Wisconsin lawmakers challenge county’s ‘sanctuary’ status for trans child abuse.

Dane County, Wisconsin’s second-most populous county that includes the capital city of Madison, is set to pass a resolution that will make the area a “sanctuary for trans and nonbinary individuals.” The Federalist spoke with a handful of Wisconsin state representatives who are threatening to use “the power of the purse” against the county if the resolution passes.

The resolution states that if the state passes any legislation to protect children from chemically castrating wrong-sex hormones, puberty blockers, or mutilative surgeries, the Dane County sheriff is urged to make enforcement of such laws his “lowest priority.” According to the resolution, access to wrongly termed “gender-affirming” drugs and surgeries is a “fundamental right” for everyone, including children. 

While the resolution explicitly urges law enforcement to look the other way for cases of genital mutilation and chemical castration, even among children, it also implies that other damaging aspects of the trans agenda should be codified in Dane County. 

The proposed document states that Dane County “vigorously opposes measures that would allow legal violence toward trans people” by limiting their “expression.” Some examples of limits on so-called trans expression include bills that stop people from using opposite-sex bathrooms and locker rooms, protect the integrity of female sports by preventing the infiltration of males, limit LGBT books with pornographic content, and stop children from being subjected to sexual drag performances. 

“The state of Wisconsin taxpayers provides funding to support Dane County, its municipalities, and its school districts,” state Rep. Scott Allen told The Federalist. “As long as the legislature has the power of the purse, it would be my intention as a legislator to exercise that power to the fullest extent possible to prevent rogue counties from doing their own thing.” 

“I’m totally with Scott Allen, and I’m pretty sure the entire Republican caucus on the Republican side is, too,” said Rep. Patrick Snyder. “Besides funding public schools, [the legislature] also controls shared revenue, so that’s another area where we could squeeze the purse of Dane County and Madison.” 

Rep. Barbara Dittrich, who represents a portion of Dane County, concurred, telling The Federalist, “I have a problem with any county saying that they wouldn’t uphold the rule of law.” Dittrich added that if Dane County disagrees with the state law, it needs to use “the already prescribed constitutional methods.” For example, Republicans appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to strike down Gov. Tony Evers’ unconstitutional statewide mask mandate.

The lawmakers told The Federalist that as of now, there is nothing on the books that Dane County’s resolution would oppose, but that might change. Allen told The Federalist he plans to reintroduce legislation that would protect minors from mutilative surgeries, wrong-sex hormones, and puberty blockers. 

Allen went on to reference long-term studies on those who have undergone transgender surgeries, with one showing “strikingly high” rates of death by suicide among this population. “That’s why you see countries like Sweden backing off — and they were one of the early adopters of this gender-transition movement,” Allen said. “So it’s time for us to have that wisdom, as well, and allow children a chance to mature.” 

“Wisconsin’s age of consent is 18,” Snyder pointed out, adding that it is “barbaric” to perform transgender surgeries on minors whose brains are not yet fully developed. 

Dittrich said she will be introducing legislation to promote parental oversight at public schools, citing specifically her concerns over an incident that occurred at Sun Prairie East High School, an institution within the assembly district bordering her own. Dittrich explained that last March, a transgender-identifying senior student exposed his male genitalia to four freshman 14-year-old girls in the school’s locker room showers.

“[The trans agenda is] absolutely harming children,” Dittrich said. “We are going to look back on this just like we’re looking back on Covid now and go, ‘Look at how we damaged our kids.’ It’s unconscionable.”