There’s an article on political website “the Hill” website in the last couple of days where District 10 Democrat legislative candidate Kameron Nelson is declaring that South Dakota needs LGBTQ candidates elected to Pierre to stop the state from barring men playing on women’s sports teams.
Some of those bills, including measures in Louisiana and South Dakota barring transgender women and girls from playing on female sports teams, have already become law.
“Unfortunately, that’s not going to change until we have representation,” Kameron Nelson, an openly gay man running for a seat in the South Dakota House, told Changing America.
Nelson, 32, a Democrat and South Dakota native, said conservative elected officials in the state have for years been embracing anti-LGBTQ+ policies as a way to ignite their base.
The problem with Nelson’s argument is that when you start making a campaign about one’s sexual preference, and claiming that electing someone on that basis is going to affect legislation, one really has nothing to do with the other. And it certainly didn’t when the South Dakota legislature previously had someone providing LGBTQ Representation.
In 2013, Democrat State Senator (at the tIme) Angie Buhl O’Donnell came out and declared that she was “first openly LGBT person elected to any office in the state.” During her tenure, back in 2015 and 2016, is when South Dakota began digging into legislative intervention in addressing how the High School Activities Association should handle boys wanting to play in girls sports. The measure passed both houses, only to be vetoed by Governor Daugaard because it “did not address any pressing issue concerning the school districts of South Dakota.”
Literally, the passage of the bill through both houses, as well as the Governor’s veto, really had nothing to do with whether someone in the Senate was LGBTQ, versus the Governor making his own decision, and not believing it needed to rise to the level of legislation.
That’s one of the problem with campaigning based on identity politics. Reality doesn’t always follow political posturing.
Does Gov. Noem know something the rest of us don’t? Gov. Daugaard understood that this wasn’t an issue in SD, and yet Gov. Noem has been all too happy to sign multiple bills targeting LGBTQ community members during her tenure in office. She consistently advocates for policies that address a problem that doesn’t exist and is unable to point to any issues arising from transgender students’ participation in sports in South Dakota.
I am so tired of our governor doing nothing to help everyday, working-class South Dakota families. Instead, she focuses on inflammatory rhetoric and made-up scenarios. I had high hopes for her time in the governor’s office and thought she could be a leader to unify our state but I have been consistently disappointed by her behavior. I will not be voting for her again.
First off, I doubt you ever did vote for her. That being said, you are whining about addressing issues that don’t exist here,…yet. However, I am sure you would be attacking her immediately if these issues suddenly manifested themselves and she hadn’t put a policy in place. I do see her policies helping working families. If you don’t, you must have just moved here.
Could you give me one example of a policy she championed helping working-class SD families?
she didn’t shut down any businesses during covid the way other governors did. While some restrictions were imposed here and there by local governments, she let people who needed to keep working, keep working. She did recommend that people over 65, (likely to be retired already or eligible to retire) avoid going out in Sioux Falls, but that wasn’t a mandate. She let business owners decide for themselves how much risk to take during the pandemic. Since job insecurity is a big worry for working class families, this was helpful.
It wasn’t even her idea to not shut down the state, noem wanted to shut down things. It was some of the legislators that convinced her not to.
If you need a Governor to help your life than you have issues.
Transgender individuals should never be allowed to play outside their birth identification. Males identify as females and then playing on female teams is a huge disadvantage. We keep seeing so many examples of how the male playing as a female is just so much stronger because of their genetics.
Create a separate transgender division if you have to.
For crying out loud!! There have been plenty of Republican and Democrat Homosexual Senators and Representatives in the South Dakota Legislature over the past 100 years.
September 12, 2022 at 5:02 pm
“Could you give me one example of a policy she championed helping working-class SD families?”
1- here’s an easy one. Needs based scholarships for South Dakota blue collar families, so their kids can go to college.
2- let’s assume for a moment you can do hire math, and I get that this is a stretch, but roll with it. Expanding the old DM&E from Pierre to Rapid was 100% her idea. I can pull up the time and date from her text. Now think this through, go slow, rail traffic from Rapid City to all points east is really good – I mean really good – for every working family (think ag commodity price impact from better rail ) from Rapid, through Phillip, Pierre, Miller, Huron to Brookings. There are many more examples, but these are two that no sane person can dispute
Now say it: yes, you are welcome
Did you mean “higher” math?
Methinks the IM27 supporters would agree to ‘high’ math!
*Democratic State Senator!
Am I going crazy??? The ONLY argument against Kristi on this issue is that she is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Now, they’re recruiting LGBT candidates so that they can do exactly the thing they say isn’t even happening. Then I think “Surely this is 100% solid proof that Kristi was absolutely justified in passing this legislation – absolute proof that this is a real problem.” Then the first comment is still saying the EXACT. SAME. NARRATIVE.
These people are mentally ill – their brains don’t work, the cognition just isn’t there and it’s infuriating. If you’re delusional AND your IQ is lower than room temperature, at the very least you could keep your mouth shut, right? HA, imagine a Democrat shutting their mouth for five minutes…
Waiting for Fred Duetsch to chime in.
He doesn’t have to. There are people who want to create a problem which doesn’t exist, in order to demonstrate how unnecessary it is to prevent the problem they intend to create.
Of course creating the problem will require the recruitment and exploitation of a transgendered youth in order to have a poster child to represent the issue. This will no doubt cause irreparable damage to the chosen child, but sacrifices must be made.