COVINGTON, Ky. – Normally fun and boisterous events at the NKY Pride Center took on a sense of nervousness Tuesday as Frankfort lawmakers passed legislation targeting LGBTQ+ children and rights.
President Bonnie Meyer said they’re still here to be proud and recognized, but the stakes have definitely been raised.
Drag performer PHDee performed at Tuesday’s Pride Youth Party and said she recognizes that conversations around trans people, especially trans youth, have increased.
“Resources like this, they’re here to uplift and celebrate, and also to fight when needed. These days, I think it’s necessary,” he said.
The Kentucky Legislature passed Senate Bill 150 which, among other things, required children to use the bathroom that matched their biological sex, prohibited teachers from discussing sexuality or gender identity, and prohibited all care of gender affirmation for people under 18 years of age.
RELATED | ‘We want people to feel like they’re here’: NKY Pride Center holds town hall in opposition to SB 150
As someone who didn’t transition until her 20s after being raised in a conservative small town, PHDee said she was concerned about the mental impact the bills could have on children who would have started or had already started l ‘transition care.
“Knowing that people want to stifle it, restrict it, it’s literally a life or death way,” he said.
Meyer asked WCPO not to show the faces of LGBTQ+ children and their allies because of the current political climate.
“That’s why we’re here tonight,” Meyer said. “Because over the last, certainly the last two years, but certainly the last legislative session in Kentucky, it was an attack on LGBTQA+ kids.”
David Walls, executive director of the Kentucky Family Foundation, defended the bills, however, saying they would protect children from making a major change too young.
“What we’re talking about is the chemical and physical mutilation of children’s bodies,” Walls said.
The leader of a conservative Christian group maintains that gender-affirming care is not medical care despite support from several medical and pediatric associations during a debate in the legislature.
“To seek to do something that is simply not possible — to change a child’s biological sex through a series of interventions — that hurts children,” he said.
With tensions high on both sides heading into Pride month, Walls called for people to voice their opinions non-violently during Pride events.
“Our hope is always peace,” he said. “We believe in the peaceful defense of the battle of ideas.”
PHDee worried that trans children would still be harmed by the restrictive laws if they come into effect at the end of June.
“I don’t want that blood on my hands,” he said. “Do they?”
ACLU Kentucky filed an injunction this week that seeks to block the part of the bill that prohibits those under 18 from receiving gender-affirming care, including banning puberty blockers, gender-affirming surgery or hormones.
The injunctive relief would block that portion of the bill while the case is litigated.
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