Republican Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge continues to fight for the protection of Arkansas children against irreversible gender transition procedures.
In an interview with Fox News, Rutledge defended the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act and maintained that its central purpose is to protect children.
The SAFE Act protects children under the age of 18 from sex-reassignment procedures, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones. The Arkansas Legislature voted to enact the SAFE Act by Rep. Robin Lundstrum (R-AR) and Sen. Alan Clark (R-AR) in April of 2021.
As stated in the interview with Fox News, the law is held up in court due to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Rutledge spoke of one of the plaintiffs in particular who is 9 years old. She asked the viewers to “imagine a 9-year-old making the decision whether or not to be male or female for the rest of his or her life”.
LGBTQ+ activists argue that the law takes away access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth by labeling what they believe to be safe, common, and lifesaving treatment as experimentation.
The side effects of gender transitioning treatments are heavily understudied but new evidence from around the world is being put forward on the irreversible damage they can do. Even liberal media outlets are having to come to grips with the possibility that gender-transitioning hormones are potentially dangerous.
We forced the NYT to admit that puberty blockers are dangerous. They're a decade late and deserve no credit or applause. But it's still great news because it shows that our movement is winning. We're dragging left wing institutions into the light, kicking and screaming.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) November 14, 2022
Rutledge argues that nothing in the law prevents adults from making that “life permanent decision. But what it does do is protect children.” She stands firm on her belief that minors simply do not have the ability to make these life-altering decisions.
Her fight against the trans agenda has intensified over the last two years. In a statement from July of 2021, she vowed she “will not sit idly by while radical groups such as the ACLU use our children as pawns for their own social agenda”.
In May of 2022, Rutledge led a 15-state brief supporting the state of Alabama’s recently passed law protecting minors from experimental hormones used in gender transitioning. The brief was filed by Rutledge in Alabama federal district court in the lawsuit against the Alabama Vulnerable Child Protection Act.
