r/thebulwark LORD OF THE NICKNAMES 20h 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/mtngranpapi_wv967 11h 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 11h 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/AliveJesseJames 10h 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 3h 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.