MONTGOMERY, Alabama (LifeSiteNews) – Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Friday signed into law a ban on “gender transition” procedures for children and a bill modeled after Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law that cracks down on LGBT ideology in elementary school classrooms.
“There are very real challenges facing our young people, especially with today’s societal pressures and modern culture. I believe very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl,” Gov. Ivey said in a statement.
SB 184, the Alabama Vulnerable Child Protection Act, criminalizes prescribing minors under age 19 puberty blockers or other drugs “intended to alter the minor child’s gender or delay puberty.”
The bill, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Shay Shelnutt, also bans sterilizing surgeries for minors, including “castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, orchiectomy, and penectomy,” as well as procedures that “artificially construct tissue with the appearance of genitalia that differs from the individual’s sex.”
Doctors who prescribe “gender transition” drugs to kids or perform mutilating transgender surgeries on them can face felony charges and up to ten years of jail time under the new law.
The bill additionally blocks school officials from withholding a child’s gender confusion from his or her parents.
“We should especially protect our children from these radical, life-altering drugs and surgeries when they are at such a vulnerable stage in life,” Ivey said on Friday. “Instead, let us all focus on helping them to properly develop into the adults God intended them to be.”
SB 184 takes effect 30 days after the governor’s signature. Multiple pro-LGBT activist groups, including the Transgender Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union, have said that they will sue to stop implementation of the law.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Thursday that the Biden administration has put Alabama “on notice” that SB 184 could violate federal law as the administration interprets it. Gov. Ivey responded in a statement to Breitbart that “Alabama will continue protecting our kids and not letting out-of-state liberals like Jen Psaki and the Biden White House tell us what to do.”
“Our state is prepared to defend our values,” she said.
The other bill signed by Ivey, HB 322, requires K-12 students to use bathrooms and locker rooms according to their biological sex. “Here in Alabama, men use the men’s room, and ladies use the ladies’ room – it’s really a no brainer,” the governor said.
Republican lawmakers also amended HB 322 to include a provision that bans classroom discussions about “sexual orientation or gender identity” that are “not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
Sen. Shelnutt sponsored the amendment, which is styled after legislation signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last month that restricts discussion of sexuality and gender issues in public schools through third grade.
“We don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about homosexuality and gender identity in schools, they should be learning about math,” said Shelnutt, according to AL.com.
As with the Florida law, Democrats and other critics have attempted to brand HB 322 as a “Don’t Say Gay” bill – a characterization Ivey blasted as “misleading.”
“We are talking about five-year-olds for crying out loud,” she said in her Friday statement. “We need to focus on what matters — core instruction like reading and math.”
“This bill will also ensure our elementary school classrooms remain free from any kind of sex talk,” she added.
SIGN, THANK and STAND with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who is being attacked by Disney for signing a new law which prohibits sexual indoctrination of schoolchildren from Kindergarten to 3rd Grade. *Anyone - no matter where you reside - can sign this petition!
For protecting the innocence of his state's youngest schoolchildren and standing up to the bullies in the LGBT lobby, Governor Ron DeSantis has predictably been on the receiving end of sustained attacks from LGBT activists and their numerous allies in the leftist mainstream media.
And now, the Disney Corporation - one of Florida's biggest employers - has decided to interfere in politics and pick a fight with DeSantis over the new law.
BUT, Florida parents, and parents across the country, are overjoyed that a governor is finally taking seriously their concerns about the early sexualization of our nation's children!
SIGN, THANK, and STAND with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with this petition which will be delivered to Governor DeSantis' office and CC'ed to Disney, and which tells the Governor that we thank him for, and will stand with him in, protecting our schoolchildren from LGBT indoctrination.
This common sense legislation, known as the Parental Rights in Education Act, prohibits instruction pertaining to sexual orientation, "gender identity" and transgenderism in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade classrooms across the state of Florida.
And, the new law also puts stronger limits on such discussions for older children, frustrating a primary tenet of the radical left's plan to encroach upon impressionable young minds.
Media talking heads and political opponents, ranging from radical LGBT activist groups to morally corrupt corporations like Disney, dubbed HB 1557 the "Don't Say Gay" Bill.
But, the truth is that such sensitive, personal subjects are not the job of schools to cover, but the job of parents alone, who, under the bill, would be allowed to take legal action against school districts that violate its provisions.
By their hateful reaction to the bill (now law) and to Governor DeSantis, one can only assume that Disney actually despises parents and their role as the primary educator of their children, especially in, but not limited to, areas of sexual conduct and morals.
Indeed, the extreme volume of manufactured outrage on this particular piece of legislation reveals the following significant nugget of information: one of the seminal means the LGBT "community" counts on to continue attracting people into their ranks, or as so-called "allies," is by brainwashing little, unsuspecting children without their, or their parents', consent.
We know it, and they know it. And, finally, someone is doing something about it.
SIGN, THANK and STAND with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who is being attacked by Disney for signing a new law which prohibits sexual indoctrination of schoolchildren from Kindergarten to 3rd Grade.
Children's innocence is worth it and Disney, and its chairman Bob Chapek, should be ashamed of themselves for threatening to interfere in state politics because they are offended that children's minds will no longer be violated.
We must encourage people like Governor DeSantis and the Florida Legislature not to be blackmailed and not to be afraid...
If Disney wants to escalate things, then conservative and Christian parents might be finally persuaded not to visit Disneyland and Disney World, nor buy Disney products, nor watch Disney films.
Conservatives and Christians, and right-thinking people from all walks of life, need to start playing hardball with the likes of Disney.
We saw what happens when parents show their power in Virginia last year, so any further action on this matter by Florida Democrats and their allies in Disney’s executive leadership will be at their own peril.
Please SIGN and SHARE this petition to THANK and STAND WITH Governor Ron DeSantis for protecting children from LGBT propaganda, and from Disney's bullying, slurs and legal threats.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'DeSantis slams Disney for opposing law that bans LGBT propaganda from classrooms' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/desantis-slams-disney-for-saying-they-will-try-to-overturn-anti-grooming-bill/
**Photo Credit: Leonard Zhukovsky/Shutterstock.com and Shutterstock.com
‘Gender transition’ reckoning
Alabama joins a growing list of states taking action against experimental pediatric “gender transitions,” including Arkansas, which approved a blanket ban on transgender drugs and surgeries for minors last year.
An Obama-appointed federal judge temporarily blocked Arkansas’ law in July, but Republican legislators have advanced similar bills across the country in recent months, including in Texas, Idaho, and Mississippi.
Tennessee has also restricted hormone drugs for prepubescent kids, and in Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey last week signed a bill banning underage “sex change” surgeries in the Grand Canyon State. And earlier this year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed state agencies to investigate parents “transitioning” their kids for child abuse, LifeSite reported.
The wave of state action comes amid an international reckoning on the effects of transgender procedures on children and adolescents.
In February, Sweden recommended against puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for gender-confused minors, citing “uncertain science” and significant health risks. The dangers of the drugs for people under 18 “outweigh the possible benefits,” Swedish health officials said. Finland issued similar guidelines in 2020.
Echoing the Swedish guidance, the Alabama Vulnerable Child Protection Act notes that “gender transition” drugs and surgeries are “unproven” and “poorly studied,” with “numerous harmful effects for minors, as well as risks of effects simply unknown due to the new and experimental nature of these interventions.”
Both puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are linked to extremely serious side effects, including sterilization, the law adds: “Among the known harms from puberty blockers is diminished bone density; the full effect of puberty blockers on brain development and cognition are yet unknown, though reason for concern is now present.”
“With the administration of cross-sex hormones comes increased risks of cardiovascular disease, thromboembolic stroke, asthma, COPD, and cancer,” it continues. Cardiovascular diseases, including “sudden cardiac death,” are also associated with multiple types of puberty blockers, like Lupron and Vantas.
Moreover, the FDA has not approved any hormone drugs for “gender nonconforming children,” the Alabama law points out. Neither puberty blockers nor cross-sex hormones have been subjected to randomized controlled trials or longitudinal studies in gender-confused minors, either.
Studies do show, however, that as few as two percent of boys and 10 percent of girls with gender dysphoria suffer from the condition after puberty, according to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.