In one of those sensible “let’s have government that does good things” moves the Biden administration is so fond of, the Department of Health and Human Services in September proposed new rules that among other things would require LGBTQ+ minors in foster care or adoption proceedings be placed in a home that would be supportive and “free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse.”
In an announcement of the rule, the Administration for Children and Families wrote that, in line with an earlier executive order by President Joe Biden, HHS would streamline the process for getting extended family members licensed or approved as foster caregivers, to expand legal representation for kids in the child welfare system, and to improve protections for LGBTQ+ kids, noting that
For too long, LGBTQI+ children have faced significant disparities in the child welfare system. LGBTQI+ youth are overrepresented in foster care, but face worse outcomes, including poor mental health, higher rates of homelessness, and discrimination just because of who they are in some foster care settings. LBGTQI+ children often have unique needs and deserve care that affirms their identities.
The new rule will require child welfare agencies ensure that LGBTQ+ kids be placed “in environments free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child’s LGBTQI+ status,” and that caregivers be “properly and fully trained to provide for the needs of the child related to the child’s self-identified sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.” Because that would help the kids thrive and it’s simply the right thing to do.
And then everyone waved their Pride flags, lip-synched to “We Are Family,” and the kids felt safe and loved and supported, the end.
Or at least for five minutes, until Rep. Jim Banks (R-Indiana), a rightwing congressman who hopes to ride some culture war issues into the Senate in 2024, worried about the poor homophobic and transphobic bigots who would be oppressed by the new rule, and he introduced a bill that would strip federal funding from any child welfare agency or other group that complies with the rule, because folks who think gay and trans kids shouldn’t be gay or trans should be able to raise their God-given foster kids however they want, this is America.
Banks calls his bill the “Sensible Adoption for Every (SAFE) Home Act,” because homes should be safe for parents who want to keep LGBTQ+ kids safe from the fires of Hell by making them stop being gay, or at the very least, as Fox News describes it, by refusing to let trans kids access “surgical, pharmacological and psychological treatment if it is inconsistent with their biological sex.” (No bill text has yet been filed.)
You know, for the good of the kids, who simply need to become someone else.
Banks told Fox News that he just wants to help out LGBTQ+ children, you see, although he clearly seems to think they’re also all transgender:
Banks explained that with the new rule,
The Biden administration is cruelly preventing countless children in the foster care and adoption system from going to loving homes just because parents are opposed to irreversible sex change procedures on kids.
This isn’t a liberal or conservative issue. This is just plain wrong, and every sane person knows it.
Yes, the very definition of insanity is thinking that children should be supported for who they are. (Also, nobody’s doing irreversible sex change procedures on kids.) Banks has so far not introduced legislation to allow the involuntary commitment of people who support the rights of LGBTQ+ kids to be loved and accepted without criticism, but hey, he needs things to do if he becomes a senator.
And despite his obsession with gender-affirming care, Banks’s proposed bill would go much farther, potentially opening the door to allowing foster or adoptive parents to force LGBTQ+ kids into “conversion” therapy — aka torture that attempts to change their sexual orientation or gender identity — at least in the 20-odd states where it hasn’t been outlawed. It would also allow placement of LGBTQ+ kids with nice Christian people who simply tell them every day that they aren’t normal and that they’ll go to Hell if they continue being who they are — but then, that’s already legal for birth parents, so why not spread the hate as far as we can?
In conclusion, Jim Banks is a terrible human being who shouldn’t be making laws that will affect children, and thank Crom his pet bill will never get anywhere in the Senate, but let’s all remember this as one more reason to never elect Republicans anywhere.
[HHS / New Civil Rights Movement / Fox News]
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I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but just for those who somehow haven’t heard:
KIDS (as in, under 17-18 years old) ARE NOT GETTING GENDER-AFFIRMING SURGERIES. IT IS NOT HAPPENING. And when kids DO get some kind of medical intervention, it’s puberty blockers at an appropriate age which are—LISTEN UP PUT THE PHONE DOWN—completely reversible with cessation of the medication.
What Banks wants is to prevent the most vulnerable kids from getting psychological and mental health care. Without that care—and without support—LGBTQ+ kids have an enormously higher risk of self harm and suicide.
I am so very tired of the bigoted assholes shoving their bullshit beliefs on everyone else when science—which is way, way, waaay more complex and nuanced than a seventh-grade biology textbook from a Christian homeschool group—is against them.
Fuck, now I need to smoke something to calm down…
“Sensible Adoption for Every (SAFE) Home Act,”
He will be hearing from my organisation, Crimes Against Convoluted Acronyms. He should fear CACA.