I was hoping that Tennessee would be first, since the Tennessee legislature has already passed a similar ban in their House and Senate, but the moderate governor Bill Lee hasn’t signed it yet. But in Mississippi, they move a little faster. Social conservative firebrand Matt Walsh was on hand to speak at the signing ceremony. Score one for “not nice” social conservatives like Matt Walsh.

Daily Wire reports:

Gov. Tate Reeves (R-MS) signed a bill Tuesday outlawing sex-change procedures for minors and punishing doctors who push cross-sex drugs and procedures on those under 18.

House Bill 1125, known as the “Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedures (REAP) Act,” overwhelmingly passed Mississippi’s Republican-led Senate 33-15 last week after passing the state House 78-30 in January. Now, after Reeves’ signature, Mississippi state law bars health care providers from performing gender reassignment surgeries, prescribing and administrating puberty-blocking drugs, and giving cross-sex hormones to trans-identifying children.

“There is a dangerous movement spreading across America today being pushed onto our children through radical activists, social media, and online influencers,” Reeves said at the bill’s signing, adding that radical gender ideology “threatens our children’s innocence and threatens their health.”

Under the new Mississippi law, doctors and healthcare professionals who “knowingly provide gender transition procedures to any person under 18 years of age” will have their medical license revoked by the state. The law also prohibits public funds from being used for gender transitions on minors.

Daily Wire host Matt Walsh, who has been on a crusade in his home state of Tennessee to protect children from the dangers of transgender treatments, joined Reeves in Jackson, Mississippi, for the bill’s signing.

“These kids are put on so-called puberty blockers to chemically castrate them, and before the age of 18, many will undergo surgery,” Walsh said. “They cannot consent to it and they cannot understand the long-term effects of it.”

“They need love and clarity, not hormone supplements and scalpels,” he added. “Our kids cannot protect themselves. We need to do it. That’s our job as adults.”

Other states have similar initiatives:

Other Republican-led states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, South Dakota, and Utah have also restricted or banned sex-change procedures for minors. The bill Alabama passed last year made it a felony to prescribe puberty blockers and hormone treatment to trans-identifying minors, but the law was temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

The Tennessee legislation was passed by an even wider margin in the TN House and Senate than the Mississippi legislation.

Breitbart reports:

The Tennessee State Legislature passed a bill that would ban the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgical operations on children in order to “change” their gender. The legislation now awaits Gov. Bill Lee’s signature.

Lawmakers in the State House passed the legislation 77 to 16, with three Democrats voting with the Republicans.

After allowing for a grace period for those who have already begun to attempt a transition, the bill would authorize the attorney general to investigate healthcare providers who violate the ban, who could be fined up to $25,000.

House Majority Leader William Lamberth remarked that “These children do not need these medical procedures to be able to flourish as adults.”

“They need mental health treatment. They need love and support, and many of them need to be able to grow up to become the individuals that they were intended to be,” Lamberth went on to say.

Similar bills have gained traction in various other Republican-led states, including Nebraska, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and South Carolina.

Makes you wonder what’s holding Bill Lee up. That’s a pretty wide margin. The Tennessee legislature has also passed legislation to prevent children from being exposed to highly-sexualized drag shows.

Breitbart reports:

Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill that would prevent drag shows from taking place on public property or in front of children.

The bill classifies “male and female impersonators” as adult cabaret performers, while also banning “adult-oriented performances that are harmful to minors.” The legislation, SB3, now makes its way to Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s office.

State Rep. Chris Todd, R-Madison County, filed the bill, saying “this is a common sense child-safety bill.” The bill, which passed by a vote of 79 to 19, makes it illegal to host an “adult cabaret performance” in a location where children are present. The legislation, which was proposed by Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson also bans adult cabaret performances on public property.

Lee hasn’t signed that legislation yet, either.

If you live in a state that allows sex-destructive surgery, why are you still there? I wouldn’t pay taxes in a state that harms children. I’d move to a state that protects children.

I worked with a guy who had grown up in the church, in a married Christian home, and dumped his Christianity in college. We were talking about education, and I showed him studies about what young children need in order to thrive. He insisted that his wife needed to work for true equality of the sexes, and that children did better in “school” anyway. That’s what he called the pre-K program.

Well, here’s the latest large-scale study on pre-K’s effects on children, reported by Independent Women’s Forum:

A new study of state-run pre-K… found that it has long-term negative effects on children’s achievement and behavior.

The study is the most rigorous look at state-run pre-K to date.  The authors followed through sixth grade over 2,900 children from low-income families who applied to Tennessee’s pre-K program, and compared the students who were randomly admitted to the program with students who were not (the “control children”).  It is one of the few randomized studies of pre-K, and it has a longer follow-up period than other studies.  Based on parent interviews of a portion of the control children, the authors found that most of them (63%) received home-based, familial care, instead of attending pre-K.

Measuring the effects of pre-K from kindergarten to third grade:

In 2016, the authors initially reported “significant positive immediate effects” of pre-K, based on achievement measures conducted at the end of the pre-K program.  By the end of kindergarten, however, most of those positive effects were no longer statistically significant, and by the end of third grade, certain measures had turned slightly negative.

What about the next phase – fourth grade to sixth grade?

The new study reports on the next phase of the study, which measured the effects of pre-K through sixth grade.  As to achievement outcomes, the authors found that the “control children continued to outperform” the pre-K children “in reading, mathematics, and science with statistically significant differences larger than those observed in third grade,” and that the control children were significantly less likely to require special education services.  As to behavioral outcomes, the authors found that the control children had higher attendance rates and fewer disciplinary infractions than pre-K children, with the differences again being statistically significant.

Were these negative outcomes due to the quality of the pre-K program being studied?

The authors considered, and rejected, the possibility that these negative effects might be attributable to the quality of Tennessee’s pre-K program, explaining that “[a]mong state-funded pre-K programs, the TN program is above average and arguably in the top tier on characteristics many believe mark high quality.”  They additionally note that their results are consistent with other studies of pre-K programs and Head Start, which tend to show initial positive effects that fade over time, and with studies indicating “long-term negative outcomes on behavior for children in group care.”

When it comes to children, the attitude of people on the secular left seems to be “children will do well and be happiest if I do what I want to do, and they just adjust to my selfishness”. Secular leftists aren’t out here bounding their decision-making with studies about what does and does not work for children. They’re going to do what makes them feel good, what makes them look good to their co-workers, or other selfish adults.

What people want to hear today is that your wife is working, and she is earning a lot of money. And you want to tell them that. You want to tell them how on board you are with “equality”, and how opposed you are to “sexism”. So you put your wife into an office, and put your kids into daycare and pre-K. But according to the studies, that doesn’t work for your kids. But what do you care? It works for you. Your co-workers like you. You feel smart. You sound smart to the people you want to impress. You’ll rise high in your profession. You can afford to buy a boat AND a vacation home.