8 December 2022 — 1454mst
Legislators should not use veterinary terms to describe
surgical procedures performed on human children
By James Conner
John Fuller
Updated. All of us are morally obliged to discuss issues with language that enlightens our understanding of the subject, to avoid language that inflames the passions while clouding one’s judgment, and above all, to not not use language that hurts people, especially fragile people.
In a letter to the Kalispell Daily InterLake last week, Rep. John Fuller (R-HD8, west Kalispell, map) failed to discharge those obligations. Instead, describing the reproductive consequences of “gender affirming surgery” on minors, he wrote:
But, alas, the article then began quoting the executive director of the Queer Alliance, who quickly began attributing my efforts to protect children from being spayed, neutered and mutilated as hatred of the LGBTQ community. Nothing could be further from the truth. My efforts to protect children have nothing to do with the personal safety of the LGBTQ community.
Fuller believes that minors with gender dysphoria — a condition in which the gender a person’s brain believes that person is does not match that person’s skin and bones and chromosomes — should not be subjected to irreversible medical treatments for their dysphoria. In the 2021 legislative session, his bill, HB-113, to ban that treatment failed. In my judgment, his comments last week were as ugly as the debate over that bill.
“Spayed” and “neutered” are veterinary terms. They should not be employed to describe surgery on children. Fuller’s using that crude language was disrespectful, undoubtedly hurtful to children with gender dysphoria, and to their parents, and in no way commensurate with the obligations of the office he holds now and the one he will hold in the 2023 legislative session (he is state senator elect for SD-4, Kalispell, map).
Whether he will reintroduce that bill, or something similar, in the 2023 session is unknown. He has requested 13 bills thus far, one with the short title of “Provide for a youth health protection act.”
Whether and how the medical options for children with gender dysphoria should be preserved and managed is a legitimate issue, an important issue. These children are emotionally fragile. Therefore, all of us, and especially lawmakers and opinion leaders, must approach the debate with caution and compassion, and conduct our debate with proper restraint, using language that enlightens but does not inflame.
Let last week’s letter be the last time Fuller employs such crude and cruel language.