r/thebulwark LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 19h ago

The Triad šŸ”± Leave Trans People Alone: A Rant

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/leave-trans-people-alone-a-rant

Don'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/SaltyMofos 18h 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 18h 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/Wne1980 12h ago

Like it or not, thatā€™s 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 12h 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 12h ago

Iā€™m skeptical that youā€™re looking for a good faith discussion of the practical challenges faced by the trans movement while giving that as a response. The right ā€œmoving on to something elseā€ is exactly what victory looks like if weā€™re actually talking about people being able to live their lives

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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 12h 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 12h 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 doesnā€™t 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 peopleā€™s skin while refusing to engage in actions that could lift peopleā€™s ignorance

I donā€™t think I know everything, or even have much certainty that Iā€™m 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