Wyoming on California's no travel list.

This comes as a surprise.  I only learned of it due to Twitter (or as Elon Musk, Twitter's owner would like us to call Twitter, "X", rather than Twitter).

California has banned travel to Wyoming by state employees, except unless it's necessary and an exemption has been first obtained.

PROHIBITION ON STATE-FUNDED AND STATE-SPONSORED TRAVEL TO STATES WITH DISCRIMINATORY LAWS (ASSEMBLY BILL NO. 1887)

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In AB 1887, the California Legislature determined that "California must take action to avoid supporting or financing discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people." (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subd. (a)(5).) To that end, AB 1887 prohibits a state agency, department, board, or commission from requiring any state employees, officers, or members to travel to a state that, after June 26, 2015, has enacted a law that (1) has the effect of voiding or repealing existing state or local protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression; (2) authorizes or requires discrimination against same-sex couples or their families or on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression; or (3) creates an exemption to antidiscrimination laws in order to permit discrimination against same-sex couples or their families or on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subds. (b)(1), (2).) In addition, the law prohibits California from approving a request for state-funded or state-sponsored travel to such a state. (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subd. (b)(2).)

The travel prohibition applies to state agencies, departments, boards, authorities, and commissions, including an agency, department, board, authority, or commission of the University of California, the Board of Regents of the University of California, and the California State University. (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subd. (b).)

The law also requires the Attorney General to develop, maintain, and post on his Internet Web site a current list of states that are subject to the travel ban. (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subd. (e).)

States Subject to AB 1887’s Travel Prohibition

The following states are currently subject to California’s ban on state-funded and state-sponsored travel:

1. Alabama
2. Arizona
3. Arkansas
4. Florida
5. Georgia
6. Idaho
7. Indiana
8. Iowa
9. Kansas
10. Kentucky
11. Louisiana
12. Mississippi
13. Montana
14. North Carolina
15. North Dakota
16. Ohio
17. Oklahoma
18. South Carolina
19. South Dakota
20. Tennessee
21. Texas
22. Utah
23. West Virginia
24. Wyoming

Exceptions

The Legislature created exceptions in AB 1887 that allow travel to banned states in certain circumstances. (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subd. (c).) These exceptions only apply if travel to a subject state is "required." (Ibid.)

Specifically, AB 1887 does not apply to state travel that is required for any of the following purposes:

1. Enforcement of California law, including auditing and revenue collection.
2. Litigation.
3. To meet contractual obligations incurred before January 1, 2017.
4. To comply with requests by the federal government to appear before committees.
5. To participate in meetings or training required by a grant or required to maintain grant funding.
6. To complete job-required training necessary to maintain licensure or similar standards required for holding a position, in the event that comparable training cannot be obtained in California or a different state not subject to the travel prohibition.
7. For the protection of public health, welfare, or safety, as determined by the affected agency, department, board, authority, or commission, or by the affected legislative office.

   (Gov. Code, § 11139.8, subd. (c).)

This is silly and stupid.

It's also one state shy of half the country, and if you consider that you obviously can't include California in the tally, it's actually half the remaining states.

The first thing that I wondered is what law Wyoming actually had that put us on California's Purity Ban list, but then I read an article about high school sports and realized it must have been the ban on male athletes competing against female athletes in high school sports under the guise that they identified as girls.  The opposite is also the case.  That law was new from the last session.  And looking at it, we only recently were put on California's ne'er do well list.  That probably explains the neighboring states of Utah, South Dakota and Montana as well.  I can't think of anything else that would have.  Wyoming has no other laws in this area at all.

Transgenderism is already turning out to be the eugenics of the 21st Century, with Europe recoiling from the ideology driven mutilation of young people and making it illegal.  Ironically, for a state which obviously prides itself on its equality purity, pushing transgenderism is deeply anti woman as well.  Indeed, in regard to California, this was recently noted by a commentator in regard to transgender surgeries, in which he observed:

And what shade is this? A Venezuelan friend of mine claims to have experienced a future in which tyrants can rule a country for decades thanks to their easy access to enormous wealth lying just beneath the surface. Something similar is happening in California. Instead of oil and gas reserves, Californians sit atop the world’s greatest technology companies. There’s no turning back from the future, but have not some of Californians’ social innovations reached the limits of their bounty? Could it be that America respects the freedom of women so much that some of us can now afford to take them for granted? And does not the removal of her breasts to affirm her right to be a man mean that a woman is nothing but her breasts?

It does appear that we can in fact take the freedom of women, real women, for granted and that in fact, we're back to the Hefneresque proposition, "a woman is nothing but her breasts".

Shameful.

The legality of such travel bans strikes me as problematic, but overall I'd have a difficult time stating why, really.  Perhaps more problematic is the entire concept that one state unhappy with another can basically put it on a boycott list.  It seems almost as childish to me as Wyoming's occasional lawsuits against other states it's unhappy with on policy grounds.

California would no doubt note that it's been in the forefront of a lot of social movements that spread across the country, and it has.  It thinks of itself as a pioneer in that regard, but it was also a pioneer in ways that it would just as soon forget, including bigotry against Asians.  On transgenderism, what's going to occur is that it will end up being regarded as a horrific anti-female and anti nature left wing social movement, of which it wouldn't be the first.  Eugenics, already mentioned, was popular with the left and the right at one time.  Margret Sanger's birth control movement partially got its start as Sanger was worried about African American birth rates.  The trend in the U.S., like U.S. laws on abortion, are way behind the curve in a world in which most societies, including liberal Western ones, have pulled way back.

It's interesting how Wyoming hasn't taken note of this at all.  The State has had more than its fair share of really right wing political discourse dating back all the way to the Clinton years, and you'd think this would be something that California-born Chuck Grey would be crying about or that Frank Eathorne would be making a big issue out of. The out-of-state imports making up the Freedom Caucus have been pretty quiet.

Maybe they just didn't notice.