Idaho Republican gave best argument against anti-trans bill — and still voted for it | Opinion
Idaho Republican Rep. Lori McCann, of Lewiston, gave the most compelling, heartfelt, empathetic and reasonable testimony on the House floor Tuesday against House Bill 71, which criminalizes gender-affirming care for transgender children.
McCann actually took the time to meet with parents of transgender children and a transgender 16-year-old girl.
“I’ve lost a lot of sleep over this bill,” she said. “I’ve wrestled with it. I’ve talked with professionals. I’ve talked with medical folks, parents. I’ve talked with actual transgender people, and I want them to know that I care, I feel for them, and it is real. It is something that is real that we all need to try to understand.”
House Bill 71 bans surgeries for transgender children under 18 and criminalizes gender-affirming care, such as hormone therapy and puberty blockers, punishable as a felony with up to 10 years in prison.
“My heart is with these people, these lovely individuals that I’ve met, and they touched me deeply,” McCann said.
McCann was demonstrating that one incredible quality that is so lacking among too many legislators: empathy.
“I think about myself in the position, and I did put myself in these positions of saying, ‘What would you do, Lori? What would you do if it’s one of your four children or one of your 11 grandchildren that are struggling with this very issue?’” she said. “Well, I would fight like all-get-out to get them the treatment, whatever that is that they need.”
McCann said she agreed with banning sex-reassignment surgeries but didn’t agree with banning other medical treatment, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
“The transgender people I’ve chatted with, they also say they agree that 18 is even young to have the surgery, and they were not at all opposed to having a law that said children must wait until they’re 18,” she said. “However, there (were) tears, there (were) very uncertain futures that they also shared with me, that if they were not allowed to have the medications necessary to help them on their journey, that it would be devastating for them.”
It’s a compromise Utah legislators came to last month and the governor signed into law. Utah’s law bans surgery for those under 18 but allows medical treatment for children diagnosed with gender dysphoria. But that wasn’t on the table for Idaho, apparently.
McCann rightly recognized the hypocrisy of the bill when it comes to parental rights.
“We fight so desperately and say the parents have inalienable rights to make decisions for their children,” she said on the House floor. “But now, since we don’t understand or we don’t like this topic, we are going to say, ‘No, parents, I’m sorry, we are the Legislature and we know more, we know better what is important and what your child needs,’ and that bothers me greatly.”
McCann bravely told fellow legislators she struggled with this legislation, based in part on her own experience with a transgender person in her family.
“I had a hard time wrapping my head around this,” she said. “But it affects me. It affects their lives. It affects my grandson and his partner, his wife. But I love them dearly and will do anything I can to make life easier for them to get through day to day.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t vote to make life easier for them or for the transgender people and their families she met with.
She voted to make it more difficult for them.
After all that wonderful testimony, she still voted in favor of the bill, along with 57 of her Republican colleagues.
All Democrats and Republican Rep. Matt Bundy, of Mountain Home, voted against it.
McCann perhaps could have convinced some of her colleagues to vote against the bill or work toward a compromise that prohibits surgery but allows doctors to provide care for their transgender patients in partnership with parents.
McCann had an opportunity to show real courage. She even spoke of doing so.
“Leadership is about standing strong, and sometimes you stand alone, but so I rise because I know I’m standing kind of alone as a Republican,” she said a few minutes before standing not alone but with the crowd, a crowd of 57 she knew was doing the wrong thing.
It feels like a hopeless situation when a legislator comes that far, does the work necessary, even has a personal connection, knows a bill is wrong, that it’s detrimental to the people she took the time to meet and get to know and still vote in favor of it.
That is perhaps the greatest travesty — and disappointment — of all.
