The Horrors Persist and So Must I

I woke up the day after Election Day last November and realized that I was in a country that I no longer understood. I mean, I did understand it-- I had a sinking feeling that whatever they did with Biden, the price of gas and groceries would be the undoing of whoever was in office and ultimately, that turned out to be right. I said then that I honestly didn't want to write about politics for a while, maybe ever again, and I stuck to that for as long as I could but then I woke up and found out that the Legislature in Des Moines was at it again.

What is this new devilry you ask?

Well, it's delightful let me tell you. The Legislature, in its wisdom, in a state that is grappling (as it always does) with brain drain and a workforce crisis, decided that it wanted to make it easier for people to discriminate against transgender individuals. As if transfolks don't have enough on their plate to begin, the state, in its wisdom, wants to make it easier for people to be shitty to them. 

Super. Awesome. Great... but wait, there's more-- not only should you read this frankly disturbing rundown of what's actually in the bill, but you should know that they're doing this for the women.

The sheer mind-numbingly outrageous levels of hypocrisy about that are enough to make you choke and die on your own vomit, but hey, that's what they're hanging their hats on. "We have to protect the women!" They say, in a state where maternity wards are closing at a brisk clip and OBGYNs are heading for the exits. "THE WOMEN," they insist, in a state where women have to accept less than 100% full autonomy over their own bodies. 

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of abortion either, but you know what I'm less a fan of? The state having any fucking say over the question. (I'll desist from further as a rant about abortion could take up an entirely new blogpost.)

We have to be shitty to transfolks, because their rights are taking away rights from women and girls. It's not clear what rights, exactly are being taken away, but you know, in some other state where crazy shit like that happens, it's happening and we need to make sure it's not happening here by God.

Never mind about what's actually happening here. 

Our water quality is abysmal. People are getting cancer at the drop of a hat, but you know, transfolks. We gotta be careful about that. Our public schools are being deliberately underfunded so rich people in this state can hoover up their welfare checks for private school tuition they can already afford, but you know, transfolks. 

It is in no way, shape or form conservative to make laws that affect a tiny minority of the state. Chat GPT couldn't actually tell me one way or another how many trans Iowans there are (gee, I wonder why transfolks might not want to be super open about their identity in this state?) but its best guess was 14,800. We'll be generous here and assume a population of 3 million for Iowa and if that number is anywhere close to correct, we're talking about a law for 0.00493% of Iowa's population.

I can already hear the counterarguments: well, why do so few people deserve legal protections? Don't play that fucking game, just say what you mean: in Iowa, only corporations should have rights. Fuck people. Fuck their water and their land. We don't need schools or properly staffed hospitals to care for people. Taxes? Fuck taxes. But don't touch my farm subsidies or social security benefits- we can't do that! 

Everybody deserves legal protections. Everybody deserves civil rights. Don't bitch at me about costs: I, as a taxpayer in this state have to fucking pay 1700 dollars for this nonsense. I'm supposed to be paying less in taxes, but somehow Kim Reynolds and her merry band of ghouls keep bending me over at tax time. You don't agree with it? Grow the fuck up. I have to subsidize plenty of shit I don't agree with-- like the State Legislature, for example. But I fucking deal with it, because I live in a society and I hope that someday, someone will come along and be like, "Fuck this Culture War and fuck these Internet Trolls that have leeched into every orofice of our government. Wouldn't it be nice not to be governed by the internet comment section?" And when that day does come, I will vote for that. With my whole goddamn chest. 

Look, I'm a parent and I will admit, I don't know. I don't know trans kids. I don't know enough about their stories.  I don't know how I would feel if I had daughters who had to share a locker room with a trans person. I understand and can have empathy for parents who feel the same way. I have no idea how I would feel if one of my kids came to me and said, 'Hey Dad, I'm trans.'-- but I do know with absolute certainty that I love all of my children and we would figure it out. I would figure it out.

Uncertainty and the unknown, however, doesn't mean I want the state to legalize discrimination against transfolks. Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, stood in front of a television camera and said that people were worried that their kids would be forcibly taken from Iowa to California and have gender reassignment surgery performed on them and it was that last part that was the real problem, by the way: not the whole kidnapping of the children. It was the surgery that demanded immediate government attention. 

(To the best of my knowledge, Governor DeSantis provided absolutely no evidence of child kidnapping for purposes of gender reassignment surgery. He's also since doubled down and decided that abolishing property taxes is a grand idea-- which is funny, because I thought he didn't want Florida to be like California.)

There is nothing that irritates me more in this era of lunacy we live in than being forced to write to elected officials and yell at them about things. There is a growing list these days (Brenna Bird and her 504 Lawsuit, the Congresscritters should Elon come for the NWS)-- and I'm not going to bother poking local Republicans about this. They're gonna vote how they're going to vote and the lone Republican who voted against this in subcommittee represents areas of Polk County. (It's also worth noting that when I did bother them about the AEA bill, I got responses from every local Democrat and precisely 0 local Republicans, which says a lot to me.) I know that Johnson County reps and state senators will vote the way they should on this. I hope, and yes, I do pray that common sense will prevent this bill from actually being passed.

I'm back on my bullshit, y'all. The horrors persist, and so must I.