and we squash their psyche

Thus headlines Progress Iowa’s on Kim (“I really care about families that’s why I screw them over”) Reynolds signing two bills that punched down really hard on transgendered kids and their families on their Thursday High Five newsletter.

In case you somehow missed it, Reynolds signed one bill that would ban gender affirming care and a bill that would force a child in school to use the bathroom aligned with their gender at birth. 

It is an absolute shame that Iowa elected such an extremist right wing thug as their governor. This sure tells you where Iowa is going as a state. Only a few years ago Iowans did not care about these so-called culture war issues. Seemed like our unofficial motto was “live and let live.” 

Now it seems like our state policy is to find a small group of people against whom hate can be ginned up for no reason and then use the power of the state to rain down punishment to play to the rabid rubble whipped up by the ginned up lies.

Reynolds claims that her purpose behind signing these bills is that the science of transgendered people is incomplete. That is of  course a lie. For Reynolds lying is just another of the tools of her job. She was little concerned about science when she was forcing meat plant workers to work in unsanitary conditions during the pandemic, Nor was she concerned about science when she tried to ban masks from Iowa classrooms in the middle of the pandemic. Politics, pure politics – as is this attack on the transgendered.

Well, Iowa you picked a real winner. If I was a cartoonist I would probably draw Reynolds as a jack-booted thug in a pseudo uniform kicking a kid around. But that is just my impression.

Seems like all authoritarians like to start their oppression with gay men and transgendered because they seem to have little support in society so they are easy to attack and whip up a frenzy about.

But be careful. As I noted last week, some of these authoritarians just don’t know where to stop. Your time in the barrel may be coming even if you are an enthusiastic supporter right now.