On Monday, Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition called in to “Sandy Rios In The Morning” from Bentonville, Arkansas, where the school board was weighing adding protections for sexual orientation and gender identity to its employment nondiscrimination code. (The board ultimately voted against the measure.)
Lafferty told Rios that she came to Bentonville to warn that such a move would “put psychologically unhealthy teachers in the classroom” and ultimately grant legal protections to LGBT students, which she described as a danger. After Lafferty claimed that trans youth experience higher suicide rates because they are “psychologically unhealthy and unstable,” Rios likened affirmation of trans children to affirming people’s porn addictions or extramarital affairs: “We don’t say it’s okay, it’s just the way you are.”
“There are studies, the federal government is funding a study of transgendered [sic] kids, but it’s more to promote it,” Lafferty said. “To me, it’s the ultimate act of child abuse to not try and really help your child through this and to become whole but they are psychologically unhealthy.”
