By Spencer O’Hara, President Augustana Democrats and Vice President of College Democrats of South Dakota. This letter was also published in the Argus Leader.
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To the proponents of anti-transgender legislation,
I write this with a heavy heart, deeply troubled about your actions and their consequences on my LGBT brothers and sisters. South Dakota is now receiving national attention for HB 1008 as the first state in the country to pass an anti-transgender bathroom bill. I have tried to reconcile your decision to advance HB 1008 in mind. I have tried to rise above and not reciprocate the same contempt you have for anyone that isn’t like you. I’m having a really hard time with that. I see a lot of humans in Pierre, but no humanity.
Most of you like to ponder why young people across the state are leaving. I’ll let you in on a little secret: We are sick and tired. We are sick and tired of you sacrificing our future, boasting about the merits of fiscal responsibility and making deep cuts to education later found to be unnecessary. We are sick and tired of politicians dragging their feet about helping the most vulnerable in our state who cannot afford healthcare, despite the fact that the federal government has agreed to cover ninety percent of costs. We are sick of you passing laws limiting reproductive healthcare and sex education in schools, then giving businesses the right to brand unwed mothers with a scarlet letter.
A lot of you take pride in our multi-billion dollar budget surplus that was achieved at the expense of students and the poor, but now are hesitant to use these funds to fix the fact that our hard-working teachers are the lowest paid in the country or expand Medicaid so 50,000 poor residents can enjoy the same quality of life as you and me. No. Instead, your first course of action this legislative session has been to attack humans who don’t fit your interpretation of “traditional family values.”
To those who voted in favor of HB 1008, I ask you this: If you had a gay or transgender son, how could you take the floor, pass these bills that demonize him and then go home and tell him how much you love him? Better yet, I challenge you to look the mother of a transgender son in the eye before you take the senate floor and call him a “he-she.” That is, assuming the child is still alive, because I’m sure all of you know 41% of trans people have tried to take their own life. Or other LGBT youth whose attempted suicide rate is four times higher than their straight friends. Or the record number of trans persons who were murdered in the U.S. last year (over twenty).
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students take their lives because dying is less painful than living in a world that constantly reminds them they are less human. And yes, that is due to the culture you have fostered. HB 1008 is not conservative. It is not liberal. It is hateful. It is disgusting. I have no words to describe how sorry I feel for all legislators that voted for this.
All of you should be ashamed of yourselves. You don’t represent me, you don’t represent young people, and you certainly don’t represent others in this state.
Spencer O’Hara,
President, Augustana Democrats
Vice President, College Democrats of South Dakota