Amongst all the scary happenings plaguing right-wingers lately with indictments of key witnesses for lying while witnessing and over-exuberant book banners banning books exuberantly and Kamala Harris existing for some uppity reason and, my goodness gracious, the relentlessly Swiftian tales of CIA/FBI/NFL assassinations of free and fair elections, one terrifying incident from 10 days ago slipped perilously beneath our notice and the mandatory “You must be this tall to attack your state senator” signage.
Noted 8-year-old terror “Aleix,” in a clear sign of the crafty dastardliness that trans youth everywhere have cultivated, visited Georgia’s state capital building, with her mother, Lena Kotler-Wallace, in tow. The family’s visit came as the Legislature was considering a number of bills that would target and harm trans youth. It’s the usual gamut of bills defining trans people out of existence, banning books that depict or discuss any sexual topic from Georgia schools, outing kids who may be trans to their parents, and Republican state Sen. Cardin Summers’s very own bill (SB 438!) to specially block trans girls from participating in gender-segregated school sports and using gender-appropriate bathrooms. (There is no current word on the introduction of any bills banning Matt Gaetz, though we will be monitoring this situation.) But what with Aleix being trans, she had decided to CRT her elected officials, with cultural Marxism aforethought.
Her mother carried a sign into the capital building on February 6, one that read, “On the frontline fighting for LGBTQ+ youth.” Presumably she was also carrying other tools of the terrorist trade such as “water bottles” and “snacks.” Despite the clear warning signs, Sen. Summers incautiously approached, paying little attention even to the child’s jaws.
Erin Reed of Erin in the Morning documents the shocking next few moments:
[T]he senator stopped to say hello. That’s when Kotler spoke to Senator Summers about how she was there with her kids to “talk to legislators about keeping her kids safe.” Although she did not mention that one of her children was trans […].
That’s how they get you.
Summers, still unsuspecting, said,
“Well you know, we’re working on that and I’m going to protect kids like you.”
Kotler then replied, “Yeah - Alex is trans, and she wants to be safe at school, she wants to go to the bathroom and be safe.”
And in that moment the chainsaws rattled and the werewolf howled.
Summers, visibly shaken and possibly feeling tremors, stood up and stammered out some words.
"I mean, yeah, I'm going to make sure she's safe by going to the right bathroom," continuing to use the correct pronouns for Aleix. When asked if he would make her go to a boy's bathroom, he then allegedly backed away, saying, "You're attacking me," turned around, and walked off quickly.
Fortunately, Summers’s nightmare on Washington Street likely ended there. Yet who knows what they do in the shadows; it is easy to see why a reasonable white man might have panicked in the situation and fled toward a quiet place. Even without the terrifying presence of Aleix, Lena is known for wearing a “Protect Trans Kids” T-shirt to school meetings, something that has apparently been alleged to create misery for Aleix’s “transphobic” music teacher:
This is part of her hellraising campaign to force actions upon the innocents among Georgia’s schoolteachers, such as “using Aleix’s name” and “not freaking out when asked to show basic human decency.”
Others, however, did not scream when Aleix and her family approached. State Senators Kim Jackson and Jason Esteves (both, coincidentally, Democrats) agreed to meet with them not 28 days later, but on that very trip! The two “stalwart” defenders of queer and trans rights in Georgia’s state General Assembly even shook Aleix’s hand with no lasting damage reported so far.
If Lena’s TikTok is any indication, the fright nights for Georgia transphobes are not over. She’s been documenting her efforts to secure a safe, equitable education for Aleix over this past school year. The Decatur schools have asked her not to mention the name of the school district or of Talley Street Upper Elementary in her TikTok videos, but she hasn’t stopped. According to Lena, the schools are “disappointed.” But she has an answer to that:
Telling me they’re disappointed is not going to make me go away.
Sounds like a predator who just keeps coming back. I wouldn’t want to be her prey.
II just don't get it, except that it's an easy, defenseless target. My niece is now my nephew and when I'm asked about accepting it my reply is that there's nothing for me to accept. It doesn't affect me, and if you knew "Alice" before he became "Al" and were surprised by the transition, you truly weren't paying attention. He's so much happier now.
Too bad Summers can't be more like our trans senator, Danica Roem -- when she was first elected to the Virginia House, and asked what she had to say about her transphobic opponent, this was her answer:
***Asked by MSNBC what it was like campaigning against a man who wanted to stop transgender people using their bathroom of choice, Roem said she would not attack one of her own constituents and explained that starting next year Marshall would be just that.
“Attacking your constituents, signalling them out, stigmatizing them and trying to make people feel bad about themselves, that’s not our Virginia,” she said.***
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/democrat-danica-roem-transgender-woman-elected-virginia-state-legislature-n818876
If Summers isn't incapable of compassion or personal growth, he could take a lesson from someone like Danica Roem.