by WorldTribune Staff, August 15, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
As governor of Minnesota, Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz in April 2023 approved legislation that made the state a sanctuary for children seeking, even in cases without parental consent, life-altering transgender surgeries and treatments.
Proponents of the law insist it does not allow Minnesota to trans kids without parental consent.
The law, Senate Bill 63, states: "A law of another state that authorizes a state agency to remove a child from the child's parent or guardian because the parent or guardian allowed the child to receive gender-affirming health care, as defined in section 543.23, paragraph (b), is against the public policy of this state and must not be enforced or applied in a case pending in a court in this state. A court order for the removal of a child issued in another state solely because the child's parent or guardian assisted the child in receiving gender-affirming care in this state must not be enforced in this state."
Walz believes "children can change their sex with a little wishing, medication, and invasive surgeries. He thinks children can decide for themselves if they were born in the wrong body and should try to change sex, and he doesn't think parents should have much to say about it," Libby Emmonds noted in an Aug. 6 analysis for Human Events.
Emmons added: "Walz believes he is 'protecting' kids by allowing doctors to cut off their breasts and give them drugs that stunt their growth and can lead to infertility."
Kamala Harris's running mate "signed a law making Minnesota a 'trans refuge.' This means that if a mother takes her child to Minnesota, against the father's wishes or a court order, to medically transition the child, that father has no rights to have the child returned to him," Emmons wrote. "This also mirrors California's law that says if a child runs away to a 'trans refuge' state seeking medical sex changes, the state will not return the missing child to their family but will aid them in getting a sex change. This effectively allows Minnesota to give a minor a sex change against parental wishes. 'Trans refuge' status allows states to take charge of a child and direct their medical care regardless of what the child's parents say."
The legislation was was pushed by Leigh Finke a state representative who is a biological male but claims to be a woman. He was even "honored" by USA Today as a Woman of the Year in 2023.
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After signing the legislation, Walz said: "In Minnesota, we’re protecting rights, not taking them away," adding that he was "proud to sign it into law."
Emmons noted that Walz had also "signed a law banning conversion therapy, which once meant that gay people couldn't be pressured to convert to being straight, but now means that so-called 'trans' children can't be told that they are fine in their natural bodies. It is a crime in Minnesota to tell a girl who thinks she's a boy that she is, in fact, a girl."
The trans-advocacy group Human Rights Campaign said Walz's move was an "example of how pro-equality state legislatures and governors are able to advance LGBTQ+ rights, even as other states are rolling back critical rights and protections."
Walz also requires that health insurance plans cover "gender-affirming care."
That means health plans must cover "double mastectomies of healthy breasts for girls, hysterectomies, removal of the ovaries, the creation of a fake phallus using muscle and tissue from arms and legs to create a non-functioning appendage," Emmons noted. "It covers surgical breast enlargements for boys, castration, the creation of a non-functioning vagina often using parts of the colon. This covers drugs that stop puberty in children, cross-sex hormones to create the emergence of cross-sex secondary sex characteristics, such as breast growth, facial hair, deeper voice, stunted growth, etc. Additional forms of "affirming" medical treatment include facial surgery to create either a softer or more square jawline, Adam's apple shaving, and other forms of surgery to further give the appearance that the person is of the opposite sex."
Emmons concluded: "What does all that mean for America? It means Walz will do his damndest to make sure Minnesota's laws allowing sex changes for children become America's laws allowing sex changes for children."
