Haircuts and Nicknames

 In Arkansas, one of our Republicans wants to create civil liability for anyone who "assists" transgender minors. That includes parents, and apparently anyone else on the planet, and it includes things like calling a kid by a name which doesn't "fit" their "biological gender," or allowing them to wear clothing that doesn't align with that gender:

"...any act by which a minor adopts or espouses a gender identity that differs from the minor’s biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles of the minor, including without limitation changes in clothing, pronouns, hairstyle, and name.”

(Emphasis mine)

Comments are asking if this means a parent allowing a kid to have a hairstyle (long hair, short hair) which doesn't "fit" their assigned gender will be prosecuted; or if buying jeans for your daughter creates civil liability.

But no. Of course it doesn't. No cis child will be prosecuted for wearing jeans, or having a ponytail. As with most laws, this one will be prosecuted selectively. It's a law that can be weaponized against trans people.

Laws about what clothing people were allowed to wear used to be common in the U.S. Women who wore jeans, men who wore blouses, these people could be arrested and prosecuted. Long hair on men was a crime. Men with eyeshadow or earrings could be prosecuted. These laws were not enforced against "good" people. Like the War on Drugs, they were a way to prosecute the "wrong" sort of people. That's how these laws will be used as well.

Arkansas governor and Trump wannabe Sarah Huckleberry Sanders and her supporters keep blatting about how parents should be in charge of their children, but that's not what they mean. It's not what any of them mean. They mean they want to put "good" parents in charge of their children. And their definition of "good" is parents who agree with them -- Evangelical Christian parents, Trump-supporting parents, bigoted parents. 

Parents like me, and other parents who don't see children as their possessions, as their weapons in a culture war -- we should be prosecuted. We should be jailed. We should definitely not be allowed to make decisions about our children's healthcare, or their education, or their lives. 

As with women's bodies, decisions like these should be left to the government.