I’m taking today off.
I start a new (part-time) job tomorrow, so today my goal is to do nothing of importance. I will do my best to stay away from social media and email, exchanging them for silly games, books, and binge-watching.
But I don’t want to leave this blog blank, so I’ve written up something small in advance.
For us West Virginians keeping track of the Legislature, I want to draw your attention to two bills:
SB 460 is the bill to roll back vaccine requirements for children. (See last Tuesday’s blog for all the reasons that is bad.) The bill has already moved to second reading, which means it’s quickly moving toward passage.
Call or write your local senator to make it clear that SB 460 is unacceptable. Public health takes precedence. Look for your representative and their contact information here.
SB 299 is a bill to eliminate the narrow exceptions to West Virginian’s restrictions on gender-affirming care. It’s going to the Health and Human Resources committee, so there’s a chance to kill it early.
Regardless of your stance on gender-affirming or gender transition health care — is this really what we want our legislators to focus on? Is this really more important to address than roads, inflation, lack of affordable housing, increasing homelessness, and lack of accessible and affordable health care?
Why are our legislators putting more effort into preventing gender queer youth from accessing (safe, proven effective) health care than they are into addressing the problems that impact all West Virginians?
The popular statistic is that West Virginia has the highest rate of transgender youth (13-17 years old) per capita. Let me put that in perspective:
“Per capita” means “per unit of population.” It’s an average or proportion of something compared to the entire population. It’s important to note that any “per capita” data is going to be affected by the size of the population: A smaller population sometimes leads to a larger per capita proportion.
As a silly example: The number of ice cream shops per capita in each state. Pretend that Michigan and West Virginia have an identical number of ice cream shops — say, 100,000 total in each state. Michigan has over 10 million people, whereas West Virginia has about 1.8 million. So if we’re looking at the average number of ice cream shops per person, West Virginia’s per capita rate is going to be significantly higher (100,000/1.7 million = 0.059 ice cream shops per person) than Michigan’s (100,000/10 million = 0.01 ice cream shops per person) because West Virginia has less population.
To say, then, that West Virginia has the highest rate of transgender youth per capita does not mean that the Mountain State is overwhelmed by transgender youth — especially since that rate is less than 1%. In reality, we have fewer transgender minors than other states; we just have a much smaller overall population.
I don’t say this to discount or erase our transgender neighbors and family members. I say this to help combat this boogeyman-esque myth that transgender people and LGBTQ+ ideology is overtaking West Virginia.
According to a 2022 study by the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute, in the entire United States, there are only 300,000 transgender individuals between 13 and 17 years old — a total of 1.4% of all 13- to 17-year-olds and 0.09% of all Americans (300,000 divided by 330 million).
In the entirety of West Virginia, there are 700 kids between 13 and 17 years old who identify as transgender or gender nonconforming. That’s 0.68% of 13- to 17-year-olds in the Mountain State, or 0.04% of all West Virginians.
Why are our legislators fixated on inserting themselves into the highly personal medical decisions of 700 kids?
Why is that more important than reworking the road funding formula so the roads most traveled get the most attention? Why is that more important than expanding broadband internet access? Why is that more important than affordable housing development?
Make it clear to our legislators that they don’t have the time to be wasting on nonsense and we don’t have the patience for their foolishness.
J. Nelson - Writer 