Missouri AG Wants Comments on Transgender Center — and He’ll Surely Get ‘Em

COURTESY MISSOURI GOVERNOR'S OFFICE

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (left, shown with Gov. Mike Parson) has kicked the hornet's nest.

As part of his ongoing investigation of the Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Attorney General Andrew Bailey yesterday launched an online form through which any old Missourian can weigh in on the issue. 

Bailey's announcement says the form is for any complaints or concerns residents might have "about gender transition intervention you have experienced or observed in Missouri."

The move calls to mind a similar effort launched by Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft last year when he asked the public to give their two cents over his proposal to cut state funding to libraries who provided what Ashcroft termed “non-age-appropriate materials" to young readers. 

Critics blasted the rule proposed by Ashcroft as a form of book banning. It came as schools were proactively removing books like a graphic novel version of George Orwell's 1984 and the Holocaust allegory Maus from their shelves to stay on the right side of a new state law many said was overly vague. 

In November, when Ashcroft asked the public to weigh in, the public took him up on the offer. A public records request for all submissions yielded more than 20,000 pages — pages that may foreshadow where this is all headed for Attorney General Bailey and his new attempt to gauge the sentiment of the populace.

Many Missourians wrote in with well-intentioned and well-reasoned critiques of Ashcroft's proposal. Ian J.'s submission to Ashcroft's site succinctly states a common theme, of citizens calling out the purportedly small-government GOP official on his hypocrisy: "Let parents be the judge of what is appropriate for their children to read. Your proposal takes away that freedom you preach about."

But there were also plenty of instances of things getting weird. 

Michael R, for instance, submitted an impossible-to-parse flowchart ostensibly proving that Americans are dying at the hands of "Homeland Security in a Communist COVID Society."

OBTAINED VIA MISSOURI SUNSHINE LAW

That explains it all, doesn't it?

Another submission contained what appears to be a Missourian's doctoral thesis from their coursework at the University of Phoenix.

Someone submitted a rather long poem, in which we think the poet may have confused the secretary of state for his father, who famously sought to cover up the breast of Lady Justice. It included the lines: 

And you pray for the biggest bra in the world John
because you see that breast on the spirit of justice
in the spirit of your
own inhibited sexuality.

A letter from the Kansas City man included screenshots of Ashcroft's own website, which the letter pointed out had some functionality issues. 

Naturally, there were plenty of four-letter words to be found among the 20,000 pages.

For instance, K.D. wrote: "Who gets to determine what is sexually appealing to any or every minor in the entire fucking state? Is it you? Do you want to personally read every single book which is published every year — which totals around 5 million, mind you — then be my mother fucking guest." 

"Your religious takeover of the libraries isn't too far removed from Iran's morality police or the Taliban's Shariah Law. Fuck you," wrote Eric K.

Cathy G. ended her submission to Ashcroft's site, "Fuck off with this nonsense."

Martha B wins the award for the brainiest dunk: "You are not in loco parentis," she wrote, using the Latin phrase that means fulfilling a parental duty. "You are just loco."

We didn't read through all 20,000 pages, but after about half an hour of perusal, we got the sense that the public's comments were something like nine to one against the so-called book ban. 

The voluminous feedback seems to have done little to tamp down politicians' appetites for micro-managing libraries, which probably tells you all you need to know about these sorts of online submission systems set up around culture war issues.

So go ahead, weigh in on the Transgender Center. Just know that reporters like us may be the only people actually reading it.