“Stay in your lane.”
We heard this from conservative media personalities when some athlete spoke against some social injustice. Their world was the sports world, and they had no place or right to express an opinion in the real world.
This is Massachusetts where we are somewhat of an island in that the spirit that started this country is still around and, other than the mouth-breathers, this is a forward-looking state.
We have a conservative candidate hoping to be governor who praises the educational system in the state from pre-school-to doctoral level as the greatest in the country but goes around the campaign trail saying that the state’s educational system needs improvement by which he means we need to start adding some Florida stuff.
When Marriage Equality was established in Massachusetts, just as had happened when the state recognized that its Gay citizens are indeed that, citizens, Conservative reigio-political groups from out of state came here to try to influence the thinking of Bay Staters to abandon our ways and adopt those of others we are glad don’t live here.
Later, when outside agents again came to the state this time to take away Transgender Bay Staters rights, the people of the state voted overwhelmingly to preserve those rights.
Bigotry may exist in the state, but the consistent will of the people is that the bigotry has no place here and has no power.
It is a state that passed a law in 1843 that is still one the books that states clearly,
“All persons within the Commonwealth, regardless of sex race color creed or national origin, shall have the same rights enjoyed by white male citizens”,
a law largely ignored then and throughout the years, even up to today, by the very people who would benefit from invoking it instead of choosing to fight battles to establish laws already covered by this one.
They keep trying, though, and it gets a little more than tiresome, especially when they try to convince the people of a state, one that one of their own admits is a highly educated one, that facts and science can be negated with lies.
Like any serious hospital, especially one in Massachusetts, Boston Children’s Hospital addresses the needs of those patients who go to them for help without arbitrarily or politically deciding who gets medical care, and some are Transgender youth who are given care appropriate to their age, the necessary consents if needed, and the whole shebang from beginning to end and all between and after. There is nothing bizarre or nefarious, no treatment in the non-existent cellar of a pizza parlor.
But using the tactic that a lie will distract from the truth, a tactic effective in other areas of the country, “Libs of TikTok” a conservative Twitter account, posted a claim that Boston Children’s provides hysterectomies for its transgender patience.
This predictably resulted in the desired threatening phone calls and emails with increased security being needed because someone could not make a point with facts and, so, resorted to lies regardless of the direct and collateral injury.
A former Trump White House Senior Advisor whose name I will not mention, but his initials are Stephen Miller, took the bait and spread the lie,
“This is monstrous. How does anyone involved in this still have a medical license?”
According to the statement by Children’s Hospital, the accusation made by the conservative Twitter account was
“fueled by misinformation and a lack of understanding and respect.”
Boston Children’s responded in part
“The article and the online attention that followed was based on the incorrect statement that Boston Children’s performs hysterectomies on minors in connection with transgender care. For a hysterectomy performed as part of a gender-affirming care, Boston Children’s requires a patient to be capable of consenting for themselves.”
The hospital also made it clear that they will not perform a hysterectomy as part of gender-affirming care for patients under the age of 18.
The mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, defended the hospital as it is one of the very many hospitals the city has a right to be proud of.
“This is medical care. This is one of the preeminent, most renowned medical institutions in the country, doing what they do best — which is providing important, necessary care for the health and wellbeing of our community members.”
Considering how backwoods the lies are and those acting on them are out of place and unwanted in Massachusetts, it might be good to know that the US Attorney in Massachusetts finds the lies and threats “disturbing, to say the least”, and Massachusetts attorney Rachael S. Rollins has stated,
“While free speech is indeed the cornerstone of our great nation, fear, intimidation, and threats are not. I will not sit idly by and allow hate-based criminal activity to continue in our District.”
It should also be noted that in a city with innovative hospitals, medical centers, medical schools, whose doctors and nurses, since the day that Cotton Mather first got inoculated, go on to bring better medical treatment throughout the country, Boston Children’s did not just latch on to something, some new political issue, but it is the home to the first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program in the United States.
So don’t come to Massachusetts with your Gunsmoke, Dodge City doctor medical opinions and lies about Boston hosptials.
We deal in science and fact here.
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