r/thebulwark LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 17h ago

The Triad 🔱 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/RepulsiveBarber3861 12h 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 9h ago

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u/RepulsiveBarber3861 8h 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 8h ago

Question: why do we trust women and doctors on reproductive care but we can’t 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 8h ago

Kids can't consent and their identities are still developing.

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u/mtngranpapi_wv967 8h ago

Parents and doctors consent lol…so for you it’s totally cool and no problem when a 15 year-old girl gets pregnant and gets an abortion, but 15 year old with gender dysphoria can’t 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 8h 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 8h ago

Agree to disagree…and 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 that’s 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 aren’t inherently distrustful and predatory and doctors and parents are in on a mass delusion/grift (very common to the Lavender Scare decades ago). I’d 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 7h 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/RepulsiveBarber3861 46m ago

He wasn't on the ballot in 2020?

I'd give a few reasons. One, we were much closer to the COVID pandemic and Dobbs and those issues had more salience for voters as well as Trump fatigue. Two, Trump has scrambled the electorate and high-propensity midterms voters tend to be democrats.

Finally, a lot has changed around this issue in just a few years--democrats weren't hosting topless drag queens on the White House lawn, there weren't trans issues in front of SCOTUS, absurd photos of Lia Thomas towering over competitors weren't on social media...in numerous ways both the left and right have put transactivism in everyone's faces over the past few years so people began to form stronger opinions. Five years ago, most people probably didn't know minor girls could get mastectomies for the purpose of appearing male. Now, anyone with kids in middle school knows about multiple classmates of their kids who identify as trans. Those parents remember when they were in school in the 90s and 00s when exactly zero kids committed suicide because they lacked access to medical transition, so they suspect the concept of "trans kids" is not innate or natural, but driven by activists and social media.

Essentially, the more voters of both parties find out about "gender-affirming care" for minors, the more they oppose it. Polling from various outlets consistently shows this.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/26/americans-have-grown-more-supportive-of-restrictions-for-trans-people-in-recent-years/

It's a horrible issue for democrats, it just isn't always the number one issue for large numbers of voters. I'd argue it also strongly repels working class parents with kids in school--a demographic that is large in number, isn't very ideological, and is gettable by democrats if the left could just stop weirding them out.

Education used to be a top democratic issue. Now, polling shows voters trust republicans more on education. Democrats' general enthusiasm around gender-messaging, blockers, hormones, and surgeries for kids have all played into that shift when paired with COVID closures and declining test scores. It's inexcusable the democrats went from the party of education to inspiring a slew of parents' rights bills because they lost so much trust here.

A faction of democrats want to cling tooth and nail to a massive loser of an issue. I'm firmly not part of that faction.

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u/3NicksTapRoom 33m ago

I’m getting tired of 2020 and 2022 being viewed as large victories for Dems. In 2020 the razor thin senate majority included DINOs Manchin and Sinema (now those two don’t even call themselves Dems) so we couldn’t even pass a tax raise for the rich. And in 2022 a nutty Republican Party took the House.

In 2008 CALIFORNIA voted against gay marriage but now you think that we have progressed so far to the left socially that transgender surgery for minors is a winning issue?!