I’ve lived a lot of places. Dallas is the 13th different city, and Texas makes the seventh state I’ve lived in, so I have some perspective in making comparisons.

We are in the middle of a census, which will update the population estimates soon, but as of 2019, Texas was estimated to have just under 30 million inhabitants, second only to California. And about 900,000 Texans make important state-wide decisions about how we live our lives.

That’s the number of Texans who vote down ballot in the Republican primary, and if you win the Republican primary in Texas, you win statewide office.

That’s been the case since 1994, the last year a Democrat won a statewide office in Texas. No other state has gone longer.

So, those who vote in the Republican primary end up determining the fate of the other 28 million Texans.

On the GOP ballot for Super Tuesday this year are some “propositions” for planks in the state GOP platform. These are really just opinion pieces; they carry no force of law. BUT they DO provide guidance to legislators as to what the “dog whistle,” or wedge, issues are that would endear them to primary voters.

Among those propositions is Prop 6. Here’s what it says:

“Keep in mind that this is an opinion poll of Republican voters and not a policy referendum. When you vote YES or NO, you are telling us what you think should happen. You are not voting to make a law but merely saying YES you agree or NO you do not agree with the statement.

“6.) Texas should ban chemical castration, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and genital mutilation surgery on all minor children for transition purposes, given that Texas children as young as three (3) are being transitioned from their biological sex to the opposite sex.”

Let me make this perfectly clear: Proposition six also has absolutely NO basis in fact.

I spend a fair amount of my professional time speaking at medical schools, and I know there is a significant lack of information within the medical community at large. So imagine what it might be among the general public!?

Then, let’s narrow that down to the crowd that makes up the 900,000 GOP primary voters.

Good grief.

Not only are these voters being asked their opinion on something they know absolutely nothing about, the question itself they are being asked is a complete tangle of lies!

If legislators really wanted to gather information and learn about transgender healthcare, maybe they should speak to a doctor who knows something about it — say, for instance, like Dr. Ximina Lopez at the Genecis Clinic in Dallas. There is an abundance of information from mainstream medical organizations that support affirming care.

The fact is, there is NO MEDICAL transition for a transgender child who has not reached Tanner Stage 2 of puberty. For a young child, transition — if it happens at all — is purely social. Maybe it will involve a change of name, pronouns, hairstyle and clothing — ALL of which are 100 percent reversible.

There is no medical transition on children as young as 3. Where do they get the nonsense!?

Proposition 6 mentions genital mutilation surgery — you mean like circumcision?

Gender-related surgery for trans patients doesn’t generally happen — if it happens at all — until at least age 18.

If this weren’t so deadly serious, it would be laughable. The idiot who wrote this fiction clearly knows little of the human body.

The proposition suggests we wait until age 18 — the age at which a person is no longer a minor — before puberty blockers are

administered. Seriously? Is there ANYONE you know who HASN’T gone through puberty by then?

Block something that has already happened? You can’t. And puberty isn’t reversible.

Puberty blockers, however, are reversible. Kids aren’t chemically castrated. It’s far more complex than that.

One of the biggest issues parents of trans kids have to work through is sterility. Some people don’t want kids; some do. Some donate eggs or sperm before surgery. It’s a case of informed consent.

But the most important thing to remember here is this: It’s none of your fucking business if it’s not your body or your kid’s body!

This is doctor/patient stuff. It is not the concern of GOP primary voters. It’s none of the business of insurance companies or the Texas Legislature.

I hated my puberty. I would do almost anything to have not gone through it. I hate being six feet tall with size 12 feet and a voice that gets me a cheery “Thank you, sir” when I use a drive through or talk on the phone.

NONE of those things can be fixed, and that’s just for starters. I WISH puberty blockers were around when I was a kid, but they weren’t.

Proposition 6 doesn’t carry the force of law, even if GOP primary voters approve it. But it puts ideas in the heads of pandering fools, like Matt Krause in Fort Worth who has vowed to craft a bill to put the force of law behind Proposition 6.

And believe me when I tell that’s not any indication that Krause cares about transgender kids at all; it’s just plain ol’ Texas-sized political pandering to a small group of voters too lazy to fact check these lies told purely for political gain — trans lives be damned.

We deserve better than that.

Leslie McMurray, a transgender woman, is a former radio DJ who lives and works in Dallas. Read more of her blogs at lesliemichelle44.wordpress.com.