Dumb stuff happening in Kansas? You don't say!

It recently was brought to my attention that Republicans in Kansas are trying to make it damn-near impossible for transgender people to update their birth certificates. The following is an open letter to Kansas Republicans, in response.

Dear Kansas Republicans,

Instead of wasting taxpayer money writing new laws about transgender people changing their birth certificate, maybe you should focus on not making your state a massive, gaping, oozing economic wound that the rest of us in this country have to salve? Maybe you should wake the fuck up and realize that sex and gender are not the same thing? Maybe you could, oh I don’t know, show transgender people Christian grace and compassion instead of the kinds of hypocritical judgment your Jesus would flip-the-fuck-out on you for?

Just suggestions, people, you don’t have to take any of them of course. If being a bigoted shitdick is your thing, then own it. Do so, however, with the full knowledge that more and more people are waking up to the fact that fear-mongering over LGBTQ+ issues is no different than when racist a-holes fear mongered over letting black people not be property, or giving those damn women-folk their right to vote. It’s all predicated on fear, ignorance, and a moral indignation that is misplaced for the times you live in, and a lot of us have and will continue to call utter and complete “bullshit” on you every time you try this crap now.

And thing is — all of this is distracting you from just how shitty your state is doing right now. All of this is a big ol’ shiny object that religious conservative groups are flashing in your face, promising you electoral victories. You know what, maybe they’re right in the short term. But as Dr. King said, to paraphrase anyway, “The long arc of history bends towards people not putting up with bigoted bullshit forever and ever.” Right now, society is waking up to the fact that boogey men like “the gays” or “the trannies” are just pure cultural war propaganda, and meaningless bullshit rhetoric.

Did all of you lose your minds, or just your sense of privacy? When a transgender person makes the very personal choice — you know, the kinds of things a country built on principles like “liberty” and “freedom” are supposed to protect and defend? — to change their gender identity, whether through surgical means or otherwise, that is a decision they are entitled to make, and as part and parcel of that decision, they should have a right to change the official record as to what their gender is. Why?





Because: What. Fucking. Difference. Does. It. Make?

Seriously. While there are undeniable biological differences between the sexes, more and more we’re learning that gender roles are pretty much bullshit. Men don’t have to be the breadwinners. Women don’t have to be the homemakers. I realize that may ruffle the feathers of the same people who think these Draconian and unconstitutional laws are a good idea, but so fucking what? After Jim Crow fell, there were still segregationists in congress that went to their graves hating integration, and one of them was very famously on the goddamned Warren Commission that investigated the JFK assassination. The point there is that at some point we just start telling ignorant people they have two choices — come along for the ride, or shout into an ever-deafening wind of public sentiment that drowns out their ill-informed gobbledygook.

Look, I get it. I remember growing up in a conservative, religious house. The culture war matters to you guys. A lot. But as much as you shit on “SJWs” and the whole concept of equality because “life isn’t fair” is the mantra of your movement, a lot of us do actually care which side of history we end up on. Hell, I’ve even seen snide little right-wing douchebags mock the concept of a good and bad side of history to end up on. Because you know, it’s cool to have your legacy be as a Nazi, or a slaver, or someone who helped Nazis and slavers, right?

The fact is that you can’t provide a single scrap of evidence that these bathroom laws and birth certificate laws will help prevent anybody from being victimized. In point of fact, you are the ones victimizing people who have a goddamned right to go to the bathroom where they are comfortable, and to have the record of their birth, of their life on this Earth, reflected in a way that is accurate. I know it hurts your brains to think of such complex ideas as gender identity, but too fucking bad, y’all. You live in this world, and you can be a bigot if you want, but just look at how past bigots have been treated, and then decide for yourself if that’s how you want to roll.

I’ll reiterate my fundamental question one more time: What difference does it make? What is the harm? Don’t feed me some societal slippery slope bullshit. Talk to me like an adult. If you’re spending more time in the restroom worried about the genitalia at birth of those pissing and shitting next to you there are problems in your life you may never, ever address.

Leave the LGBTQ community alone, Kansas Republicans. You’re not going to win this fight. The Supreme Court is not your friend on this issue, and especially not since Scalia did the world a favor and left it. Your state looks pretty fucking stupid as it is, and this will only make it look further so.

