Remember last month when South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem caught flack from conservatives when she failed to sign a bill that would protect girls’ sports from transgender athletes? Now it looks like Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson may himself be turning into a. . . ahem. . . Noem after he vetoed a bill on Monday that would ban transgender surgery for minors.

To be sure, Noem did backtrack and signed two executive orders to protect girls’ K-12 and college sports. Apparently the pressure from conservatives was too overwhelming, and she went back to the fold. After all, she might want to be re-elected, maybe even run for national office someday, and caving to the LGBTQ crowd is not a good look for her.

But Asa Hutchinson? He’s term-limited, and will be replaced in 2022. So why did he veto House Bill 1570, the Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act (SAFE)? It would’ve barred doctors from providing puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones and gender-altering surgeries to kids under 18. After all, just last week he approved a bill that would protect female sports from transgender athletes. Plus, HB 1570 would be the first bill of its kind in the nation. Asa Hutchinson would be taking a bold step for his state of Arkansas.

But no, he weaseled out, calling the bill “off course.”

Naturally, the trans lobby and their allies in the American Civil Liberties Union did a Happy Dance. Chris Strangio, an ACLU lawyer, said:

“First and foremost, it’s such an important rebuke of this sweeping range of legislation targeting trans youth across the country, I hope Alabama’s watching. I hope Tennessee’s watching.”

Plus LGBTQ advocate Sam Brinton praised Asa Hutchinson for his veto:

“The governor openly said trust the parents, trust the young person, trust their medical professionals.”

Esquire ran this headline:

“In Terms of Culture-War Holy-Shit Moments, This is Right Up There” 

While the hysterical feminists at Jezebel gave Hutchinson backhanded praise for ‘realizing’ that “wanting trans kids to die is perhaps a bad look.”

But if Hutchinson ever runs for national office, do you think this crowd will remember how he grabbed his ankles for them? Will they support him? Not a chance. Because this is what they think of Republicans: they all want LGBT people to roll over and die. And Asa Hutchinson is one of those evil Republicans.

However, while libertarians might applaud Hutchinson limiting the scope of government, they ignore the smallest form of government: the family. What if a teenager wants to take the drastic step of physically altering his or her body in sex-change procedures? There is, of course, no going back. Does that teen get to make that decision without his or her parents?

Henry Henrietta/flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0.

Or what if one parent agrees to sex change procedures and the other does not? What if the parents are divorced? That’s the nightmare facing divorced Canadian father Rob Hoogland. His seventh grade daughter began “social transitioning” under the encouragement of a psychologist, who also advised her to take testosterone. By ninth grade she was to start injections, but while her mother consented, Hoogland did not. He took the matter to court, and lost. But Hoogland began speaking out publicly about what the Canadian government could do to their children.

For sounding the alarm, Rob Hoogland now sits in a prison in British Columbia. He has a court date on April 12.

Meanwhile, transgenderism is on the rise among teenagers — some research shows that 3% of adolescents think they’re the opposite sex. And while advocates claim it’s because teens feel greater confidence about coming out, that’s not the case. Blame media, says Michelle Critella of the American College of Pediatricians:

“From social learning theory we know that the sudden exponential increase in transgender belief among adolescents across the United States and in Europe is due to the ongoing mass marketing of transgenderism to youth in these countries.”

In addition, studies from Washington, DC, and the Netherlands have indicated that kids on the autism spectrum are more likely to claim that they are gender dysphoric. Since children with ASD can often be rigid in their thinking, they may appear to be “transgender” to parents and adults.

What’s more, other research from the Netherlands warns that they don’t know much about the long-term effects of sex change on adolescents. And while Thomas Steensma of the Center of Expertise on Gender Dysphoria at Amsterdam UMC doesn’t oppose transgender procedures, he cautions that old studies may no longer apply.

“We don’t know whether studies we have done in the past can still be applied to this time. Many more children are registering, and also a different type. Suddenly there are many more girls applying who feel like a boy.”

“But more research is really necessary, and very much needed.”

Meanwhile, the Netherlands is experiencing huge waiting lists for children to receive transgender procedures. Britain, however, has responded by banning sex hormones for teens.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson has chosen to ignore such ominous scenarios. Instead he has sided with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, which advocates for early sex change procedures. And if you believe professional groups like this are objective and apolitical, then let me interest you in this bridge I have.

However, there’s good news: on Tuesday, the Arkansas state legislature voted to override Hutchinson’s veto, which he had predicted anyway. Thus, Arkansas will become the first state in the nation to ban sex change procedures on minors.

It’s now illegal for a kid to be mutilated or be put on hormones in Arkansas. Many Democrats are angry about this. Let that sink in. It’s really sick. Thank God the House and Senate there voted to override their cowardly governor. https://t.co/mruLpp39A9

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) April 6, 2021

So why did Gov. Hutchinson veto HB 1570 in the first place? The answer, of course, is based in politics. Asa Hutchinson is no doubt planning for bigger things in his political career, and he wants to be seen as more moderate on social issues. He wants to attract more than just a conservative base. It’s shameful that he used troubled teenagers to further his ambitions.

Featured image: Aimee Ardell/flickr/cropped/CC BY 2.0.