The Chattanooga Times Free Press talked to state Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson) about whether the state legislature might ban gender-affirming care for trans adults this session. (If you don't have a TFP subscription, the parts relevant to what I want to talk about were shared by Tennessee Holler on Bluesky.) According to the Times-Free Press story, Watson’s “Christian faith, he said, has led him to believe that God created males and females in His own image and that for humans to modify that is a dangerous proposition for society.” And then, God bless the Holler's Justin Kanew, you can scroll down just a tiny bit in the Bluesky post and see a picture of a clean-shaven Watson, with his hair neatly cut, wearing glasses.
Y’all, I have well-reasoned points to make and Bible verses to quote, and I can’t get to them because I’m still laughing about ol’ Bo modifying his body and then complaining about how we can’t let other people modify their bodies because he’s a Christian. Bo, if God had wanted you to see, he would have given you working eyeballs! How dare you defy his plan for your body with glasses. Trust in the Lord and squint, you hypocrite.
Oh my God, I just looked up Bo Watson on Wikipedia, and he’s a physical therapist! His job is fixing things God does to bodies. I was just trying to see if he was young enough to have been circumcised as a matter of course when he was born, and God is like, “Betsy, don’t worry about that. I have lower hanging fruit (hee) for you here.”
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I feel a little uncomfortable thinking about Bo Watson’s penis anyway, so I appreciate the distraction, but I’m afraid we must go back to it. Before this second, how much thought have you given to Bo Watson’s penis? Me? Before I started writing this, I never gave one single, solitary thought to it. Whatever he’s got going on down there doesn’t concern me in the least.
And this is why I’m kind of frustrated that Democrats dropped the whole “Republicans are weird” thing, because these folks are weird. Most adults aren’t running around obsessing over other people’s genitals and what they’re doing with them. But we’ve got these weirdos in the ruling class who are apparently all still emotionally 15, and they are obsessed. And it’s super frustrating that more people don’t view these immature fools as the emotional children they are. I’m sorry that, when you were first hitting puberty and all you could think about was other people’s junk and what you’d like to do with it or — oh no! — what they might want to do with it, that no one explained to you that part of being an adult was learning to channel your libidinal impulses so they don’t run your life.
But I’m here to tell you now that functional adults who usefully contribute to society have mastery over their libidinal impulses. If an old man still has an internal monologue that is, “I wonder what that person’s genitals are like, what if I’m attracted to a woman, but she has genitals I don’t like,” then you need to get a grip. Oh God. It’s all unintentional sexual puns this week, I guess. But yeah, Bo, get a grip.
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he’s in a philosophical argument with them. The Galatian Christians were all, “You have to follow all the rules of the Bible to be a Christian, including getting circumcised.” And Paul was all, “What the hell are you talking about?” Paul’s argument is that Christians (or perhaps only Christians in Galatia) followed the law before Christ came because the law was a guardian to bring people safely to Christ. But now that Christ is here, Christians don’t need the guardianship of the law. So at least in this case, if it were Bo Watson vs. Saint Paul and Watson was all, “Well, because I’m a Christian and the Bible says God created men and women, I believe there are only men and women,” Paul would probably have to write a really angry letter or two to the Christians in Tennessee. Because if you’re a Christian, as far as Paul is concerned, you don’t sit around forcing others to conform to the rules you’ve found in scripture. Paul even blows up this gender binary, writing: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28.) I have my issues with Paul, but Bo and Paul in a theological fight? Paul is going to win. He basically created the religion that Watson follows. So if Paul says Christians shouldn’t be out here making and enforcing distinctions on men and women, who is Bo Watson to say otherwise?
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But this brings me to my last point. Transgender people in our state — hell, in our nation — are a tiny, precarious, marginalized group, many of whom are terrified that they’re not going to be able to get the medical care they need to be healthy. What kind of person takes this time to say, “Oh yeah, I’m totally targeting these people”? Anyone with an ounce of empathy knows that transgender people are vulnerable and frightened, and Bo Watson chose this holiday season to add to their fear.
Clearly Watson’s faith is important to him. But I wonder if he hasn’t settled into the trap where people think that, because they’re Christian, they’re good people and so, as good people, whatever they want to do, whatever impulses they have, must be good. Because I look at Watson’s behavior from the outside, and I’m like, “Um, dude, are you sure you worship Jesus?”
Because — and again, I don’t know what’s in Watson’s heart (or his pants, as we’ve established) — he gave an interview that ran on Christmas Day in which he is intentionally cruel toward trans people, compares them to Frankenstein's monster, and sets himself up as the arbiter of what is an acceptable expression of humanity. If you take a step back, a person in power used the celebration of the birth of the man who many believe to be the incarnation of goodness to act wickedly. At a time when Christians are reminded to be loving and generous and caring, Watson’s out here reminding the people he doesn’t like that they’re not safe from him. Who desecrates God’s birthday in order to stoke fear?
If I’m just trying to guess what supernatural entity Watson serves based on his actions, Jesus is at the bottom of that list.
