parent could sue a school district if their 17-year-old child is exposed to LGBTQ+ themes in class in any capacity. This idea became more than just a theory when the law was expanded to an outright ban on such topics from kindergarten to 12th grade by the Florida Board of Education in April of 2023.
In a similar manner to Walsh’s anti-trans rhetoric, the law goes further than what is necessary to protect children and effectively bans discussion of LGBTQ themes in school.
In conclusion, the far right can try all they want to tie anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policies to the safety of children, but it will not change the fact that such positions are simply anti-LGBTQ+. In many cases, they either actively harm children like with the targeting and harassment children’s hospitals, or they allow their mask to slip enough to expose their broad intentions.
Whatever the case may be, freedom and equality in this nation can only be preserved so long as those anti-LGBTQ+ conservatives who hide their true agenda behind children are kept as far away from power as possible.
Calvin Nguyen is a Journalism sophomore who can be reached at
opinion@thedailycougar.com
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“The far right doesn’t actually care about kids” was originally posted on The Cougar