This is disgusting, ignorant, stupid, mean-spirited and hateful:
The measure, named the Arkansas Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, would ban doctors from providing gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormones, to trans people under the age of 18, or else risk losing their license. The legislation is rooted in a host of misinformation about gender-affirming care,with proponents of the bill arguing forits necessity under the guise of protecting kids. One of the bill’s Republican sponsors described gender-affirming treatments as “at best experimental and at worst a serious threat to a child’s welfare.”
It is of a piece of the other efforts to ban transgender students from participating in high school sports. There are clear guidelines for transgender participation in college and Olympic sport, but there’s no discussion of that in the fearmongering that accompanies these bans. Moreover, even Dollar Store Sarah Palin, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, only has the guts to ban transgender girls from high school sports. If she banned them from college sports, the NCAA would probably penalize South Dakota college sports teams for being discriminatory. It’s also a non-issue that had a policy that appears to have worked for the very few students who wanted to participate:
Dan Swartos, the director of the athletic association for the state, says that since 2013 South Dakota has had a policy that any transgender athlete wanting to play school sports must acquire documentation from their physician that they identify as transgender. Then, an independent hearing officer determines if the athlete has any competitive advantage. Since the policy was instituted, only one transgender girl athlete has been allowed to play girls’ sports in the state.
I’m no expert on transgender rights, but my daughter has a couple transgender friends and acquaintances. I’ve gotten to know one young transgender man fairly well, and it’s not like this guy has an easy life. He’s one of the most hard-working twenty-somethings that I know. HRT is expensive, and he works multiple jobs to pay for it. Surgery is even more expensive. This hateful attack against transgender community makes him and others like him suffer. It will lead to more suicide in a group that already has a suicide issue. And though it isn’t reported much, this is another way for the right to get at Planned Parenthood, since my daughter’s friend receives his HRT from them, which I think is pretty common in the transgender community.
Old School
Public service: ?
Miss Bianca
Wow, HRT from Planned Parenthood, really? Things have changed since I worked there. Of course, that was 30 years ago, so yeah…why not! But this is the first I’ve heard of their being in that particular field
ETA: Well, I asked for this, so let’s take advantage: ? Things have changed…?
Baud
? Reposted from below.?
Also too, I’m sure Raven is happy were no longer doing the whole Frist thing.
mrmoshpotato
Whenever I see bills like this even being considered, I wonder what repressed feelings the authors have.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
All of them, Katie.
bbleh
… disgusting, ignorant, stupid, mean-spirited and hateful.
Just say “Republican” and save some typing.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Yup.
Villago Delenda Est
The unspeakable filth that is Asa Hutchinson should be on a rocketship to the Sun.
laura
The unrelenting desire to legislate below the belt by the GOP always makes me want to put a marker on the legislator for the inevitable future reveal. Can we pass a mind your own business/live and let live/takes all kinds to make the world go round law?
WaterGirl
Mistermix, I think you might be missing a NOT or some other word in this sentence?
Cheryl from Maryland
@Miss Bianca: Does not surprise me in the least. A daughter of a friend of mine started puberty in elementary school. One does not want breasts at that age. So she received HRT over 20 years ago. Good on Planned Parenthood for helping transgenders but also helping all girls who want to stay children while in elementary school.
matted foxes
My son came out as transgender about 10 years ago. Since then, the children of many acquaintances have come out, and I don’t know that many people. I think we severely underestimate the number of transgendered in the general population and will be quite surprised at the coming flood as it becomes more acceptable. When I was young early in the last millenium it was considered rarissime, but things are changing rapidly.
Patricia Kayden
Another Scott
@Cheryl from Maryland: Not the same at all, but I knew of a guy in my first high school in Georgia who had a very, very full beard at about 14.
Humanity exists in ranges in all characteristics. Nobody who is different should be punished or ostracized for it. Good for PP for helping them.
Cheers,
Scott.
thebewilderness
I would never have guessed that it would be Republicans who stopped people from transitioning children suspected of being homosexual because they deviate from sex role stereotypes.
Lupron will be this generation of children’s thalidomide. Extended use reduces brain and bone development while providing no benefit to the child.
Please listen to the detransitioners who were rushed through the process by unethical medical professionals. Please.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@WaterGirl: It was a mess, I re-worded it. Thanks
Dee-Lurker
I was a transphobic person. I subscribed to the notion of chromosomal sex as being sacrosanct and likened trans to other body disorders like anorexia nervosa. Thankfully, I sought out the counterarguments from the trans community and the medical community. They are persuasive and true. Sex and gender expression is complex, multi-layered, and utterly fascinating. I feel sorry for transphobes for finding facts to fit their prejudices. I, unfortunately, had thought of myself as some deep critical thinker, when I was actually being a hateful bigot. Honestly, it is because I have issues with my own body and gender expression because I don’t fit into the norms. I projected these insecurities outward and took comfort in the fundamental XY of my being as a kind of fetish object that proved my masculinity.
I think there is also a biblical basis for the acceptance of LGBTQ+ in the book of Acts. In Acts 8:26-40, the deacon Philip baptizes an Ethopian eunuch. Philip comes across them reading the passage from Isaiah regarding the suffering servant being led like a lamb to the slaughterhouse, dumb in front of its shearers. Given the eunuch’s experience, I can only imagine how this passage would feel personal. After Philip explains (from the Isaiahan text) the good news of Jesus, they come across a puddle of water. They ask Philip “is there anything preventing my being baptized?” The chariot stops, and the eunuch is baptized in a puddle on the side of the road.
Their eunuch status proved no obstacle to being welcomed into the way of Christ. There’s also Peter’s statement to Cornelius in Acts 10:34-35: I now really understand that God has no favorites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
Not that we need a biblical pivot to defend what is naturally reasonable, but all too often that book is twisted into shapes wholly unlike itself. There is plenty of material that reveals the Bible as a complex evolving document that bends towards love and compassion as the rule of human life. People deserve to live, thrive, and know themselves without thinking for one moment that because of circumstances outside their control they are worth less than others.
mrmoshpotato
@Patricia Kayden: Next the Dump humpers are going to be mad that Biden can read.
sab
NPR (1A) had a show on this a week ago Monday. Very informative. There are 30+ bills pending in state legislatures around the country, and they couldn’t get even one Republican operative or legislator to come on to defend their position. That’s kind of telling.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Miss Bianca: The service he got at Planned Parenthood was great. They taught him and his friends (including my daughter) how to inject his HRT. Here’s the page from our area PP.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-central-western-new-york/patient-resources/our-services/gender-affirming-hormone-care
Cheryl Rofer
They’ve run out of ways to ban abortions, so they’ve got to control SOMEBODY’s body
Mike in NC
The Orange Clown needed to have groups for his worshippers to hate: transgender people (because they are a small percent of the population), Muslims (of course), Mexicans (to justify the idiotic wall), and basically anybody else who wasn’t wealthy and white.
UncleEbeneezer
Happy Transgender Day of Visibility! I recently discovered a great podcast for anyone who wants to better understand Transgender issues, perspectives and culture. It’s called Marsha’s Plate and it is available on Spotify, Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher etc. It’s also very fun and funny.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@thebewilderness:
Care to cite some reputable sources saying this?
UncleEbeneezer
@Dee-Lurker: See also, Matthew 19:12
“For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others–and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
lowtechcyclist
@thebewilderness:
You know who I’m gonna listen to? My kid. He (for now, at least) is the only one who can sort out who and what he really is. And woe unto those who might interfere.
Leto
@Cheryl Rofer: I caught part of this on NPR yesterday and what the trans advocate was saying was, since society at large is moving towards further acceptance of gays and lesbians, the new thing is trying to separate out the T from the LGBTQ+ community. I see that working with TERFs (hello, JK Rowling) but I also see a pretty big push back against that. But as you said, “they’ve got to control SOMEBODY’s body”; that’s just their nature.
Leto
@Mike in NC: with as much shit as he gave dogs, I’m very surprised the right didn’t come out as anti-dog. Idk, they still might.
Served
@thebewilderness: Found the transphobe! They always pop up in these threads with the “just asking questions” nonsense.
Nina
The copay on my son’s HRT isn’t very expensive, proving that I have good health insurance. He has five more years to find a job that covers it, or move to somewhere in western Europe.
rikyrah
They are despicable demons. All of those loathesome muthaphuckas.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
Is this stuff all puked up by ALEC? I mean, drafting legislation is hurd wurk and Republicans are in government to kill government, not put in time at the office.
The idiot Utah law that just passed about blocking porn from portable devices passed, now sits on a shelf until N other states pass the same law. Smells like ALEC to me, although Utah isn’t quite like other Republican states. It probably also occurred to them that Apple et al can simply ignore an entire state the size of Utah, but perhaps not half a dozen of them.
Miss Bianca
@matted foxes: Hell, if I had been born 20-30 years later, I would likely be transitioning or have transitioned myself. I’ve always felt like a guy trapped in a female body, and it caused me extreme anguish in my youth. But I’m in my late 50s so I’ve decided to just live with it.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
Absolutely on point.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: “Why won’t Biden use a teleprompter???”
(Press wanting to have it both ways.)
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
A friend of mine, at 16, went with his father to a casino and they went to the bar for lunch. They carded his dad but served him without carding, because he had a full beard, like 2-3 inches long, which he could grow that long in less than a month from clean shaven. I looked about 11 maybe 12 at 16, he looked 35.
randy khan
@matted foxes:
I think that may be true in the short run. In the long run, I kind of wonder if gender expression will get more fluid in general, which could result in more people feeling comfortable in their skins from the start. If nobody cares if you wear a dress or pants (so to speak – I know it’s way more complicated all around), there may not be so much internal pressure to declare yourself one way or the other. I feel like we’re seeing something that hints at this already with nonbinary people, who were essentially unheard of ten years ago.
pat
A couple of years ago there was a fascinating article in National Geographic about how sex is determined not only by XX/XY, but all the little physiological changes, controlled by RNA and a host of tiny changes in the cell, can change.
I am describing it very badly, but this bill that would not allow any treatment until AFTER PUBERTY is cruel. And stupid. And ignorant. I hate these people.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
If Gaetz is any example apparently conservatives don’t like the thought of mistaking a transgendered teen for a teenage girl when they are looking for victims.
Brachiator
I need a some clarification here. Not too long ago there were stories about how unfair it was for doctors to do gender reassignment surgery and other treatments to shape children into a particular agenda, and that it was preferable to let these individuals make an informed decision later in life.
Are the Arkansas officials hiding behind this philosophy to push their own agenda?
I want to do whatever I can to support transgender people. I am deeply suspicious of what is being proposed in Arkansas.
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
That’s a rather good take on conservatism. Everything has to be controlled, and in a certain order. The specific order can change but there is always an order that everyone has to abide by. There doesn’t have to be any logical rationale, just a set of rules that is specific, limiting, restrictive, and often insane.
Dan B
@thebewilderness: In my best Jen Psaki voice, Who are these unethical Doctors? Who is “pushing” children to have hormone therapy?
Professor Bigfoot
“Every sophont has the inherent right to self definition and self determination.”
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
These issues are complicated. When I was a teen / preteen I absolutely would have wanted to transition and would have pushed that very hard with my family. That wasn’t at all an option then. For me, that worked out for the best. It turns out I was just homophobic, and it was easier to see myself as a boy trapped in a girls body than as a lesbian. Once I came out, my perspective 180’d. I am very happy being female.
Benw
After their “concern” about gay marriage evaporated instantly, I don’t see why Republicans pushing pro-hate laws have any credibility left at all.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I have a gigantic problem with puberty blockers, sorry. I’m not alone, the UK high court took it on cringed at the state of the evidence of harmlessness offered by the “all affirming, all the time” folks. I also think that there are zero family judges of my acquaintance-all of whom are gay affirming, trans affirming liberals-that would order puberty blockers for these purposes.
Of note, that particular plaintiff expressed that she wished that she’d gotten better examination and analysis from the affirming helpers.
scav
@Ruckus: Not everyone has to obey. Everyone other or else has to obey. Their “transgressions” are forgiven (see also cops being the embodiment of law and thus being above it:) And, there are things that are to be uncontrolled (guns, at the very least — well, unless polluted by the cooties of the wrong people). It gets Calvinball very quickly.
Barbara
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: My understanding is that reputable providers require patients to have psychological support to address potential issues like this.
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
And that’s exactly what hormone blockers are all about: if someone is born male and thinks they might want to transition, putting off the point where they start growing a beard and stuff gives them the luxury of more time to sort out who they are and what gender identity they want to have. Same with breasts with someone born female.
Of course they are, even as they actively work against that philosophy.
What they’re doing will make life harder for a lot of kids who are having to wrestle with more than the usual stuff we all have to deal with in our teens. What they are doing is evil. Their ‘concern’ is bullshit.
StringOnAStick
@Miss Bianca: Me too. I figured out pretty young that being male had tons of advantages and came with society-approved respect. It’s mostly ok for a girl to wear boys clothes now; girls wearing pants only started being allowed when I was in high school. But if a boy wears a skirt, he’s an object of derision because apparently anything gendered as female is lesser, lacks social respect and is comedic fodder. I knew this by age 8. I was also a girl who started developing breasts in 6th grade and felt totally betrayed by that and got too much attention that my functional alcoholic parents were totally oblivious to.
I’m 62 and happily married and would not change anything now. I’ve acted out my social needs aspects by being a serious mountaineer and I’m married to someone who could care less about frilly wife stuff and wants a mountaineering partner, not a stay at home wife. It works for both of us.
pat
Re: puberty blockers. They can be very important to stop physical changes in the body and the voice which are not easily undone. Read recently about a couple of cases.
Maybe each case should be decided on its merits….?
Barbara
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I feel like it’s easy to express aversion to something that one will never be affected by directly. I think caution is obviously warranted before anybody takes any step that results in permanent, life altering consequences but I doubt my own bona fides as an arbiter of what is ultimately too problematic to permit.
Dan B
@Cheryl Rofer: The “conservatives” I know seem to be anxious people who seek to avoid people who are different. They’re probe to projection, especially claims that liberals and minorities are weak and have compromised morality. They hate empathy because they seem to be afraid it will cost them control. Perhaps it’s harder to keep your foot on someone’s neck if you give-in to empathy. It may also lead them to recognize their self centered, verging on narcissistic, nature. TFG allows them to be just “a little bit” narcissistic. It allows them to hate minorities because they feel so fearful of change.
It’s sad that they believe being even more insular will grant them peace of mind. It’s sad they believe that being heartless makes them strong and maintains their God of “control”.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Barbara: That is good. It took until was in my early 20s to admit to myself that I was a lesbian. Anxiety, shame, identity, and emotional attraction all get mixed up and it is so hard to disentangle.
Brachiator
@Mike in NC:
I have tried not to think about him since the election, but this reminds me of how much I detest Trump.
He is an immoral hypocrite who makes a mockery of the simplistic bullshit of conservative family values, and a man who pretty much openly lusted after his own daughter.
And yet he seemed to love to stir up hate against various people just to keep his base riled up and on his side.
And he seemed to go out of his way to scapegoat transgender people, almost for the sport of it.
Amir Khalid
@Patricia Kayden:
They’ll criticise Biden for anything if they think they can make him look bad, even a sensible practice like having notes for reference. But they need to start coming up with some really silly attacks on Biden to amuse us sane people, like they did with Obama: I miss the guff about fancy mustard on hot dogs and Michelle’s muscular arms.
Hungry Joe
How someone identifies “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg” (as Jefferson explained his indifference to his neighbors’ religion or lack thereof). It harms no one. Opposition to/hatred of the emerging Trans world is either religious panic or yet another example of cruel political opportunism. Sometimes both.
Here’s an idea: Support people when they need and ask for support, and otherwise leave them the fuck alone and let them live their lives. This is not at all complicated.
Soprano2
I heard an interview on NPR where one of the legislators pushing this bill admitted he had never met or talked with any trans youth. I think they’re legislating from a place of fear and disgust; they’re terrified of trans people, especially trans women. I say disgust based on what I see on FB from my conservative friends. Even though they claim that qualifications matter more than appearance, they are particularly bothered by our new Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services. I always poke at them, saying I always thought conservatives cared more about people’s qualifications for a job than their appearance, and she is eminently qualified for the job. I never get a reply to that.
I have a friend whose marriage of over 30 years was blown up when her husband, who had been cross-dressing for years and told her he knew when he was 17 that he felt like he was a woman, decided to transition to female. My friend’s two children had a lot of difficulty with it – her daughter doesn’t talk to her father at all, while her son still does. My friend is now divorced at the age of 60. When we talked about it, I told her that I want people to be able to be who they are, so that something like this doesn’t happen to anyone ever. It was a horribly painful experience for her to go through. When my friend asked her husband why he married her when he felt that way, he said he wanted to have children and thought there was no other way to live but to accept being a man. (Referring to her husband as “him” because all these events happened pre-transition, and otherwise I think it’s extremely confusing. I’m still getting the hang of how this works.)
Flanders Other Neighbor
I feel like there’s a whole lotta people out there who need hobbies. Do I spend effort hating people and making them feel bad about themselves, or do I go ride my bike?
Ksmiami
@rikyrah: isn’t it funny how their obsession with sex and race prevents them from any discourse about building a better America… the GOP is a disease
StringOnAStick
@randy khan: I recall talking to a therapist about gender issues. What I remember most from the conversation was that generally the higher you go up the education/IQ ladder, the less specified the gender roles are and the term I’m hearing now is gender fluidity; that sounds exactly like what he was describing 39 years ago. Among the low educational attainment R’s, especially the fundamentalist types, the more what’s in your pants determines allowed behaviour, and they seem terrified that it could be anything other than those rules being followed/enforced.
ET
The minimum age for marriage in Arkansas is 17 with parental consent.
Barbara
@Soprano2: I sometimes watch the show “Intervention” and one of the saddest and most maddening episodes involved “Robbie,” a married man who desperately wanted to transition to being a woman. Robbie’s wife was understanding and supportive but adamant that she wanted a husband and not a wife, so their marriage had to end eventually. Robbie was so tormented and paralyzed by having to choose between his identity and his wife that he turned to alcohol and, basically, became his wife’s third child.
Anoniminous
More Neuroscience than you may want to know.
ABSTRACT
“Transsexualism describes the condition when a person’s psychological gender differs from his or her biological sex and is commonly thought to arise from a discrepant cerebral and genital sexual differentiation. This review intends to give an extensive overview of structural and functional neurobiological correlates of transsexualism and their course under cross-sex hormonal treatment. Research in this field enables insight into the stability or variability of gender differences and their relation to hormonal status. For a number of sexually dimorphic brain structures or processes, signs of feminisation or masculinisation are observable in transsexual individuals, which, during hormonal treatment, partly seem to further adjust to characteristics of the desired sex. Still, it appears the data are quite inhomogeneous, mostly not replicated and in many cases available for male-to-female transsexuals only. As the prevalence of homosexuality is markedly higher among transsexuals than among the general population, disentangling correlates of sexual orientation and gender identity is a major problem. To resolve such deficiencies, the implementation of specific research standards is proposed.”
The transsexual brain – A review of findings on the neural basis of transsexualism
cain
Like everything the right co-opts everything – especially religion and nationalism for their own ends. It’s hard for regular churches to fight back with counter messaging.
What does happen is people just end up leaving the church because if all these churches have to offer is hate and judgement – wtf is religion good for?
Amir Khalid
@Brachiator:
The development of ethical standards for gender affirmation treatment is surely something that needs to be worked out by the medical profession with its patients’ best interests in mind. I don’t see a role in that process for legislatures.
Chyron HR
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
That’s fine, you don’t have to take them.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Brachiator:
Men have nearly always been allowed to get away with being moral hypocrites, provided they claim to have repented. Trump is far more acceptable to these people because his behavior is consistent with traditional gender roles rather than in opposition to them.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Yay Biden!
I just got my Pfizer #2. Such a nice woman gave it to me, and complimented both my Samwise mask and my Hamilton “My Shot” T-shirt.
Miss Bianca
@StringOnAStick: In my case, my parents (one of whom was highly educated, one of whom was not) were *both* freaked out by how much I wanted to be a boy, not a girl. Nowadays I’m not sure how much of my desire was plain old penis envy as defined by Freud – the recognition that (white) males get all the social and economic power and agency they want without having to work especially hard for it – and how much was actual gender dysmorphia as such.
I do earnestly hope that the rigid sex/gender binary we’ve lived by for centuries will finally give way to the point where people can honestly feel like it just doesn’t matter which body they are born into – but that feels like a distant hope as yet, and still doesn’t address the issue of “yeah, but it just FEELS WRONG to be in this body”.
Totally with you on how betrayed I felt by puberty – since mine turned into one of those big-hipped, big-breasted type of bodies that I least desired. Hated my body for years and years and years until I finally just got worn out by the hatred and decided to be OK with it.
Dan B
@Soprano2: When I finally found gay people pre-Stonewall it was a relief that I wasn’t “the only one” but, except for certain occupations – interior designer, hairdresser- almost every man over 30 was married. Some guys were bi but most were sneaking around. I blocked out thinking about how their wives felt, partly because serial and emotional fulfillment were not expected. Fulfilling your expected role in life was thought to be enough. In fact it was considered to be a sacred duty to a healthy society.
To me it felt horribly dishonest and stifling. I dreamed of love and growth – mutuality and discovery.
cain
The ancient Greeks seem to be quite aware of gender and it being on a spectrum. Too bad they were still assholes and the men still exploited children and women. Horrible society.
Anoniminous
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Physical characteristics, gender self-identity, sexual orientation, and concept-of-self are four different things in a Complex melange of inter-related, dynamic, subject-to-initial-condition(s,) Feed Forward and Feedback Loops. Toss in Enculturation, Societal Expectation, and things get pretty damn complicated for kids to sort out.
Benw
@zhena gogolia: woo hoo number two!
StringOnAStick
@Miss Bianca: Looks like you and I had a very similar childhood. I just got labelled as a tomboy and fortunately we moved away from the redneck less than 10k town we were in before I hit puberty. Going back there later for a visit was seriously eye opening. I think I’m more on the “penis envy” side since I’m quite cis/het.
I was lucky to be drawn to outdoor adventures where “tomboy” was acceptable. I’m not the typical tall and skinny that you see in the Patagonia catalogs; short and busty is the card I drew.
I agree wholeheartedly with your hope and wish that we can grow enough as humans to just let people be who they are.
cain
I blamed that on society which has told you what is attractive. I think western societies have trended to skinnier narrow hipped women over the years. My theory is that western society do not care as much to have large families as they have in the past.
Anonymous At Work
Noem’s more worried about the Amazon facility being planned for her state than NCAA.
Arkansas would be more worried about NCAA than anything else, however.
Dan B
@Anoniminous: This reminds me of the hunt for the “gay gene” that occupied much research on gay men in the 80’s and 90’s. This is much more advanced since it’s focused on what is the reality, not on what so-called trigger caused this so-called aberration. It doesn’t seem flummoxed by complexity and all the myriad and amazing ways we are human.
Anoniminous
I’m just going to leave this here …..
Freud Was a Fraud: A Triumph of Pseudoscience
The Castle
So, we’re OK with banning – by law – conversion therapy to change the sexual orientation of minors.
But we’re not OK with banning hormone treatment given to minors to change their secondary sexual characteristics. And in fact, many commenters encourage it.
Why the difference?
The conversion therapy is almost certainly more reversible.
Sister Golden Bear
@matted foxes: We’ve always been here, it’s just finally safe for most of us to be visible.
FWIW, people also vastly overestimate the numbers of LBGTQ people — most think it’s about a quarter of the population. In reality it’s only about 5 percent, and trans people are at least about 1% of the population. Which is why we need fierce allies who will fight for us.
@thebewilderness: This is a myth pushed by transphobes. The rate of detransition is extremely small. The vast majority of people I know who’ve detransitioned have done so to try to remain employed (thanks to anti-trans discrimination), to preserve marriages, and sometimes because they realize transition wasn’t for them. Which is fine.
Also a big Joe Biden Deal, the Pentagon announced today that they’re repealing the trans ban.
Also too, as mentioned it’s Transgender Day of Visibility. I haz thoughts. Not sure if my guest post has been cued up yet.
Kayla Rudbek
@The Castle: because conversion therapy is 1) psychologically harmful and 2) works about as well as a perpetual motion machine?
Served
@The Castle: This is deranged. Conversion therapy is admonished by every reputable medical organization. It is unnecessary, violent torture that is often forced onto minors without their consent.
Betsy
Just got my 2nd Moderna an hour ago. Feeling pretty crappy, but I was feeling pretty crappy all day before this. Haven’t slept well, and was standing in the hot sun, suddenly felt a wave of nausea and had to go sip some water and have a bite of something salty. I’m sure it’s not serious and I’m also pretty sure it’s not from the shot, but I wish I had someone to take care of me.
Dan B
@The Castle: Your opinion is duly noted and must be true because psychic trauma is less visible.
Do you have any idea how many hoops Physicians go through before hormone blockers or surgery? Have you accounted for the life-affirming experiences of people who have transitioned?
Is your concern rooted in fear that children have been mistreated? If so where is the concern for children who are denied the opportunity to exercise their autonomy and to be supported, and guided, by mentors, friends, and family?
Sister Golden Bear
@Cheryl Rofer:
I like to say that the proof trans women are women is the conservatives also try to control our bodies, and society also ignores our voices.
zhena gogolia
@Betsy:
Oh, I wish you did too. I heard that Advil helps with the Moderna reaction. The person who gave me my Pfizer today said it’s fine to take Advil or Tylenol afterwards if needed.
The Castle
@Served:
And what if minors wanted to changed their sexual orientation? There would be more partners that way, if nothing else. But who cares for what reason?
It is still illegal for them to do so in about half the states.
Why the difference? What if there were hormonal treatment for changing sexual orientation? Would you support that?
Sexual orientation is a deep seeded biological difference in much the same way that sex and gender are.
zhena gogolia
@Dan B:
The hitherto unknown nyms on this thread are making me think we’re talking about guns or Russia!
zhena gogolia
@Sister Golden Bear:
Well said.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Anoniminous:
Yeah, I never got those overarching definitions he liked to use.
I also disagree with the therapies currently offered by all too many younger therapists to 20 somethings that seemingly encourage grievance above all, that everyone owes you a respectful listen and apology even when you’re off the rails and making bizarre accusations.
I much prefer the family court therapeutic approach:
Frankensteinbeck
@The Castle:
Everything you just said is bizarre, moot speculation. It’s a straw man, because conversion therapy is nothing like that. Actual conversion therapy is sadistic bullying to make the victim renounce their sexual orientation. That is what we want outlawed. This thing you’re imagining does not exist and thus is not part of the discussion.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dan B:
Yep. Exactly. And I have no doubt that if we do find one, social conservatives would find both 1) a worthy exception to their opposition to abortion, and 2) cite it as a reason to discriminate against trans people who don’t have that specific gene.
I think it’s worth noting that there’s no “religious gene” but we still prohibit discrimination based on religion because we recognize it (or its absence) is a core part of people’s identities.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betsy:
Lay down. Moderna #2 kicked my ass for 30 straight hours after I got it Monday night. Sore arm, light fever, heavy fatigue, earache, headache, tinnitus. I woke up well, but it was an ugly Tuesday.
Served
@The Castle: There is zero evidence that a person can change their sexuality, especially in any healthy, affirmative way. The recommended process is to work with mental health professionals to create a healthy mental presence.
You have zero interest in this actual conversation, just false equivalencies. You don’t care for children, you care for your own fragile sense of superiority, so please fuck off back to TERFLand, you disgusting transphobe.
Betsy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Thanks. Similar to what a friend said about their second Moderna. 1.5 days of that, then all good.
I’ma go lay down.
Betty Cracker
@Betsy: Yikes, hope you feel better soon!
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Good to know about Moderna #2, which I’ll be getting in a few weeks. Think I’ll take the next day or two off!
I had #1 yesterday, and the only side effect I’ve noticed is that it feels like I was punched in the arm. Hard. By The Rock.
Fair Economist
A cynical person might say one of the motivations of Arkansas outlawing puberty blockers is that they’re afraid of Trans people who pass extremely well, since a person who transitions before puberty is not going to get much of the secondary sexual characteristics of the pre-transition gender. That cynical person might say they’re afraid of being sexually aroused by somebody who doesn’t fit their narrow conceptions of gender.
I am very cynical.
Betty Cracker
@StringOnAStick:
That rings true.
The Castle
One of the reasons why sex reassignment surgery and hormone replacement is promoted is that depression and suicide is so high in transgendered individuals. And I agree, they are!
But their suicide rates remain extraordinarily high — in this study of all transitioned individuals in Sweden, almost 20x higher than the population, even after their conversion.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21364939/
Likewise, psychiatric problems do not go down all that much after reassignment either. e.g., from Denmark:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26479779/
Most children and younger adolescents who are gender dysphoric do not persist that way. Sex reassignment would seem to be a grave error for a large percentage of these kids and a smaller (but significant) percentage of older teens. Where do we draw the line?
And there’s basically nothing on long-term outcomes of teens after sex reassignment. How do we know this is OK?
Personally, I am no lover of sex roles and I do not care what gender people choose, or if they choose none at all.
But there is a lot of assertion that sex reassignment is a cure-all that seems unwarranted. This is not being a transphobe or wild speculation but wondering where all this confidence comes from.
taumaturgo
@Betsy: It will pass. After the second shot of the Pfizer vaccine, I had similar symptoms during the evening. I took Aleve (with a wonderful Chardonnay) and it really helped. Hope you feel better.
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: Ya think?
It’s amazing how the hot-button issues are so predictable. I loved the video of the anti-trans creep who showed up at the gym in drag and no one cared, until he started dropping weights loudly violating posted rules.
Or were you implying that we should discuss Gun-snatching Russian Transsexuals? (M to F, of course) GRT for the win!
Or Socialist Gun Snatching Russian Transsexuals? SGSRT? Too complicated.
raven
The Chauvin trial is incredible to watch.
Dan B
@The Castle: A couple friends tried hormones to fix their homosexuality. This was in the 70’s, testosterone would make them more manly and less femme. Boy were they horny. Still lisped.
Next “Concern Theory”, thank you please.
Fair Economist
@The Castle:Well, gosh, if you really believed all that you’d be all up in arms about the Arkansas bill, which specifically prohibits precisely the treatment that allows a pre-pubescent to put off decisions about what gender they will be.
Roger Moore
@pat:
Yeah. And it’s not as if kids are going out and doing this willy-nilly without getting agreement from their parent or guardian. So they’re forcing people to put off treatment at the age when it’s most likely to be effective even though their parents and doctor agree with it. That’s just evil.
sab
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Me too with Moderna #2. But absolutely worth it. We saw the kids in person today. Having a friend over for dinner tomorrow. Spouse’s weekly coffee klatch will resume in person next week.Planning to meet the grandkids in person in a few weeks for the first time since a year ago last Christmas.
Geminid
I always figured this wave of anti-trans fever that started with bathroom bills, then high school athletics, and now this Arkansas bill, springs from homophobia. When the the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision vindicated the right to same-sex marriage, the political preachers and their politician allies realized that public acceptance of these marriage rights was too great to challenge.
So they decided to pick on the less numerous transexual population as their political scapegoats. But the people pushing these bigoted laws will never be satisfied until Obergefell is overturned. And then would come Roe v.Wade.
Woodrow/asim
@The Castle: That Swedish study? If you read more that the Conclusions, it explicitly says to not do, what you just did — to take it as a sign that gender reassignment is a failure:
[Emphasis mine.]
But that takes actually reading your source, and understanding how studies like this work, and what they are trying to say.
Hard to do, when you’re trying to promote some horrific anti-Trans idea, on some random political blog.
Ksmiami
@Sister Golden Bear: lol and to your point it’s exactly why I gave up on Andrew Sullivan…like he never got the connection between being able to be out and the fight for women’s rights etc…
WaterGirl
@Dan B: I am in awe that she can pull off that quizzical tone so perfectly.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
I was sobbing along with the dude in the white-framed glasses (McMillian?). Just devastating to see and especially to hear that video. I don’t normally follow big trials (even O.J., just the occasional highlights) but I am following this one rather obsessively. Really compelling stuff. At some point, I suppose a FP will put up a post on the trial, and we can all talk about how the prosecution and defence are both doing.
zhena gogolia
@raven:
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a post on it. I’m just getting snippets. Can’t take much more.
zhena gogolia
@Dan B:
We’d be at 600 comments in no time.
karen marie
@Ksmiami:
What “prevents [Republicans] from any discourse about building a better America” is their belief that America was already great – 70 years ago – before “liberals shoved their inclusive agenda down our throats,” and every day that moves us farther from the idyllic period is something to be resisted with everything they’ve got.
William F. Buckley was an asshole but he said one thing that’s still true today: “A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop …”
jonas
Where did you pull that assertion out of? Unless you’re defining gender dysphoria so broadly as to encompass virtually any questioning of one’s place on the gender spectrum, this simply isn’t the case.
karen marie
@Sister Golden Bear: Welcome to the club.
Dan B
@The Castle: Where is this assertion that sex reassignment is a cure all? How many years has this been studied? How many studies?
Back in the 60’s and 70’s there were lots of “studies” of homosexuality. Their conclusions were remarkably similar to yours. Homisexuals were mentally ill, more likely to be criminal, more likely to have been sexually abused, etc. Research on “Gender Dysphoria”, which is a psychiatric definition, thus sets up a tautology that the mentally ill are mentally ill, is young and very limited.
Is your focus based upon a psychological fear of castration?
Notice my hypothesis has almost no context. It is speculation. When I have a great deal more documentation we can explore my hypothesis.
Old Man Shadow
Honestly, I think that would be seen as a plus for the law in Republican circles.
Woodrow/asim
@The Castle: If we’re going to play “who’s got the best studies?,” I do not have access to this one, but since we can’t seem to read past abstracts, here’s the end of the Summary section from one of the largest studies on outcomes of Transitioning:
SHOCK: When science folx have enough data, they can make solid conclusions that stand the test of at least the last half-decade.
And I want to be clear. As a Black cis man who spent much of my teens and 20s being “confused” for gay?
I lothe people who talk like you. You might be honest about wanting to talk/debate, true. Yet I promise for every person who talks like you and is just “indelicate,” there’s a Devil’s Hundred that even Lucifer rejects, who just wanna start a godsdamned fight over topics they know hurt others, FOR KICKS.
I grew up with people pulling that shit, trying to teach me my blackness was inherently, “scientifically” bad. Andy Sully just got mentioned; having to push back against his pushing of BELL CURVE-bullshit still haunts me, to this day.
I love science, flaws and sexism and racism and all. Do not pull this “oh look, studies prove my shitty opinions about oppressed folx are right!” crap around me.
WaterGirl
@raven: Where are you watching the trial?
lowtechcyclist
@Hungry Joe:
Yeah, opposition in general is a mix of both. Some people fit in just one or the other category – I’m sure there are wingnuts out there who don’t give a shit about this as an issue, but their arsenal of effective ‘culture war’ issues is running low, and this is the best they’ve got. And they desperately need culture war issues, since they can’t win on real issues.
I’d be happier about their increasing desperation, except that a lot of people will suffer a lot of pain as a result of shit like this.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@The Castle: Because informed consent is a thing and conversion therapy ain’t got it.
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: I’m afraid you’re right about Gun-snatching Russian Transsexuals generating 600 comments tout d’suite. (sp?)
Sad.
sdhays
@Betsy: That was my dad’s experience too.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@Geminid: And then Griswold v. Connecticut.
100 percent. Like Cheryl said, they gotta control somebody’s body.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I can’t answer for raven (and in any case would never dream of doing so!), but both MSNBC and CNN have been carrying it live every day. They’re in break right now but … nope, resuming.
raven
@zhena gogolia: Yea, seems weird.
Old School
@WaterGirl:
There are different options, but here is one livestream.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
It can help to think of him, when you Have to, as a completely ignorant being from outer space, that was left here when the mother ship was going by earth and they figured that it was our turn to deal with the universe’s most ignorant bigot for a while because otherwise they were going to have a mutiny on board.
Dan B
@Bluegirlfromwyo: It’s mind boggling that this Castle doesn’t grasp the difference between coercion and choice / free will.
It fits with the idea that trans women will rape girls in bathrooms. There are few locked bathrooms so what’s stopping rape? Do “men” only rape in bathrooms while pretending to be women? Don’t bother trying to explain the absence of logic.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks.
I guess you can watch it on Court TV, but Xfinity no longer carries that channel. I’ll try CNN.
edit: CNN appears to have it on TV!
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: roger that
Brachiator
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Trump never repented anything and barely pretended to be religious. Hell, Trump never admits any fault, and you would think that this pride would result in at least mild rebuke by religious people.
Instead, evangelicals came to embrace the odd fantasy that Trump was a flawed instrument of God’s will. This gave him a “get out of Hell free” card despite all his moral lapses.
There were probably some men who wanted to be Trump and get all the hot Euro trash babes. But I suspect that many other religious Trump supporters would never want him around their wives or daughters.
To this day, I do not understand Trump’s women supporters who just blindly ignored his clear disdain for women, particularly those women who stood up to him or opposed him. Some of this can be explained by racism. The Orange Beast focuses his most intense outrage on women of color and his supporters must think “Oh he would never hate me.“
J R in WV
@thebewilderness:
This comment is poorly written and difficult to uunderstand… but what I take from it is rejection of trans people in general, especially young people.
What I get from thebewilderness is unsupported medical advice that rejects care being prescribed by doctors.
So, thebewilderness, what medical education do you have?
Which medical journals you subscribe to provide you with this information?
Crickets?
So glad we have the pie filter for despicable crap like this!
jonas
This new focus on transgender kids is just a desperate rearguard action in a culture war being fought by an increasingly desperate evangelical right that knows they’ve lost the war, but want to start one more battle. 50 years ago, women working outside the home, or being single and on the pill was the end of civilization as we know it. A decade ago, it was gay marriage. So now if we don’t keep trans kids off certain sports teams, or deny them medical care, it’s all over. It’s just a way for Republican pols to virtue signal their rwnj evangelical base that they’re not giving up the cause (and, of course raise $$$). As transgenderism becomes more visible, however (with celebrities like Caitlyn Jenner, Elliot Page, Laverne Cox leading the way, but also with people like Rachel Levine and Danice Roem in the political realm), just like with gay marriage, the country will realize that all the hysteria and predictions of the end of civilization were yet again just a pretext for a small group of fundies to punch down on those they don’t like.
cain
@jonas:
They are still fucked because less and less people are coming to the churches are going to churches are more open minded and inclusionary.
raven
Of course as soon as we bring this up they go from live testimony to analysis.
Ruckus
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
My sister was a bit older than that, had gotten married and had a child. Still in the end it seems like it worked out Ok. I’m still friends with women I’ve met though her choice of lifestyle, even after she’s been gone for 13 years.
raven
@cain: fewer
Cameron
If fighting over the gender assignment of a plastic potato gives these people the vapors, I can’t imagine what they think of real human beings.
jonas
This is exactly right. Mailers and emails to the base expressing outrage over gay marriage weren’t bringing in the moolah so much anymore, I guess, so they had to gin up outrage over something else. So here we are. “Do you want your daughter in the bathroom with a maaaaaaaan dressed as a chick? Send money now!” (I always ask, do you want your daughter using the bathroom with this guy? Cause that’s what birth-gender bathroom laws would do…)
Ruckus
@Hungry Joe:
lt is, if your approval of their life is predicted upon feeling somewhat/somehow superior to you, because something, something, BS, BS, god likes me and hates you.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Ha! No, he is human, and a piece of crap.
Of course, I would like to launch him into space. But I wouldn’t want to wish him on innocent ETs.
Roger Moore
@Ksmiami:
Sullivan and people like him never get the connection between the things they’re worried about and the struggles other people are going through because they’re so self-centered. If it doesn’t affect them or someone they care about, it might as well not exist. Solipsism is a hell of a drug.
J R in WV
@Chyron HR:
Perfect!
Me neither!
Roger Moore
@Cameron:
And then than turned out to be a misrepresentation of what was happening. There will continue to be Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, but they’ll be sold under the general Potato Head brand.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Being united by who they hate has been a feature of the Republican electoral strategy for a long time now. It’s just that Trump made it a thing to openly revel in instead of having to create all those silly proxies and code words that Lee Atwater ginned up because he was worried that too many voters would be uncomfortable with open racist and ethnic slurs. You can practically feel the catharsis of Trump voters no longer feeling like they need to hold back.
jonas
@Dee-Lurker: Thanks for sharing. I’ve always been perplexed by the vehemence of some Christians on this issue. Even as the science of sex and gender is showing that — regardless of chromosomes — how we feel and perceive ourselves in terms of gender is highly fluid and non-binary, one way of looking at gender dysphoria and transgenderism is that it *affirms* the traditional idea that one wishes to have a fixed gender identity; the problem is that it doesn’t happen to be the one assigned to them at birth. So I see no reason why conservative Christians can’t embrace a transgender person who truly desires to transition to the opposite sex. That’s the way God made them and they just need some help getting their body to reflect their true gender.
But oh no, it’s all about whether you’ve got a *slidewhistle sound* or a *foghorn sound*.
Lyrebird
@Sister Golden Bear: Just wanna say a few things.
Roger Moore
@jonas:
Somehow, though, it’s very rare to see people suggest going exclusively to individual, non-gendered bathrooms. It might be a bit more expensive, but it would completely solve the problem. It would also make life more convenient for parents who need to take their opposite sex child into the bathroom, people who have shy bladders, and so on. Oh, and it would also eliminate questions about how much more restroom space women need compared to men.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Are you sure he’s human?
Just because he has almost all the possible worst traits of a human being, in one body, doesn’t mean that when they shot him into space, they hadn’t reformed him into a humanoid version of his outer space existence. I mean really, what can you do when you are dealing with that much bullshit?
Dan B
@Ruckus: I believe the logic is: I can save you from your terrible sin. I have found the way is to surrender to Jesus. I’m showing you the way that saved me therefore it’s because of my love for you.
They LOOOOVE!!!! us.
Funny it doesn’t feel like love. Feels an awful lot like judgement.
zhena gogolia
OT
Sarah Palin Reveals COVID Diagnosis and ‘Bizarre’ Symptoms, Urges Others to Continue Wearing Masks
Roger Moore
@jonas:
It’s unlikely to happen because it conflicts with their theological worldview. They see everyone as having been made by God in the way they’re supposed to be, which goes with their basic view of God being perfect and actively involved in the world. Claiming that some people are basically born in the wrong body and need medical help to get the body they need is a direct contradiction of that. It means either that God isn’t making all the decisions or that He made a mistake, neither of which is theologically acceptable. It’s much easier to claim those people are sinners who reject God’s gift.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Republicans have always looked for an enemy to attack to build their political careers. The can’t exist without an enemy, the more the better. They have always attacked fellow Americans because other than tax cuts for the rich, there isn’t much more to the Republican party. Add tax cuts for the rich, benefits cuts for everyone else and pumping money into the military/industrial complex, attacking their fellow Americans is where the votes are at for the party.
They are the enemy and need to be treated as such.
Roger Moore
@zhena gogolia:
It’s never real until it happens to them.
geg6
@cain: There was a study the other day about exactly that (don’t ask me who did it, but it seemed significant). Apparently, Christians who attend a church are at the lowest point ever in modern US history (we’re talking the 20th and 21st centuries; US citizens were often unchurched in the 19th and 18th centuries simply for lack of churches and no time to worry about such garbage while raping the land and beating down indigenous people and Blacks). I think it was a study of 4000 people and the churchy people were only about 47% or so. The last 15-20 years have seen a precipitous drop in religious affiliation here in the US, which explains many things.
narya
@Roger Moore: In the before times, I went to a fair amount of live music, and, of course, the lines for women’s facilities were always much much longer. Except! at the Rush concert. The lines for the men’s facilities were very long, and nonexistent for women’s facilities.
Immanentize
@raven: I have never seen defense attorneys so routinely owned by witnesses. They are constantly violating the three rules of cross examination and the witnesses are cleaning their clocks. Not sure yet where the judge is coming from, but as a friend of mine used to say — they do reveal themselves.
Roger Moore
@narya:
When I was in college, my dorm had non-gendered bathrooms and showers; each one had two stalls. It took a little bit of getting used to, but after a while people got used to sharing the facilities with people of the opposite sex. It just took some common courtesy.
I sincerely think we could switch to having one big bathroom for everyone, and within a few months the biggest complaints would be about who made a mess and who took too long to use the facilities rather than about the idea of sharing them with people of the opposite sex. Unisex group showers would probably not go over as easily, but we could go to individual showers with changing rooms. Again, that would benefit everyone who doesn’t like showering and changing in front of others, not just trans people.
Immanentize
@J R in WV: I thought Biden was going to make all people both gay marry and take puberty blockers. Or was it taco trucks?
What I find seriously funny is that there is a huge addiction and health problem in our country of testosterone and steroid taking men. These amount to puberty extenders.
Feathers
@geg6: One thing that I suspect is going on is that young people are not coming back to church when they have children. The pattern used to be that young people left home, moved out on their own, and didn’t go to church. They did, however, become church goers again after starting a family. There has been a huge movement away from Christianity among young people that I’m not surprised that this propensity to return to church after time away is ending. Part of the whole homeschool movement is to try to not give children a choice in what sort of adult life they will live. Weird coincidence, a dude whose marriage proposal my mother turned down ended up being a plaintiff in one of the big lawsuits demanding the right to homeschool. Been fascinated ever since.
Feathers
@Roger Moore: I remember people freaking out over unisex bathrooms in restaurants. Apparently mostly one holers with a single toilet and sink. Turns out the real reason for it is that men will trash a men’s bathroom, but if you label it as for men or women, it will stay far cleaner. Told this to a wing nut chucklefeck of my acquaintance, he made a horrible face, but did admit that the cleaner bathrooms part was probably true.
Kayla Rudbek
@Roger Moore: and viewing everybody as being in their absolute perfect body is heresy anyway, as all humans are fallen and thus have imperfect bodies. Who’s to say that the brain not agreeing with the body as to gender isn’t another consequence of the Fall? I.e.”and some are made eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Switching off theological mode now)
Jacqueline Squid Onassis
@thebewilderness:
Wow. You said that while exhibiting no embarrassment or shame at all. Wow.
Roger Moore
@Feathers:
I wonder how much of this is because people are tending to start families later. The median age for people being married for the first time in 2018 (the most recent year I could quickly find data for) was almost 28 for women and almost 30 for men. That’s up by about 2 years from a decade earlier, 3 years from 2 decades earlier, and more than 7 years from the low point in the late 1950s. Even if you go by age at the birth of the first child, that’s gone up by something like 5 years compared to the late 1960s. If it’s true that the impetus to go back to church is having a family, the extra time before starting one may break people of the habit and make them less prone to go back.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
There was also a story, maybe in the Economist, suggesting that there is a significant difference in middle and upper class people marrying and having kids later in life, and lower income people having kids at a younger age. I wonder how this might also be related to some people getting or rejecting religion.
Brachiator
@Immanentize:
I live in Southern California. We are so beyond taco trucks.
Also, can we get puberty blockers sprinkled on tacos along with cheese and hot sauce?
Eunicecycle
@Feathers: I remember having to clean both men’s and women’s bathrooms at a restaurant and the men’s was most definitely dirtier. Do guys stand as far away from the urinal as possible to pee? Urine would be all over the walls and floor. I complained and the manager started having the guys clean the men’s room!
Another Scott
@geg6: The GSS has been surveying all kinds of questions about religion for decades.
e.g. Belief in God. “Believe and have no doubts” has fallen off a cliff for 18-34 year olds.
Never attend church was at 30% (for all ages) in 2018 and the rate of change has been increasing. (Another 30% is less than once a year.)
Cheers,
Scott.
senyordave
@Eunicecycle: I live in a town where if you join the association you have access to three huge gyms, an indoor swim center, and 18 outdoor pools. My wife says the women’s locker rooms in general are pretty disgusting. The men’s don’t seem too bad to me, but of course we each have nothing to compare them to. From what she says, women use more towels than men, but that would seem to be the only difference. She says a lot of women don’t even bother putting the towels in the bins, they just leave them on the benches.
senyordave
It’s all about the cruelty. The GOP has to find a group that they can identify as the “other”, people who are perceived to be different enough that they can get away with doing things to make their life difficult. Trans women and trans men are a very small portion of the population and they fit the bill. What I don’t understand is how they get some people who normally identify as liberals to support this type of bill. This bill requires doctors to cease treating adolescents who are undergoing treatment right now. Some of the same people who’ve argued for years that the state has no right to get between a patient, their doctor and their family are in favor of this bill. I’m sure Arkansas has the best interests of a 16 year old with severe gender dysphoria at heart. Fuck J K Rowling, she’s had every opportunity to pull back and she’s doubled down on the hate every time.
Suzanne
One aspect of this case that bothers me is that sports in preK-12 are — or should be — recreational. Like, who cares who wins? Blah blah scholarships? You can also get scholarships by being, you know, scholarly. And your intellect can be equally strong, no matter your physical sex. Sports in high school should be about building healthy lifetime habits, they’re not Olympic competition, for fuck’s sake. You can build healthy lifetime habits with trans teammates.
J R in WV
I for one am glad the trans-phobic trolls have appeared in full flush here today.
I’m putting them into the Pie Safe as I type this. I’m 70 now, and only am close friends with a few gay folks. But I had a dear cousin now passed on who was gay, and we loved one another our entire lives. So now in my newly found maturity I will just pie these trolls and ignore them forever more. So long boys!!
sab
@Suzanne: Had this argument with my stepson who is a huge sports fan but never actually participated, unlike his siblings.
My older sister is insanely competetive and was a swimming star locally in FL and later OH. But when she got to the regionals in FL with Olympic prospects they blew her out of the water.
So we should be barring trans kids from sports so my sister can win, when the Olympic caliber girls would still destroy her. That seems nuts. Local sports aren’t meant to encourage olympians. They are meant to encourage teamwork.
Darkrose
@thebewilderness: Go fuck yourself.
sab
I have been following the trans discussions from both sides for a year now, and whipping around like a weathervane, mostly because I had no actual information. All of these Balloon Juice discussions have been amazingly helpful. Also, oddly, so has NPR.
When I started thinking this I had a nephew who was odd, i.e. not your normal male adolescent. Different interests. Not the usual guy stuff. Normally when favorite nephews grow up they become males and a bit offputting or obnoxious. This kid never did.
But I knew nothing about trans, except that it happened.
When JK Rowling teeted I was initially furious. Then I read her response and was reluctantly sympathetic. Now I am furious again. She is an intelligent woman. What is wrong with her?
That is now my important question. But that is personal to me. What is wrong with these TERFS to make them so obsessively ignorant.
My transition into adult womanhood was uneventful. As a girl child there were injustices but that was life. Nothing much changed. I was still very thin and boyish in shape, so nothing changed in my self-image or the world’s reaction to me.
Talking to my sisters this week, that was not their reaction to adolescence. They found it incredibly traumatic. I didn’t.
TERFS are angry. That should have nothing to do with trans. It has everything to do with cis girls’ adolescense transition, which is not so smooth as everyone thinks.
Betsy
e@Betty Cracker: Thanks! Hope your arm feels better soon too.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Brachiator:
Yes, some of it can be explained by racism. Not all of it, though. All the conservative women I know are anti-feminists, like Trump. They may not like his infidelity, but they see him as a ‘real man’. They actually buy his ridiculous performative masculinity. They see Melania as a ‘real woman’, who stays home, raises their son, mostly stays out of the limelight, and focuses on keeping her appearance pretty and feminine. In fact, I know someone who is ethnically southeast Asian and totally a Q-Anon Trump lover. He is also anti-feminist. He is married, but his wife’s role in the relationship is very traditional.
jonas
@Roger Moore: Some kids are born deaf. Do we just say “oh, well, I guess you’re born with whatever hearing organs you’ve got!”, or does a loving parent do everything they can to make sure their hearing can be restored somehow? Christians are perfectly happy to help people adapt to and overcome other kinds of birth defects or handicaps. Why not mistaken sex assignment?
Ella in New Mexico
Sadly, this is very much a feature, not a bug of these people’s vile attempts to force their religious beliefs into law and medicine.
God’s plan and all.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@The Castle: Okay, this is probably a dead thread anyway, and there are certainly members of this community more qualified to respond, but I can’t ignore the bad faith argument in your post: hormone treatment given to minors does not “change their secondary sexual characteristics”, and if you’re not informed enough about the process to know that, you probably should shut up and listen to people who are, because simply reading about it was obviously too much effort to make before weighing in. Hormone treatment given to minors is in fact given to block the onset of puberty, with its sexual characteristics, to give the individual more time to work through their individual identities. No one is performing sex-change operations on 12 year olds.