Brian Kemp Cheers Banning Trans Kids from Sports After Paving Way for Hateful Policy

Following Brian Kemp’s signature of H.B. 1084 – a bill designed to target transgender kids – today the Georgia High School Association voted to bantransgender students from competing in school sports after Kemp paved the way for and encouraged them to do so.

The policy change is the culmination of months of attacks by Kemp on trans students – including using his final moments of the 2022 legislative session to prioritize stopping trans kids from playing sports after his initial ban failed to pass due to major public pushback. Kemp’s legislation is so extreme that similar bills were vetoed by other Republican governors and opposed by over 200 major businesses across the country.

Kemp’s advocacy for this dangerous policy and gloating upon its enactmentunderscores the cruelty and level of extremism that has defined his time in office. His ruthless campaign against transgender children comes after a year of record high anti-transgender violence and rhetoric, during which 52 percentof transgender and nonbinary youth seriously contemplated suicide.

“Brian Kemp’s use of state-sanctioned bullying of Georgia’s trans youth as a campaign strategy is unconscionable. By paving the way and pushing for this hateful policy, Kemp is showing that he doesn’t care about Georgians – he’ll always put extreme partisan politics and his political career over our best interests, even if it means hurting our kids and dividing our communities. Kemp has proven time and again he’s too dangerous and extreme for Georgia – we deserve real leadership,” said Max Flugrath, spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Georgia.

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