Carter, recovering from INTERVIEW the FIRST, tamps down the anxiety as he fixes his gaze on the next guest.
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INTERVIEW the SECOND
A left foot leads from the right side of the stage, clothed in a flashy but used cowboy boot, with a spur. His foot just keeps emerging. Heel first, the boot rolls down onto the ball of the foot in slow motion. He must wear a size eighteen, perhaps twenty. The water in Carter’s glass quivers. A white pant hangs over the boot as Billy Hewitson’s shin becomes visible from behind the curtain, then the rest of his leg, hip, and finally, his upper body. The audience slowly and collectively pans up over the white suit and bolo tie to Billy’s head, crowned in ten gallons.
Carter is not a short man, standing at the top-end of average height. This is a fine-enough height to be but renders Billy’s emergence from backstage even more striking. They greet each other at centerstage with smiles. Billy’s lean and vascular hand swallows Carter’s whole. All we can see are Billy’s fingers wrapping around the bottom of Carter’s hand and Billy’s thumb consuming the top of Carter’s hand, looking like two rolls of quarters with a joint, covered in flesh. If Billy wanted, Carter would never use this hand again. Perhaps Billy could take the whole arm with a motivated tug. Carter’s neck is craned; his line of sight at least 60° with respect to the stage floor. Billy appears to have a cubit on Carter. Nobody knew; the audience is silent.
CL: Good to see you, thanks for doing this.
BILLY HEWITSON: [In a thick drawl] tough crowd tonight, Carter.
CL: [Nervously, desperately] they’ll warm up!
BH: It’s great to be with you, Carter, all the way up here in the great state of Iowa. I rarely get north of Mason-Dixon, but when I do, it’s for places like Iowa.
CL: Amen.
BH: I reckon near all of the Midwest shares much in common with the South, even if they are Yankees on paper [Carter laughs, the audience makes sure to laugh]. Many God-fearing family folk in these parts share our—what shall we call it—distaste for the swine on our coasts.
CL: Amen!
BH: I’m a simple country boy, and I’ll never change. We like our land, free to roam, our big families, and even bigger churches [Carter is vigorously nodding]. The fine folk up here can understand that; the Midwest is no different.
CL: That’s right. So, I wanted to talk to you about your veto of the anti-puberty blocker trans surgery bill in April of 2021. At the time you said that the bill was extreme, and it would interfere with the treatment of minors seeking to transition from male-to-female or female-to-male given, and I'm not attacking you for it, but I am asking if, in the subsequent two years, you've had… rethinking of that.
BH: How many of y’all are parents in this room? [Billy is raising his first baseman’s mitt, squinting to see the crowd] I'm a parent as well, and what I believe is that parents ought to raise their children. I also believe in the Article. I believe that God created two genders, and that there should not be any confusion on your gender, but if there is, parents ought to be the one that guides the children. That, to me, is an important fundamental principle. Now, if a bill that said you should not ever have transgender surgery as a minor, I would sign that in a minute because no parent should be able to consent to that permanent change. But this bill did go too far, it was contrary to the Article, it interfered with parents, and so I sided with parents on that bill, in managing the most sensitive issue that a parent can face.
CL: Amen for standing with parents, and I think everyone in the room would agree with that. But the reason I asked the question was not to bring up a sore subject, which I know that it is [uproarious laughter from Billy and nobody else], but to ask if, in the subsequent two years—you had said that you drew the line at castration of physical altercation of a child's body because it's permanent—but in the subsequent two years I think we've learned that hormone therapy for pre-pubescent children is permanent. It changes the bone structure, it changes the brain of the child, a lot of people believe, including me, that it destroys the child's life, but it is permanent; it's not reversible. So, given that and the standard you just articulated, do you have different feelings? This is a permanent change; why would we allow that if we don't allow surgery?
BH: Well, permanent change is one issue, but also hormonal treatment is a different issue and can be a different issue. I respect legislators that have a different view, but I think independently. I think of the parents, I think of the Article, and the court. The federal judge that struck it down as contrary to the Article, really sided with parents—
CL: But how is it treatment? That's my question. If you have a child who's born a boy, wants to become a girl—he hasn't gone through puberty yet—he’s, say, ten. Is it treatment to prevent him from going through the natural process of adolescence?
BH: Well, you— [pause for applause] Carter, I hope that we'll be able to talk about some issues, such as China, which nobody wants to talk about—
CL: Well, you just said it was the most sensitive issue parents can face, and I think I would every person in this room would agree [much more applause]. These are children who are being altered permanently, and you can defend that alteration, that change if you like, but there's really no debate about whether it's permanent. Why would you support that?
BH: Well, I didn't say what I supported. I said what I vetoed, and whenever you look at children and what they're challenged with in life, I think it's important that, in the most sensitive issues, that parents can guide them through that challenge. President Potofu issued the order from—
CL: No, no, no, you said that children should be able to choose their gender and their parents should be able to affirm that, and the state has no role in getting involved. How is that different?
BH: Let me finish [sitting up now, looking down at Carter].
CL: [Quietly] okay.
BH: What I said, let me finish if you don't mind.
CL: Please do.
BH: And the finish is that I told Potofu they were wrong. I said it publicly, that the school districts can't ignore that guidance. I think the government should not be pushing an agenda in our schools and that's what I oppose. I want the parents and communities and our faith to guide us through these difficult decisions. If a child goes to a teacher and says, “I think I'm a boy, but I think I ought to be a girl”, and they want to do something about it, the parents ought to know about that. These are fundamental principles: that parents must have information, they shouldn't be denied the ability to know what's going on in school with their child, and then they make the decision. They can go to the doctor if the child is suicidal—
CL: Amen.
BH: If the child is struggling, if they want to discuss a hormonal treatment that would delay puberty, I don't think the government should come in and tell the parents, “You can't give the child a vaccine” or “you must give the child a vaccine” or “you cannot give them the treatment that you think is important”—
CL: But, but, well, I don’t think we have to worry about the government saying, “you can’t give the child a vaccine,” but you have repeatedly described delaying a child's natural progression from childhood to adulthood, you describe that as “treatment”. That raises the—I mean, clearly, you've answered the question. You believe it's treatment. You believe, I suppose, that people can change their sex, because if you don't believe that you wouldn't call it treatment.
BH: Listen, Carter. God created two genders, and that's what I have stated. I’m a simple country boy at heart. Always have been, always will—
Leave them alone, a faint whisper tells Carter. Enough with the boycotts. Carter is trying to listen to Billy’s answer, but all he can think about is the voice, the breathy frequency flowing through his mind. It is in his mind, is it not? Carter’s eyes dart around the front rows of the audience; nobody appears to be hearing anything strange… but Carter is. Where is it? Who is it? Why is it?
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The Family Power Convention rages on with INTERVIEW the THIRD.