During Saturday Night Live's April 15 Weekend Update segment, cast member Molly Kearney, who identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, was lowered down from the ceiling to talk about "trans rights" and the need to keep "trans kids" safe.
Cast member Michael Che said, "14 states have passed bills restricting health care for trans kids," and Kearney responded, "Listen to that, Michael, 'restricting health care for kids.' For some reason, there's something about the word 'trans' that makes people forget the word 'kids'. If you don't care about trans kids' lives, it means you don't care about frickin' kids' lives."
https://twitter.com/nbcsnl/status/1647468346634567680?s=20
Many GOP-led states have moved to criminalize child sex changes and ban so-called gender-affirming care for youth, such as medicalization that involves taking permanent, body-altering hormones and puberty blockers and in some cases surgical procedures.
Kearney had previously said during the segment's open, "Well, as you know, I've been wanting to come to update and talk about trans people, but I have for a much longer time than that wanted to fly down from the ceiling," addressing her entrance via a strained harness.
"I'm not gonna lie. This harness is pretty tight, my groin area is hung up on my genitals for far too long. And I'm starting to feel like a friggin Republican lawmaker."
Kearney then made a joke at the expense of a working class crew member whose priority was to ensure the comedian's safety, and said, "You know at one point I heard a crew guy say she would die up there. And then another guy was like, 'you mean are they going to die up there.'"
"Which feels a lot like how trans people are being treated right now. But don't worry, we have a code word for emergencies and it was trans rights," Kearney added.
In February, one of Finland’s leading experts in the field of gender medicine, Dr. Riitta Kaltiala, pointed to recent research in the field and said that it was "purposeful disinformation" to suggest that children and adolescents will commit suicide if not given access to experimental sex-change procedures.
"Yeah, people need to wake up. We're making trans kids grow up too fast. We should be keeping them safe and we need to lift them up," Kearney said.
"What's happening kids is wrong and you don't need to be scared. Our job is to protect you and your job is to focus on being a kid. It's kind of like me flying in the SNL sky. There's a bunch of dudes asking you about your crotch and where you're allowed to be," the comedian said before being harnessed upwards out of the sketch.
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