Keith Perry: My focus is fighting for individual rights and freedoms, protecting children
My name is Keith Perry, and I am running for state senator.
In 2022, I sponsored bills that kept small businesses open, allowed people to gather in person for church, and provided more educational opportunities for our students and for prison inmates as they rebuilt their lives.
For the 2023 legislative session, I will continue to fight for the rights and freedoms of every individual, as well as diligently protect the innocence and youth of our children.
Once you have kids of your own, your priorities and perspectives rapidly change. You lose sleep worrying about their safety, health, education, etc. with the hope that they can enjoy just being kids, for as long as possible.
All parents on both sides of the political spectrum can agree that we don’t want our kids growing up faster than they should, but with the increasing popularity of social media and woke culture, children are expected to behave and view the world and even themselves like adults do.
The children of this up-and-coming generation are being diagnosed with depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia at rates that we have never seen before. Statistics tell us that 1 in 3 teens will have an anxiety disorder and records show that the number of pediatric hospitalizations for suicidal idealization and injury have doubled from 2020 to 2021. Where is the outrage at these numbers?
Rather than analyze the root causes of these horrific statistics, we have allowed society, either through social media or entertainment, to continually speak lies of what true happiness looks like into the minds of our children. Starting as young as 5 years old, they are being taught that the answers to their loneliness and confusion is to reject the body they were born into and to find validation in their choice of future partners.
Rather than instill a strong mindset of overcoming the fears and challenges that every youth faces, particular leaders have decided that the best way to combat these natural occurrences is to prescribe hormone replacement therapy and recommend life-altering surgeries.
Lupron, which is a drug used to chemically sterilize male sex offenders, is now being given to children. These medications are advertised as safe and reversible, but the research about their long-term effects has contraindicated this belief entirely. With irreversible infertility, permanent bone density loss, and no improvement in mental health, we are seeing many “detransitioners” regret undergoing these treatments and wish they had been more informed at the beginning.
We protect our children from tobacco, alcohol and sexual predators, so why have we allowed their minds to be exposed to the ideologies of gender dysphoria and permanent, life-altering therapies? The world around us is constantly changing and evolving which isn’t news (even to me), but for the past couple of years, it seems the rate of change is outpacing research, logic and even common sense.
If you elect me as your state senator, I will fight to protect your children’s minds from sexual propaganda and protect their bodies from the radical and permanent treatments irresponsibly offered to them.
Rep. Keith Perry is running for the Florida Senate, District 9. This piece is part of a series of opinion columns written by candidates for office that are being published before November's election.
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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Keith Perry: My campaign platform for Florida Senate District 9
