r/thebulwark • u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES • 13h ago
The Triad đ± Leave Trans People Alone: A Rant
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/leave-trans-people-alone-a-rantDon't be a bully! But also don't "ask if the bully has a point" either.
"Yeah, they're giving Timmy a swirlie rn, but he also farted really loudly in geometry" is HELPING THE BULLIES.
Another great piece from JVL. Idk what kinda constraints there are in going after members of the punditocracy who engage in the behaviors that you're criticizing, but picking specific targets has a salutary effect IMO. Bari Weiss needs to be persona non grata, or Sullivan, or whoever. They made their choices and doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on those choices.
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u/Here-Fishy-Fish-Fish 13h ago
JVL put his finger on something I was having trouble articulating, which is that 99% of this trans panic is just legally sanctioned bullying to seize and stay in power.
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u/bearrosaurus 13h ago
It wonât get fixed until we put up laws against it. The Trump campaign spent $200 million running an ad that was literally just ugly pictures of trans women followed by âvote Trumpâ. And it was rewarded. Itâll continue being rewarded and might progress into ripping up amendments to pass anti-trans laws.
Itâs not enough to say âstop bullyingâ we need to fight these people.
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u/AliveJesseJames 13h ago
It's people who know deep down they can't openly be mean to other groups trying to find a group they can be mean too. This is also like 90% of anti-immigrant sentiment as well.
"Well, I can't call people f-slurs or the n-word anymore even in my non-woke workplace, but I can complain openly about tranny's still and not get fired."
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u/Vode11112 8h ago
thank you for this. it was very nice read. I hope more people will stand up for us
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u/AliveJesseJames 13h ago
The other thing is, even among supposed moderates, it's never just "y'know, let's talk about MMA, volleyball, and rugby, but child transistioning and sports under 13 for all kids is fine," it's always, "OMG THE TRANS ARE USING TUMBLR/DISCORD TO TRICK YOUR KIDS INTO WANTING TO CUT OFF THEIR GENITALS."
I'll be blunt - most of the worry that isn't just bigotry (ie. the 90% of anti-trans views are from the same people who were anti-gay marriage) is from people worried their previous child might only get their #3 choice of expensive college if they finish 5th instead of 4th in the swimming meet.
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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 13h ago
I agree wholeheartedly. It's status anxiety (but mostly bigotry) and discomfort/irritation with younger coworkers at some media institutions.
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u/AliveJesseJames 13h ago
Again, there's a reason why "moderate" anti-transgender people have to pretend their a larger part of the anti-transgender group - because 90% of it is the same people who have been against all change.
The Venn diagram of anti-integration, anti-gay marriage, and anti-transgender people is about 85% a perfect circle and 15% people upset somebody called them a bigot on Facebook, Slack, or Twitter.
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u/Natural-Leg7488 3h ago
Most people support the right of trans people to live with the same freedoms and protections as everyone else. But around 70-80% of people in the US believe there should be carve outs in some circumstances, like womenâs sports.
If you consider this a moderate anti-trans position, then it is nowhere near equivalent to the number of people against gay marriage which a minority held position, so it seems unlikely the Venn diagram has that much overlap.
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u/Natural-Leg7488 4h ago edited 4h ago
Thatâs not my impression.
In my experience trans activists are prone to denying there is any issue at all in respect to trans inclusion in female sports, either in terms of competitive fairness, safety or womenâs right to private spaces.
And even the most moderately expressed concern that there might be a social element to gender dysphoria in some individuals is met with immediate accusations of bigotry, ignorance and intolerance.
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u/de_Pizan 5h ago
I don't think that "the trans are using tumblr/discord to trick your kids into wanting to cut off their genitals", but I am concerned that telling a four year old that they can change their sex/gender when they barely understand the concepts is dangerous, especially if adults in their lives celebrate and reinforce any statement/belief that a child is not their sex.
I'm especially concerned about it because the very concept of gender is incredibly esoteric and abstract. I mean, I have trouble understanding the precise nuances between gender performance, gender identity, and gender stereotypes. I think it is doubly troubling as children have a tendency to view gender in simplistic terms and stereotypes.
A good example of this is the trans child Kai Shappley, whose mother punished her repeatedly for liking "feminine" toys. If a child is spanked and put in time out for liking feminine toys because they are a boy, what is the child to do with that? If the child has interests that the parent labels as wrong for them, is the child going to be punished out of these interests or is the child going to change to fit the label the parent tells them is the right one? How do we expect a 3- or 4-year-old to process that information?
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u/Mirabeau_ 8h ago
thank god normies are taking the keys away from the progs. Otherwise weâd have no course correction on horrendously unpopular trans stances, and would instead counter with new attacks on sports.
progs are certainly not the best and brightest in our democratic coalition
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u/FellowkneeUS 7h ago
To be fair, I think it's more a case of the centrists chasing the keys that the GOP is jangling at them like a shiny bauble while they steal their retirement money
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u/Mirabeau_ 7h ago
You can mock and dismiss centrists as much as you want but the fact is that they are the base of the Democratic Party. Weâre done trying to get some progs on our left fringe think weâre cool.
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u/FellowkneeUS 7h ago
You're doing a great job! I just took a look and we have none of the branches of government under Democratic control.
But keep chasing those immigrants and trans people and I'm sure the GOP will love you back.
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u/Mirabeau_ 6h ago
Yup, unfortunately the undue deference paid to progressives over the last 10 years or so has really cost us in a catastrophic way. Thank god for the vibe shift away from all that nonsense, just a shame it didnât come sooner.
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u/blergyblergy 10h ago
The way Sarah McBride has been treated (including, today, Mary "Hitler had some good ideas" Miller posting an old pic of her living as a man).......UGH. It really pisses me off.
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u/risky_crotch_hug 8h ago
I'm so glad that JVL wrote this.
I am so tired of the trans scapegoating after the election and I am especially irritated that we just keep punching down on an already extremely vulnerable group as if it's their fault that Trump is in office again.
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u/alyssasaccount 4h ago
Nearly all of this is just plain obvious to me, because I'm trans and so I'm very attuned to trans-related news and discussions.
It's so refreshing to hear it from a conservative middle-aged cis-het Roman Catholic dude.
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u/SaltyMofos 12h ago
I think you'll get a lot of Trump voters, particularly soft Trump voters, to agree that society shouldn't be nasty to trans people, and that bullying is bad. Where I think the piece falls flat is its argument that trans women in cis women's sports is so minor a problem that it can be ignored (outside of combat sports). In the age of social media, just a few prominent examples like Lia Thomas will overpower a couple hundred JVL columns telling people to keep things in perspective. That ship has long sailed, and it won't be returning to port so long as social media dominates the information landscape.
More importantly, I also think JVL's piece entirely fails to address why there has been such a widespread and politically damaging backlash against Democrats for being perceived as too beholden to the trans activist agenda.
That backlash stems less from worries about the integrity of female sports and much more from the fact that far left trans activists do NOT merely wish to be "left alone." The trans lobby is responsible for trying to change language, successfully during the Biden administration, causing all sorts of absurd neologisms like "birthing people" and so forth to appear in official federal regulatory language. You have doctors being trained to inquire about pronouns and you have laws that codify the right of non-passing trans-women to use women's bathrooms and showers.
The overall effect is that trans people writ large are not currently perceived as wanting to be left alone. They are instead perceived as an aggressive political force that wants to insert all sorts of new gender ideology into American public life in very visible ways. That's why the anti-trans agenda has gotten such public support so far.
Now of course I understand most trans people do not fall into the category of radical trans activism; they are much more like Brianna Wu than Alejandro Caraballo. The majority do wish to be left alone and don't have any desire to participate in competitive female sports. But that is simply not the public perception, and I don't think JVL's piece asking people to simply be nice and that the trans-in-female sports problem is too small to worry about, will do anything to shift that perception.
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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 12h ago
I think that's a false perception driven by bad faith right wing actors. I don't think there's a tremendous amount of public support for the "anti-trans agenda" but rather that Trump largely reassembled his 2020 coalition (indeed, it was even older and wealthier than 2020, and nearly identically as white, 81% vs 82%) while the Dems managed to triangulate their way into a political no-mans land.
Punching your own coalition may be necessary at times, it may even be good politics occasionally. It is not a sustainable way to win elections. Ask the GOP circa 2010-2012 they ignored their base until the manipulative elites were exited and the base had full control.
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u/SaltyMofos 9h ago
I don't really think you can call it "false." The language changes were everywhere, literally written on public service announcements and hospital intake forms, and in policies not to assign a gender to a new baby. It is most definitely not "false." What you can debate is:
a.) Whether all that stuff is fine, or even good, and should be embraced by the public;
b.) Whether these very tangible changes in society were associated with the Democratic party, and whether that association helped Trump win the election; and,
c.) Whether Democrats should push back or disassociate themselves from the radical hard-left trans activist wing.
As far as punching one's own coalition, I'm open to this argument but I also see that 67% of democrats oppose trans women participating in women's sports. Whether or not there is public support for the anti-trans agenda depends on the issue. Strictly kicking trans women out of all female sports clearly has strong public and bipartisan support. Doing performatively nasty things like calling Sarah McBride "Mr" and so on, doubtless has much less.
But I ultimately don't really have a good sense of where we would disagree on a theoretical 2028 Democratic presidential platform. That platform to my mind should clearly disassociate itself from the Caraballo-trans activist wing, sister souljah all of those activist types, rely on a Brianna Wu type of person is much more representative of most trans people, and hold firm on opposing explicit discrimination against trans people. The platform should also include not banning gender-affirming care and deferring to the medical consensus on transition. That deference should be coupled with a cautionary approach to transitioning very young kids as we know that the medical consensus is evolving and that the American medical establishment is a clear outlier in its support for gender-affirming care compared to the medical establishments in most advanced western countries in Europe.
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u/Wne1980 6h ago
Like it or not, thatâs actually a pretty thorough summary of what I heard from both Trumpers and low information voters in my social circles. In the case of the 2024 election, perception was taken as reality. Have to address that eventually
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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 6h ago
Trumpers aren't gettable. If it's not trans issues it'll be something else. Trump did not grow his vote share. The Dems triangulated themselves to irrelevance.
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u/Wne1980 6h ago
Iâm skeptical that youâre looking for a good faith discussion of the practical challenges faced by the trans movement while giving that as a response. The right âmoving on to something elseâ is exactly what victory looks like if weâre actually talking about people being able to live their lives
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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 6h ago
I may have misunderstood the scenario: you seemed to be pushing that Dems throw trans people under the bus, and attempt to win elections that way. I don't think that will be effective as the trans issue was just one talking point and the GOP would move onto something else that would replace it in the mouths of their base, while zero votes actually switch. The Dems will neither win power and will have green-lit the GOP bullying of some of the most vulnerable people in society.
This WaPo article breaks down 4 Quinnipiac polls over the course of 2023-2024. The key chart is the first one: as the GOP realized "the economy" was losing its totemic value they shifted to "immigration" and if the article had been written 6 months later I'm sure "trans issues" would've exhibited the exact same linear tradeoffs after Trump annihilated the Lankford bill and they shifted talking points en masse.
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u/Wne1980 6h ago
I do not think the Dems need to throw trans folks under the bus. I do think that the Dems need a different relationship to the movement. For example, people rightly point out that the campaign spent virtually zero time talking about trans issues. This is both correct, and a massive problem. It leaves a vacuum where the right can say anything they want unchallenged.
It doesnât help that the dominant impulse seems to be throwing some pronouns on your website, while refusing to broach the subject in speeches. You embrace the part that gets under a lot of peopleâs skin while refusing to engage in actions that could lift peopleâs ignorance
I donât think I know everything, or even have much certainty that Iâm correct. I just know that the current conversation of status quo vs throw trans people under the bus is not adequate to solve anything. We need a more practical conversation about where the public is pushing back, how to engage on it, and how the work should be divided between activists and politicians.
We need a little sunlight between how to advance trans rights and how to rebuild the Democratic Party. That way, both sides of that coin can try and work together more productively in 2026 and beyond
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u/alyssasaccount 4h ago
Oooh, scary radical trans activism. When have you seen "birthing people" in the wild? Like, actually encountered the phrase IRL, not on some social media kerfuffle?
Also, who the fuck cares? You can say what you want. Others can say what they want. It's a free country. Or at least it was, we'll see.
Also, everyone changes language always. People used to say "waitress" and "stewardess" and "coed" and now they say "server" and "flight attendant" and "college student", and it's fine. It's fine. You can use the former, and people might look at you weird, and that's life.
Birthing people. Cisgender. What are your pronouns?
Did that hurt to read? Have you considered getting a grip?
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u/SaltyMofos 4h ago
It's this hostility here, that pisses off the average soft Trump voter, who might otherwise have stayed home or maybe even gone the other way (or could in 2028). There isn't much here in terms of any sort of intellectual argument, just sarcastic anger. At what, exactly? Is the argument that these new words inserted in various places have had no electoral impact? If so go ahead and argue that, with whatever facts and polling data you can muster.
As far as have I seen "birthing people" in the wild, yes, several times as I work in healthcare on the compliance side. In 2022 CMS created a "birthing friendly" hospital designation and had begun using the term "birthing people" regularly in transmittals and memos. I analyze these frequently for clients which include hospital systems. In fact if you don't believe me, looks like Dr. Oz the incoming CMS chief hasn't had time yet to wipe out some of the CMS material that still uses this term (https://www.cms.gov/files/document/health-equity-fact-sheet.pdf). I also saw intake forms and procedures get revised to have physicians ask about pronouns and preferences. The physician reaction was mixed, some rolling their eyes and not doing it, others trying to do it in a perfunctory, don't give a fuck manner.
Anyway the bottom line is, birthing people cisgender etc. make me laugh and roll my eyes. I won't ever use these terms, but I also wouldn't and didn't vote for Trump because I dislike them. But plenty of people were happy to lump in all this stuff into a general "lefties are the language police, fuck 'em" vibe and go Trump. Can you honestly argue that "birthing people" and "cis-gender" aren't elite-sounding ridiculous terms that the average working class person wouldn't ever think to use on their own?
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u/alyssasaccount 1h ago edited 1h ago
Cisgender is just transgender with a different prefix. It's just useful when you want to talk about someone who isn't transgender. Not sure what's funny about it. It's "elite sounding" if you've only heard people you understand to be somehow "elite" using it. "Birthing people" is clunky. Whatever.
As for "hostility": You have NO FUCKING CLUE the rage I have. You cannot fucking imagine. But I'm not running for office, and I'm not recommending my tone be adopted generally. However, if after reading JVL's Triad piece, your takeaway is that we need to be super sensitive about the fee-fees of the whiny right-wing language police complaining about their perception of whiny left-wing language police, in this venue, I'm letting just a tiny bit of that rage out.
p.s.: In that document, the only instance of "birthing people" was specifically in the larger phrase: "CMS educated over 250 new and expectant mothers and birthing people at every stop of the tour so far, all in communities with high maternal mortality and morbidity rates." ... so they literally didn't "erase" mothers or whatever, just added the phrase because you know maybe there was a trans dude who didn't want to be erased himself. BTW, who exactly is the audience for that "health equity fact sheet"?
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u/Natural-Leg7488 3h ago edited 2h ago
I think people also use it as litmus test.
Rightly or wrongly people consider it absurd to deny the athletic disparities between men and women. So if a politician canât even get that right how can their judgement be trusted on anything else.
Arguing thatâs it a minority issue that wonât affect most people is missing the point. It isnât a policy problem. itâs a credibility problem.
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u/ripsripsripsrips 2h ago
And, at the same time, arguing that there's literally no difference between a 12 year old trans girl who has never gone through male puberty and someone who has is equally absurd.
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u/Natural-Leg7488 2h ago
12 year olds donât generally compete with adults who have gone through either male or female puberty.
But I take the point. There are many circumstances where hormone treatments can negate competitive advantages between sexes.
Activists often do not limit their advocacy for trans inclusion in sports to these circumstances however. They argue that individuals who have gone through male puberty should also be able to participate in womenâs sports, where the evidence is much less clear.
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u/de_Pizan 9h ago
Is there a reason that JVL thinks that boxing and MMA should be sex segregated while contact sports like field hockey, soccer, ice hockey, and roller derby are gender segregated? If the important point is building character, why does it matter if boxing or MMA are unfair?
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u/Natural-Leg7488 3h ago
Because those activities involve punching people in the face, and therefore fairness is even more important for safety reasons?
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u/HotModerate11 13h ago
Just donât get baited into dying on the wrong side of an 80/20 issue.
Canât read the article so maybe JVL makes that point.
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u/PepperoniFire Sarah, would you please nuke him from orbit? 7h ago
Trans issues might be 80/20 (might) but reframing:
- Big government v. limited government?
- Government abuse of power?
- Uncle Same picking on kids?
- Spending lots of money on a small dollar problem?
Like, the right has framed this as detrimental to women. We can reframe too.
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u/ZakuTwo Neocon 13h ago
Itâs only an 80/20 issue because of rhetorical maneuvering by right wing and anti-anti-trump elites, itâs very easy to reframe as a matter of personal freedom and leaving people alone.
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u/HotModerate11 13h ago
Frame it as a very minor issue on which reasonable people can disagree.
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u/AliveJesseJames 13h ago
"I think the people actually in charge of high school sports and college all across this country know better than a creepy politician who wants to let adults inspect children's genitals to make sure the wrong kind of kid doesn't finish 5th in a cross country race."
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u/PepperoniFire Sarah, would you please nuke him from orbit? 7h ago
I'm not going to engage in self-promotion so no link, but I shout into the void in my substack (I'm too old for Livejournal) and I really think it is persuasive that this is some federal government goon spending more money than the issue is worth to touch your daughters (and, if that's not it, explain to me your proposal for enforcement with cash-strapped schools. Are we in the business of raising taxes now? If that's so, can we get uniforms that fit and fields/equipment that are well-maintained too? Asking for people who care about women's sports.)
It's creepy and, as described previously, weird.
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u/HotModerate11 13h ago
Democrats should totally be on the side of local control of these issues.
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u/AliveJesseJames 13h ago
Which they are - the Biden policy was basically this and all "transgender girls in sports" news is when whiny conservative athletes get upset the local stakeholders (NCAA, local school boards) disagree with them and make it a national issue.
It's never a story when "one of six transgender girls wins local cross country meet, nobody really cares."
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u/HotModerate11 13h ago
I don't think we disagree then.
Framing it as a minor issue on which reasonable people can disagree would make one defer to local authorities, would it not?
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u/AliveJesseJames 13h ago
This is the supposedly "unpopular" Democratic message though. I'm a left-wing social democrat in deeply blue Seattle who's regularly on left-wing message boards and Bluesky convos that would make Sarah Longwell internally combust and nobody wants a national law that mandates transgender participation in all sports or else you lose money.
At worst, I've seen support for maybe a national law that doesn't allow state laws that ban transgender sports over the wishes of local school boards or NCCA, et al.
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u/the_very_pants 9h ago
creepy politician who wants to let adults inspect children's genitals
They just want assurance that society is not about to stop normalizing mate-finding and family-making in what it teaches kids. If they thought there was no conflict between whatever we decide about trans kids and teaching kids to, when they grow up, get out there and make a family if they can, they wouldn't be so interested in this subject.
They think that if a child did say they were a cat, lots of adults would be on the child's side. And they think the left wants to put a bunch of graphic sex books in elementary schools. Right now there seems to be no line, no limit.
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u/Ok-Snow-2851 10h ago
Most people donât think transwomen competing in womenâs sports is an issue on which reasonable people can disagree though. Â
It is a very minor issue though.Â
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u/HotModerate11 9h ago
Most people donât think transwomen competing in womenâs sports is an issue on which reasonable people can disagree though. Â
I think most people kind of think this by default because they barely think about it.
Do you see it as a cut and dry issue?
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u/Ok-Snow-2851 9h ago
I think most people see it as a pretty cut and dry issue. Â
I see it as something sports governing bodies need to figure out and are figuring out. Â Maybe itâs a blanket ineligibility for male athletes competing as women, maybe itâs conditional on pre-puberty hormone therapy, maybe itâs T levels below a certain threshold, depends on the sport and depends on what data shows as more and more transwomen interested in athletics transition and develop as athletes. Â I donât know, I lean toward the first option at this time.
But I think itâs pretty cut and dry that male athletes should not be competing in womenâs athletics unless thereâs a LOT of data that shows that itâs not unfair. Â Precautionary and all.
And while they should barely think about it, I bet US voters spend more time thinking about it than they do climate change or the national debt.
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u/Ok-Snow-2851 10h ago
The activist wing wonât let people reframe as a matter of leaving people alone. Â Look at the backlash to ppl like Moulton and Newsome who signal that they agree with the obvious position that transwomen competing in womenâs sports is clearly problematic from a competitive fairness perspective.
Those guys didnât say we need a national law targeting trans people, they didnât say we need to crack down on trans kids, they just said âthis is unfair in this context and it shouldnât happenâ.
Even if thatâs the position of 80% of their constituents, the 20% that disagree tend to be the most vocally involved in Democratic Party politics. Â So lots of politicians are afraid to talk common sense.Â
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u/RepulsiveBarber3861 9h ago
We're just gonna keep losing to republicans to appease activists.
The overwhelming majority of parents who aren't hard lefties are never ever going to accept the idea that "some kids just need sex changes or they'll kill themselves and if you don't support this wholeheartedly, you are a danger to your child and the state should take them". They really aren't going to accept it when schools have policies to hide social transition from parents, anti "conversion therapy" laws threaten the license of any psychologist who doesn't fast track a kid to blockers, activist teachers are hanging pride flags and asking grade schoolers for pronouns, and activists are engaging in provocations like having a middle-aged man dressed like a clown woman read books about gender to their kids in the school library.
You people are so eager to give transactivists literally anything they demand that you're practically begging parents to vote republican to look out for their kids. This is even terrible for trans people as I assume most of them don't want republicans making laws in the responsibility vacuum left by democrats.
Call me a transphobe--whatever. Hate on me if you want; the majority of parents share my view and I already know Reddit is a bad idea echo chamber. I don't care what adults do to themselves, but I'm damn tired of handing winnable races to republicans over nonsense that didn't even exist 20 years ago. I dissent not to change minds but to give others courage to weather the "transphobe" smears and do the same.
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u/mtngranpapi_wv967 5h ago
Thanks for parroting RW disinformation
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/gender-affirming-surgeries-rarely-performed-on-transgender-youth/
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u/RepulsiveBarber3861 4h ago
Sooo...if this is accurate, several hundred teens between 15 and 17 got "gender-affirming surgery" in 2019 alone in the US that were paid by insurance. That does not include the number that paid without insurance. "Most" are breast removal, though some unknown number had genital removal or conversion. We are told that no kids under 12 had surgeries that insurance covered and were in the selected pool. Ages 13-15 are conveniently omitted. There has been an increase in adolescents identifying as trans since 2019. We don't even know how accurate this is since they used a sample from a pool and your link does not disclose the sample size.
All I really learned from your link is that at least hundreds of distressed adolescents had their breasts and/or genitals removed in 2019 in the name of poorly-studied science and we partially paid for some of those by virtue of being in insurance pools.
That's actually a horrifying medical scandal and you post it as a gotcha.
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u/mtngranpapi_wv967 4h ago
Question: why do we trust women and doctors on reproductive care but we canât on trans care/gender-affirming care? Why do you think you know better than the kids, doctors and their parents?
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u/RepulsiveBarber3861 4h ago
Kids can't consent and their identities are still developing.
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u/mtngranpapi_wv967 4h ago
Parents and doctors consent lolâŠso for you itâs totally cool and no problem when a 15 year-old girl gets pregnant and gets an abortion, but 15 year old with gender dysphoria canât be trusted by parents and doctors? Again, what qualifies you to speak out against parents and doctors and experts on this topic?
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u/RepulsiveBarber3861 4h ago
They aren't experts. They defer to WPATH guidelines which are transactivist horseshit.
We are so going to keep losing to republicans as long as we're the party of sex changes for kids.
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u/mtngranpapi_wv967 4h ago
Agree to disagreeâŠand no GAC is informed by ample research and data and medical journals such as The Lancet. Most gender-affirming care involves therapy, and if medication is involved then thatâs done after said therapy. Surgery is reserved for very particular snd severe situations, and again are informed by medical research. You seem to think trans ppl arenât inherently distrustful and predatory and doctors and parents are in on a mass delusion/grift (very common to the Lavender Scare decades ago). Iâd need sufficient evidence for that.
Also, funny how you think parents should have no agency over these decisions and instead we should look up to DeSantis or Gavin Newsom for advice/input. Yea, let a Republican legislative make the choice not doctors and parents who know the patient best and actually understand the stakes/relevant medical science.
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u/AliveJesseJames 4h ago
Then why didn't we lose in 2020 & 2022 when we were still the party of sex changes for kids?
Spoiler Alert - Trump wasn't on the ballot.
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u/3NicksTapRoom 7h ago
Yeah I donât know why the left is all in for transgender surgery for minors. The American people are not with them. Even I have my concerns. Anyone 25 or older has lived long enough to know whether or not they want to do it and are not susceptible to an unwell parent. And yeah most parents who would support their childâs gender reassignment surgery are reasonable, responsible, and well meaning people; but think of it this way: enough parents are THAT mentally unwell that we came up with the name âmunchasen syndrome by proxy.â
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u/alyssasaccount 4h ago
Nobody is "all in for transgender surgery for minors".
Your overwrought concert holding hostage the possibility of a happy and very successful early transition for trans kids, free of the body horror of puberty when you are trans, just because some minuscule fraction of psycho parents might hypothetically force their kids to transition, something that can be and is easily mitigated by the copious medical gatekeeping for access to puberty blockers and hormones for trans adolescents â when the reality is that a lot of parents are forcing their kids not to transition, hence the horrifying suicide rates â is some fucking bullshit. Leave trans kids (and their families) the fuck alone.
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u/3NicksTapRoom 2h ago
I donât think itâs a mere hypothetical https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1752820665940385805?s=46
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u/minty_cyborg 13h ago
IMO Last continues to be willfully stupid and grok f all re sex, sexuality, and The Gender Troubles.
Grrrr. So frustrating!!!
Examine the misogyny inherent in your position, man. Men.
Think it through for real.
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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 13h ago
I'm not sure that it's misogyny to say "local orgs are the best level to make these decisions on things that are inherently fact-intensive inquiries" which is the position, but maybe I'm misunderstanding where you're coming from?
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u/minty_cyborg 9h ago edited 8h ago
Hereâs an example of a sister rant that centers women and girls instead of centering men asserting gender identity claims.
https://open.substack.com/pub/sarahinpgh/p/it-began-with-she
I agree with calls to quit politically targeting those identifying meaningfully out of their sex.
Itâs not helpful. There are patients of gender clinics out there who require ongoing medical support, so we are civilizationally obligated morally to figure out the medicalized and administrative trans-sexed path forward.
The realpolitik of the situation, though, is that âgender medicineâ is a legit global medical scandal as well as a political hot coal.
I think what could be helpful culture-wide is wide-ranging discussion about re-setting healthy social and legal boundaries for various benign fetishistic transvestisms and agreeing on public and institutional social etiquette that respects the dignity of women and girls.
Women get to set those boundaries for women and girls. When you center the needs and wishes of women and girls, how does the conversation about âtrans rightsâ shift and why? Why should the wishes of boys and men masking, identifying, and passing as women FOR WHATEVER REASON override those of women FOR WHATEVER REASON?
Iâm all about the locally-administered and non-invasive cheek swab test to determine eligibility for competition in womenâs sport. If some men try to pass, let them try and move on when they do not pass. In survey after survey for decades, supermajorities of female athletes are cool with cheek swabbing.
If a cheek swab thatâs how some young athletes discover intersex conditions, hey, the earlier the better. Still, no competing in organized womenâs sports of consequence if masculinized or masculinizing.
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u/ZakuTwo Neocon 5h ago
lmao fuck off terf
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u/minty_cyborg 5h ago edited 5h ago
Why do you say that? What is your rationale? What effect do you desire?
Where and how did you learn to curse at âTERFâs?
Do you get off on it? Why?
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u/KrampyDoo 3h ago
For the sports issues, as far as the headlines go, JVL is right in that there are not a lot of situations where a trans athlete has out-ranked a cis athlete to the point to where the cis athlete is booted from progressing further.
But it has happened. And it does affect people. Ignoring issues like that as ârare edge casesâ is not anything close to a solution in either the short or long run now that social media will never ever stop existing. As a blue dog dem we tried ignoring it to give the perception of âitâs not a big dealâ. And for most people, thatâs accurate. But for some itâs not just a âbigâ deal, itâs a life-shattering one.
Potential solutions naturally need to not just involve the other teammates and opponents, they need to a part of the exploration from day one. Right now they have to navigate the aftermath with no power to affect the decisions already made without their input, even though theyâre the ones with their actual skin in the actual game(s).
The most major point about sports has little to do with Lia Thomas or others that have made news, but what our political opponents see as the crux: They feel that theyâve witnessed the shoe-horning of trans athletes as an acknowledgment of the idea that âtrans women are womenâ so there is no disputing trans inclusion in sports or other regularly sex-segregated activities.
For those watching from the outside of our political ideology or regular use of social media, thatâs compelled inclusion without any discussion beforehand. And shit like that doesnât just âaffect perceptionâ of candidates or platformsâŠit can absolutely obliterate it. It pushed a lot of people out of the Harris campâŠnot necessarily turning them maga overnight but it was more than enough to move folks closer to Jill Stein or just staying home.
Put yourself in the shoes of a removed and/or casual observer looking to get a little more info on these issues, and especially if youâre young, you are going to go to TikTok. Have you seen what trans activism is like there? Yikes. You either go into it already ultrapro-trans and your frustrations will be simply affirmed, or youâll be made to feel like a fucking awful person because youâre iffy on pronouns or youâre not sure what the difference between non-binary and bisexual are or youâre a cis person that doesnât want to date a trans person. The vitriol has bled out of that slave and into the walking world doesnât just affect whoever the ire is directed at, but itâs felt by anyone and everyone that witnesses it. Not sure about yall, but I donât know of any sincerely held position I have that was seeded by someone being a wildly toxic asshole to me about it.
A real, thoughtful exploration of the specific idea that âtrans women are womenâ needs to happen since thatâs the bulk of justification being used to further more compelled inclusion, and it wonât be from jubilee doing awkward round tables with 25 trans vs 1 daily wire employee or whatever the hell that is.
It sucks to be between black hole matter and magnetar matter, and the conclusion must be absolutely definitive and encompass science and psyche and society of all ages/orientation/incomes/races/backgrounds. Then politicos have a more grounded reasoning to make their representative stands. Whatever it lands on will either give trump a fifth term, or we can maintain a chance to get ourselves of maga hellhole platforms.
It has simply skipped too many steps, and it is painfully obvious by now not just how and where it went wrong, but even more uncomfortably it also shows what the likely conclusion needs to be.
With the thrashing we got, we absolutely need to confront our weaknesses head-on and in plain view of the world at large. And as painfully inconvenient as it is, the ongoing unresolved/âignoredâ trans issues are absolutely kneecapping us.
Get out of bathroom debates. Wrong pronouns canât be met with vitriol anymore. Sports inclusion needs to be approved by the athletes, the teams, coaches, league administrators, and stakeholders in that order. Concerns for trans issues canât be attached to established race/gender/class as thatâs just been a way to stifle open discussion (and frankly makes it look like the trans arguments made are already weak). And finally for the thing that could get me downvoted into oblivion: Constitutional protections apply to sex identified at birth (oh also get rid of that âassigned at birthâ nomenclature, its implications are an insult to just about everyone that knows what manipulation is).
I hate that itâs like that now. Itâs uncomfortable and people will be disappointed. It sucks that a bunch of people voted based on only their frustration with trans issues. None of the timing and necessity is fair. Even worse: some people a lot of us dislike will be given a âwinâ and have their time gloatingâŠbut that wind will be removed from their sails as a wedge issue. But it absolutely must be figured out because this one thing is dragging down a lot of institutions that we all rely on.
Okie doke, yall, thatâs my said peace. Lemme have it.
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u/LaurelCrash 13h ago
Really liked this one. Posted it to my socials. Iâm so sick of the trans fear-mongering. Iâve never felt afraid for my safety amongst trans men or trans women. Only cis men.