Exclusive: AL Gov. Ivey Responds to WH’s Psaki Threats over Transgender Bills — We Will Not Let ‘Out-of-State Liberals’ Tell Us What to Do

Kay Ivey
AP Photo/Butch Dill

On Friday, Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) signed two bills passed by the Alabama Legislature into law related to the transgender issue.

One bill, deemed the Alabama Vulnerable Child Protection Act (SB184), prohibited the prescription of transgender conversion therapies for minors. The other piece of legislation, HB322, implements a restriction on discussions of sexual orientation at the K-5 grade-school level in Alabama public schools and institutes a biological sex bathroom requirement.

Those bills drew the ire of White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who spoke out against them during her press briefing a day earlier.

“Today in Alabama, instead of focusing on critical kitchen table issues like the economy, COVID, or addressing the country’s mental health crisis, Republican lawmakers are currently debating legislation that, among many things, would target trans youth with tactics that threaten to put pediatricians in prison if they provide medically necessary lifesaving health care for the kids they serve,” Psaki said. “Just like the extreme government overreach we’ve seen in Texas, where politicians have sent state officials into the homes of loving parents to investigate them for abuse just to harass and intimidate the LGBTQI+ community, today’s vote in Alabama will only serve to harm kids. But Alabama’s lawmakers and other legislators who are contemplating these discriminatory bills have been put on notice by the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services that laws and policies preventing care that health care professionals recommend for transgender minors may violate the Constitution and federal law.”

In comments given exclusively to Breitbart News late Friday, Ivey rejected Psaki’s statement and declared her state was “prepared to defend our values.”

“Alabama will continue protecting our kids and not letting out-of-state liberals like Jen Psaki and the Biden White House tell us what to do,” Ivey said. “Our state is prepared to defend our values. Like I said, we need to focus on properly developing our children into the adults God intended them to be.”

Despite Alabama’s in-state media coverage, which is decidedly against both bills that received overwhelming approval in the Republican-dominated Alabama Legislature, Ivey is not alone in her defiance against the Biden White House.

Alabama State Reps. Wes Allen (R) and Scott Stadthagen (R) spoke out against Psaki for her remarks aimed directly at them, as well.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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