Like most legislative bodies dominated by republicans, the South Dakota legislature has gone certifiably insane. While teacher’s are fleeing South Dakota’s low pay and multiple corruption scandals have grown too big to ignore, South Dakota’s republican legislators are worrying about transgender children, the whole dozen or so of them. Dozen’s an optimistic estimate, given that the highest population proportion estimate I’ve seen for transgender folks is way less than one percent. A lot of trans kids have yet to come out, and if they do they’ll probably escape South Dakota as quickly as possible. Heck, I’m pretty active in the queer communities here on the border with South Dakota, and I’ve met all of two transgender South Dakotans. If they had any brains, the South Dakota republicans would forget about this issue and deal with their usual concerns like keeping Native Americans and unions “in their place”, etc.. But the insanity in the South Dakota republicans is too strong, and it’s time for us to apply a bit of outside pressure to bring SD back to some semblance of sanity. Let the boycott begin… unless South Dakota’s republican governor who says he’s never met a transgender person (he has) surprises us and vetoes the bill.
Like a lot of folks in southwest Minnesota, I do a lot of shopping on the South Dakota side of the border. There’s no economic incentive for us to do so, the sales taxes are about the same, in fact Minnesota exempts food and clothing from sales tax and South Dakota taxes such necessities. We’ve got Walmart, a couple hardware stores, and the big three auto dealers in Marshall and Worthington. But the closest Costco, Lowes, Home Depot, and Best Buy are just across the border in South Dakota. The closest Apple, VW, Suburu, Toyota, and Honda dealers are across the border in South Dakota. And the closest gay bar is in South Dakota! So clearly, we Minnesotans and residents of other neighboring states make a big contribution to South Dakota’s economy… And we can crash South Dakota’s economy.
So what I am proposing is first off a boycott of South Dakota retailers, with the exception of companies that have transgender inclusive non discrimination policies such as Costco, etc. and friendly small businesses. I’m in the market for a $15,000 tractor, and the Deere and Kubota dealers across the border will be off my shopping list unless they have a transgender non discrimination policy. Same with the Sioux Falls VW dealer, especially since the owner is an influential republican… As for building materials, I’ll pay a little more and help keep our co-op lumber yard in Tyler in business.
The second part of this boycott would hit South Dakota’s commercial and industrial producers. For example, cities like Minneapolis and St.Paul have displayed long and strong support for transgender equal rights, and they buy new fire trucks every year. A good proportion of the fire trucks in the U.S. are built along the MN/SD border in Luverne and Brandon, and our big cities can quite well spend their fire truck dollars ($500,000 for a new one ain’t unusual) in Luverne, Minnesota instead of Brandon. Same with bucket trucks and farm implements, both big chunks of South Dakota’s economy.
A small state like South Dakota needs all the consumer and commercial spending it can get… And we can crash South Dakota’s economy and bring the home of Mount Rushmore back to sanity! Heck, maybe the governor will get wind of our boycott and veto this child bullying bill...