For me, this is a slightly uncomfortable admission: I agree with Andy Beshear on a specific subject.
As someone who was trained how to lead in R.O.T.C. and the U.S. Army Infantry Officer School, my conditioned proclivity is to find common ground/purpose and unify people to accomplish a mission. I feel trepidation when I agree with Andy Beshear because he has been such a depressing leader. He operates completely opposite to my training. He highlights differences and pits people against each other, and the result is he can only operate via mandates where he overreaches his office’s authority. So, I was surprised that he and I have some common ground.
I agree with Governor Beshear that children should NOT be mutilated by “transition surgeries.” I’m overjoyed that Andy can admit that the Democrat party is wrong on this issue and that he can join Daniel Cameron and the legitimate “Do No Harm” medical community on this topic. But this is not par for the Andy-Beshear-Course.
Jamie Ruehl grew up in Erlanger. He graduated from St. Henry District High School, earned a degree in business administration from Xavier University, served the US Army on an ROTC Commission in 2001, attaining the rank of Captain and serving overseas. Back home, he graduated from Northern Kentucky University’s Executive Leadership and Organizational Change Master’s Program in 2018. He served as a Law Enforcement Officer for 8.5 years and was inducted into the American Police Hall of Fame. He has been a staff insurance adjuster since 2019 with a large carrier headquartered in Cincinnati. He is attempting to be the best possible husband to his wife of 15 years and best possible father to their 3 children. They live in Edgewood with their two dogs. He is a life-long distance runner.
During his tenure, Andy has made countless wrong decisions that can only be attributed to subscribing to a DNC script instead of listening to proven medical science. Our Commonwealth is worse for it. Our children’s education was completely arrested by Andy’s School Lockouts. Math and Reading levels dropped precipitously due to Beshear’s anti-science (and against-medical-advice) mandates. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, since 1992 Kentucky has trended upward in math and reading proficiency – until 2020. For two straight years our 4th and 8th graders have dropped in proficiency and our children’s social growth and abilities have been discouraged. Also, many small businesses are unnecessarily gone because Andy ordered them all closed for years. Beshear’s Lockdowns opposed the top infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists’ advice in The Great Barrington Declaration from October 2020. Even though all of us in the U.S. suffered from COVID-19 infections, we all didn’t suffer the same draconian mandates imposed by Governor Beshear.
I saw first-hand the disparity between Kentucky’s Beshear-Lockdown-COVID-Response and free states led by science-observing Governors. My children were enrolled in our local public schools starting in 2016 and doing well, yet the mandated two year “stay-at-home learning” was destroying all progress our 1st grader and 3rd grader had made. We were forced to choose between at-home public school and in-person private schools. My wife and I value our children’s education, so we took on the added expense of private school. During the Beshear Lockdowns, we traveled to Florida for vacation. My nine-year-old son asked my wife and me, “why isn’t COVID in Florida?” He and his brother and sister could instantly see the difference between a fear-driven Beshear-led state and a science-led free state like Florida as soon as we arrived.
According to CDC reports, we know that the older a person was when infected, the higher chance they suffered more severe symptoms from COVID-19. Florida has the second most aged population in the Union yet had a substantially lower COVID death rate than Kentucky (according to the CDC: KY 44/100k to FL 28/100k) despite not having Beshear Lockdowns. Something so obvious to the science community and my nine-year-old somehow eluded Andy’s understanding. Either that or he was more motivated to follow the DNC scripted response.
Minus Andy’s “kill babies in the womb” crusade, he and I agree that life is precious and young innocent life should be valued. I believe (like Andy recently stated) that “all children are children of God.” My Christian Faith tells me that all people are made in the image and likeness of God. We are all constantly being “made” as we grow (physically, intellectually, emotionally). I can’t control the genetics I’m given, no one can. Science helps us understand how all our journeys start at conception when we are assigned either XX or XY chromosomes and our cells begin multiplying. There are a fraction of a percentage of people conceived with XXY chromosomes and I believe they too are made in the image/likeness of God. Our consciousness and self-image eventually develop as we begin to explore the physical world around us and as our senses become more refined.
This physical and mental maturation process doesn’t naturally slow until we are into our early 20’s. Andy Beshear acknowledges he understands these facts when he states: “I have never supported gender reassignment surgery for minors, and they don’t happen in Kentucky.” Too bad Andy wasn’t informed that “top surgeries” on minors are occurring at the University of Kentucky by some radical surgeons. Those surgeries cancel all ability for the juveniles to breastfeed their children once they fully mature.
In the 1950s research started identifying individuals who were eventually diagnosed with what the science community currently knows as “gender dysphoria.” Subsequent peer reviewed studies in the late 1980s that stretched into the early 2000s applied that same label “gender dysphoria suffering individuals” (DSM III, III-R, IV). The most recent findings build on those earlier studies. All these peer-reviewed studies point to the overwhelming majority of minors who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria that do not persist in their delusion beyond puberty. In a 2021 peer reviewed frontiers of Psychology publication, they acknowledge that 87.8% of the diagnosed gender dysphoria suffering juveniles did not maintain that condition beyond puberty.
So, again, on this one topic Andy Beshear surprisingly acknowledges the science which proves we should not be treating temporary delusions with permanent surgeries (much less debilitating permanent hormone treatment). I believe that once a person becomes a physically mature adult, they can better realize the implications of their choices. It makes sense that adults have the right to treat their body as they see fit. I’m not judging anyone who suffers gender delusions, we all have our own battles and I’m called to love everyone. But both Andy Beshear and I agree that children should not be making those choices.
We know scientifically, biologically, and historically that once a person uses surgery to “transition” they cannot procreate again. These surgeries strip a big part of their humanness. That decision should be made by mature consenting adults, not juveniles who are literally questioning everything about life. Daniel Cameron has been consistent in saying this and it is good that Andy Beshear finally joins the chorus! Except that the media keeps obfuscating Andy’s voice on this issue.
I’ve noticed a trend in many “news” publications here in the Commonwealth. Distractions or deflections to the issues are the lead story instead of reporting the facts. This divergence from reporting isn’t isolated to the Bluegrass, but I had hoped that the jaded communication wouldn’t proliferate so quickly in Kentucky. Instead of clearly covering the fact that Andy does not agree with the DNC script on juvenile “transition surgeries,” the water is muddied with discussion of “who admitted to knowing what when?” The lead gets buried by faux befuddlement from most news outlets. I guess these like-minded (and hopefully disparate) authors think they see a losing issue for ol’ Andy among his extreme-left base. The transgender mutilation argument is the perfect example of this trend. Multiple publications in the last month have focused not on Andy Beshear’s rather conservative stance on this one topic, nevertheless they have run interference by strongly highlighting communication about the issue instead of where the governor stands.
This alignment of the press with a political extreme is contrary to our national ethos. I can write opinion pieces like this one and cite facts to bolster my opinion so others can see why I think the way I do. I enjoy the freedom of speech. But when the press starts opining instead of reporting, we have a problem.
So, let us pat Andy on the back and congratulate him loudly (without confusion nor deviation) for joining the side of sanity on this one issue. Hopefully on this anniversary of the execution of William Wallace (1305 AD) we are reminded that Andy can speak truth: “Truth is truth, even when told by a liar” – Sir William Wallace
United We Stand