A lawmaker’s heartfelt speech about a Kentucky bill has gone viral after advocating for trans people and protesters.
In the video recorded on the Kentucky House of Representatives floor, Pam Stevenson, who is running for Kentucky’s Attorney General, stalwartly rebuked her colleagues over Senate Bill 150, a controversial ban that would eliminate gender-affirming care for schoolchildren, which includes requiring students in schools to use bathrooms aligned with their gender at birth and would give school staff the right not to use a student’s requested pronouns.
You have to ask yourself the question, why would they be doing that?” Stevenson questioned. “Who are we to cause that? None of us said we would come here to hurt people. We have created an environment of hate and then we look at them like there’s something wrong with them. First you hated Black people, then you hated Jews, now you’re hating everybody. So the question is, when it’s the only people left … will you hate yourself?”
Trans activists have referred to the bill as one of the harshest and most oppressive anti-trans laws in the country, which also includes the prohibition of all gender-affirming medical care for trans people under 18 and would require doctors to de-transition minors under their care. In 2023 alone, over 470 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced across the country. Other inequitable bills that have been proposed include bathroom bans, sports bans, drag bans and “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” bills.
“This House is for the people, by the people, to serve the people,” Stevenson concluded. “You go against the people of this state. This is a horrible, horrible session. This bill is horrible because it has nothing to do with the people. Somebody’s going to have to atone.”
A week before Stevenson’s speech, Democratic governor Andy Beshear vetoed the bill stating that it “tears away the freedom of parents to make important and difficult medical decisions for their kids.”
