Tennessee leaders must stop bullying transgender kids and start helping them | Opinion

Tennessee’s Republican party is at it again. In October, a who’s who of Tennessee’s representatives attended the “Rally to End Child Mutilation” in Nashville.

The event was put on by "The Daily Wire’s" Matt Walsh as a way to foment the right-wing outrage machine in response to Vanderbilt Medical University Center’s establishment of a Transgender Clinic. It worked − at least as a way for Republican representatives like U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn and state Senator Jack Johnson to have a photo op while participating in bullying the transgender community, one of their favorite activities.

Vanderbilt established the clinic, one of the first in the country, to provide tailored health care to transgender children; a group that is historically and dramatically underserved by the medical community and society at large.

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There is selective outrage about child mutiliaton

This clinic helps provide children and their parents with social workers, nurses, coordinators and physicians. Like any good medical clinic, it tailors health solutions to each individual child’s needs. This includes a wide range of therapies− including gender-affirming hormone replacement and, in rare cases, surgery.

This clinic is a godsend for a group that has a tragically high suicide rate due to it’s societal treatment. It provides a much needed service to the trans community.

Astute observers will notice that none of the people against the existence of this clinic have actually had use for it or been impacted by it in any way. Make no mistake - this hullabaloo has nothing to do with “ending child mutilation.”

There is no corresponding legislation proposing to outlaw the very common practice of circumcision in baby boys - the most common form of genital mutilation of children today. However, there is plenty of legislation in Tennessee that aims to limit the right of transgender people to exist in public.

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There are so many other social ills to focus on

This is a continuation of the GOP’s loud and intense bullying campaign towards transgender people. There are laws that prevent trans youth from participating in sports, laws that prevent them from getting health insurance coverage and laws that prevent their existence from being discussed in school classrooms.

Tennessee’s Republicans seem obsessed with using the power of government to bully transgender folks. The outrage over the VUMC clinic is just an excuse to deny transgender children from receiving the healthcare they need.

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This doesn’t actually help anybody, certainly not the kids. If they wanted to help them, they could be rallying to fix Tennessee’s broken foster care system or working to fix the teacher shortage crisis that is impacting classrooms all across the state.

Instead, they’re wasting their time bullying trans kids. It’s time for this to stop.

Laura Brown is the chief marketing officer of ISeeChange.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee leaders must stop bullying transgender children