Derby City Sisters and Kentucky Fried Sisters with Governor Andy Beshear.Derby City Sisters / via Facebook
CV NEWS FEED // Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear this week issued an executive order severely restricting individuals from counseling gender-confused children against embracing the “transgender” movement.
The order explicitly banned so-called “conversion therapy” for minors.
The term “conversion therapy” is popularly used by pro-LGBTQ politicians to refer to advising children against adopting a new “gender identity” or engaging in homosexual activity.
After signing the order on Wednesday, Beshear claimed the move was “about protecting our youth from an inhumane practice that hurts them.”
In March 2023, Beshear made headlines after he vetoed a bill protecting children from sexual medical procedures.
Days later, the Republican-controlled Kentucky General Assembly, the state’s legislature, overrode Beshear’s veto by an overwhelming majority, thus allowing the bill to become law.
In his statement released after signing this week’s order, Beshear claimed: “Conversion therapy has no basis in medicine or science, and it can cause significant long-term harm to our kids, including increased rates of suicide and depression.”
Lawyer, religious freedom advocate, and Kentucky Representative candidate TJ Roberts took to X (formerly Twitter) to critique Beshear’s order, comparing it with the governor’s rejection of protecting minors from “transgender” surgeries.
“In 2023, the Kentucky General [Assembly] banned what I would call conversion therapy in SB 150, which banned the administration of surgeries, drugs, and hormones to alter a child’s gender or sexuality,” Roberts wrote.
“Andy Beshear vetoed that bill, but the legislature overrode the veto because they care about children,” he continued:
Now, Andy Beshear has continued his war on Children’s innocence by banning his version of conversion therapy by executive fiat. It offers no exceptions for pastors. The executive order, rather, makes an exception for psychologists who are trying to impose non-straight sexualities on children.
“Andy Beshear wants to sexualize children,” Roberts’ post stressed.
The lawyer predicted that the Democratic governor’s “executive order will almost certainly be struck down in court.”
“If not, I expect the legislature will take swift action to protect our faith, our family, and our freedom in January when we’re back in session!” he emphasized.
Roberts also posted a photograph of Beshear posing with members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI), a well-known and widely criticized “drag” troupe that frequently mocks Catholics, in particular religious sisters, in a sexually explicit manner.
The Kentucky Senate’s Republican Caucus also posted a statement against Beshear’s executive order on X.
“This executive order disregards the First Amendment rights regarding freedom of religion and speech and violates the fundamental parental rights and responsibilities for their children,” the senators stated.
The state lawmakers also charge that the “order uses such vague and overbroad language that health care providers are at risk, and children will be left without needed mental health care.”
Author and Kentucky resident Kelley Paul also took to X to weigh in on the governor’s order.
“If your confused minor child thinks they were born in the wrong body, autocrat Beshear makes you a criminal for advising that they are perfect as they are,” wrote Paul, who is married to Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY. “You can’t protect them from the path to puberty blockers, breast binders, surgeries and a lifetime of medicalization.”
Beshear’s order notes that at “least 23 states and the District of Columbia prohibit the use of” what it calls “conversion therapy with minors in some way.”
All of these states with the exception of Utah voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.
Despite having a Democratic governor, Kentucky is among the most Republican states in the nation and voted for then-President Donald Trump by 26 points four years ago.
Nevertheless, Beshear won re-election to a second term as governor last year by a five-point margin.
