Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton told Newsmax on Monday that his conservative state is using a liberal tactic to prevent insurance companies that allow transgender sexual assignment surgeries anywhere across the United States from being permitted to be an insurance company in Tennessee.
Sexton explained to Newsmax's "Wake Up America" that "we don't want the MCOs that are making profit off Tennesseans to be able use that money in other states to do surgeries that Tennesseans don't support.
He stressed that "this is a way to fight back, like the progressives and liberals do in Washington through their different funding mechanisms forcing you to try to do something. This is our way to say we're not going to have this if you want to be an insurance company inside the state of Tennessee."
He further detailed that "you can't be one of our MCOs if your parent company pays for [transgender sexual assignment surgeries] anywhere across the United State of America."
Sexton said that he became interested in this issue when he discovered that Vanderbilt hospital was performing gender affirming surgeries on minors.
The Republican speaker said he expects most bills on the issue that he is sponsoring to pass, because a vast majority of Tennessee voters agree with GOP views, as he said they found out in polling during the recent midterm election campaign system.
Sexton also pointed out what he called the "hypocrisy of liberals wanting to extend the age of juveniles from 18 to 25 in the justice system because they are not mature enough to know right from wrong, but yet they want these children to have the choice of having these surgeries."
The Republican speaker also talked about the trend of many blue state natives fleeing those areas and moving to red states.
He said that the reason they are doing so is that "they are tired of over-taxation and over-regulation and not being tough enough on crime" and want to experience the better policies of a red state.
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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