During a visit to lobby legislators on transgender issues, Senator Carden Summers (R) knelt down and told a child he would protect her. When he learned she was trans, he backed away.
On Feb. 6, a group of families met to lobby senators on issues affecting the local transgender community in Georgia. One mother, Lena Kotler, decided to take her two children with her to give the topic a human face. While waiting to meet with Democratic Sen. Kim Jackson, who they had heard was a big supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, another senator passed by — Republican Sen. Carden Summers, the primary sponsor of the state’s bathroom ban bill. Little did he know that one of the children he would be interacting with, Aleix, 8 years old, was a transgender child.
According to Kotler and other families who were present, the senator stopped to say hello. That’s when Kotler spoke to Senator Summers about how she was there with her kids to “talk to legislators about keeping her kids safe.” Although she did not mention that one of her children was trans, they were present with LGBTQ+ signage - something the Senator apparently missed when he knelt down in front of Aleix and said, according to Kotler, “Well you know, we’re working on that and I’m going to protect kids like you.”
Kotler then replied, “Yeah - Alex is trans, and she wants to be safe at school, she wants to go to the bathroom and be safe.”
That is when, according to multiple witnesses, Sen. Summers stood up and fumbled his words, repeating, "I mean, yeah, I'm going to make sure she's safe by going to the right bathroom," continuing to use the correct pronouns for Aleix. When asked if he would make her go to a boy's bathroom, he then allegedly backed away, saying, "You're attacking me," turned around, and walked off quickly.
Sounds like two neurons in his brain actually met for once and he felt empathy for someone he knew he was too young to understand why she's getting fucked over by her government.
It doesn't sound like that at all, at any point in the story?
Sounds like he he thought he could score a quick lil' political win with the group of families, before realising she was the target his hate, and expressing his bigotry to the child before fucking off.
"You're attacking me!" complains attacker.
Well I meant to say but forgot. That the empathy he felt turned into confusion and then anger and then he rubber banded back to his bigotry where he feels safe
I disagree. He saw the danger of him standing there when someone could take a pic. That is why he bravely screamed out at the 8 year old girl to stop attacking him.
He felt empathy for the first time, and it was an unfamiliar sensation that he recoiled from in his cowardice.
Nah, it wasn't empathy, it was a photo-op. He could be seen "caring" about the plight of kids who feel unsafe in school (his assumption was almost certainly school shooting). So he was there to vaguely promise to make schools safer, presumably by having fewer doors, since that is what causes school shootings evidently.
I think it's the opposite. I think he saw her as a girl whom he was protecting from trans girls using "her" bathroom.