Sarah Huckabee Sanders Gives Arkansas a Swirly with Anti-Trans Bathroom Bill

Among the 50 states, Arkansas ranks 49^th in health care. It ranks 47^th for having an educated population, 41^st in economy and education, and 43^rd in infrastructure.

But have no fear, Arkansas is a leader somewhere. The state ranks fourth in restricting transgender access to restrooms.

Arkansas is also a leader is passing and proposing some of the most extreme anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the country. As we reported, the state's new governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, signed a bill into law Tuesday that bars transgender people from using multiple-person restrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity in public and charter schools within the state.

Sanders said the bill is meant to protect students from “the left’s woke agenda,” which must mean that the agenda is more dangerous than the state’s gun laws. Arkansas citizens don’t require a license for rifles, shotguns, and handguns or a permit to carry or purchase a gun, nor do they have to register their firearms.

It’s the Wild West in Arkansas or the Wild South in this case. Except when it comes to bathrooms and changing rooms. To make the bathroom law have teeth, those who wish to urinate will undoubtedly have to show a license or another ID to a "bouncer" cop at a bathroom entrance to prove that they are not transgender. Does anyone else think that sounds creepy?

Sanders's spokesperson — she used to be a spokesperson too, more on that later — said the governor will sign legislation that focuses on protecting and educating the state’s kids, not indoctrinating them, and believes our schools are no place for the radical left’s woke agenda. Woke, woke, woke. Somebody wake me up when all this wacky woke talk is over.

All of this talk about protecting kids got me thinking about Denzel Washington’s character in the 1993 movie Philadelphia. He plays an attorney who was confused about a law and asked that it be explained to him “as if I were a 6-year-old." How exactly does this law help educate the state’s kids? As a “6-year-old,” I understand why the poor education I am receiving ranks 41^st in the country because the priority is to keep transgender people away from me rather than making sure I have the tools necessary to learn and grow.

Why is the governor so obsessed with trans kids and not addressing more urgent matters? As a six-year-old, I know that my family has trouble paying rent and buying food because the poverty rate in Arkansas is the fifth highest in the nation.

We could do this all day to demonstrate how imbecilic this bathroom law is and how much harm it will do to kids in the state. Governors in red states abhor spending money on programs for the needy or marginalized. The best part about the trans bathroom law is that it's free! Adequately staffing schools, putting enough cops on the street, and providing funding for poverty programs cost money. Only woke liberals spend money on such programs. And nothing raises poll numbers of red state governors, such as Sanders, like attacking the LGBTQ+ community.

Going after our community is so easy to do in a state where 62 percent of voters chose Donald Trump in the last presidential election. Passing a bathroom bill will probably mean a three-point increase in Sanders's favorability rating. People with inadequate educations fall in love with nonsensical laws like the transgender bathroom restriction and others Arkansas has passed or is considering, that deny our rights to expression, health care, marriage, and a life free of harassment and discrimination.

It's important to reiterate that these pieces of legislation cost nothing, and what they do is make it look like the lawmakers and governors who support these bills are “working hard in the public interest.” This is a lie being perpetrated on their electorates, but apparently the electorates, i.e. the people of Arkansas for example, are fine with their state governments wasting time and taxpayer dollars on ramping up the hate. And clearly, Sanders's supporters are fine with her lying while she discriminates.

For Gov. Sanders, lying comes so easily. We saw it daily when she was Trump’s press secretary. Last month, The Advocate ran an article that listed "11 Times Sarah Huckabee Sanders Was Just Plain Terrible," including some of her most bald-faced lies. I can clearly remember raising an eyebrow when she said that FBI agents reached out to her to say they were happy that Trump dumped Jim Comey. That. Does. Not. Happen. Period. Any FBI agent, regardless of how lowly they might be, isn't going to pick up the phone and trash Comey to Sanders. She later said it was a “slip of the tongue.”

Her sanctimonious tongue slipped quite often during her tenure behind the White House press podium. She mocked Joe Biden’s stutter and said that separating children from their parents at the border was “biblical.” And God is still shaking his head at this one — she claimed God wanted Trump to be president. Sanders calls herself a Christian. If saying things like that is Christian behavior, I'd hate to see what happens when she's mean.

She inherited that faux piousness from her father, Mike Huckabee, who served as Arkansas governor from 1996 to 2007. He constantly beat the drum of Christianity while he was governor and then when he ran for president. Huckabee currently has a talk show on TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network), which also features Pat Robertson.

In response to Walt Disney World having gay days, Robertson once said, “I would warn Orlando that you’re right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don’t think I’d be waving those flags in God’s face if I were you. … It’ll bring about terrorist bombs; it’ll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor.”

Call him prophetic if you must, but Robertson was right; however, instead of those natural disasters, Disney World got hit with Ron DeSantis, another lying governor who, instead of saving the state from itself, is saving Florida from gay days at Disney World.

You could say that Sanders is the new Ron DeSantis. Since taking office earlier this year, she’s been quick to hop on the “don’t say gay except when you’re bashing gay” bandwagon. Not to be outdone by "don’t say gay," library, or drag queen bills, she came right out of the gates of hell by resurrecting the bathroom bill.

Soon every red state will have a bathroom law to go along with draconian anti-drag queen laws.

What will she do next? Since the state has already passed measures prohibiting trans minors from participating in school sports and receiving gender-affirming health care (the latter temporarily blocked by a court), Sanders’s job is already half done, so in a sense, she’s tied with DeSantis.

Arguably the most famous swirly scene ever was in St. Elmo’s Fire when Judd Nelson’s character, Alec, sticks the head of Rob Lowe’s character, Billy, in the toilet and flushes it.

Now comes Sanders. The state’s woefully bad rankings in key economic categories means that Arkansas is already in the toilet. Sanders just came along and gave it a flush. The only question that remains is, was she using the right bathroom?

Views expressed in The Advocate’s opinion articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.