I’ve been meaning to get a post up to cover the insane onslaught of anti-trans bills from the last few weeks, but it’s been exhausting to keep up!
First of all, @erininthemorn is doing the heavy journalistic work that most major news sources have been ignoring. She deserves a damn medal for her work, and I highly encourage you to follow and support her independent journalism. It’s been extremely frustrating that trans issues are falling under the radar when so much has been happening. Two years before Roe v. Wade was struck down, I was chatting with a trans friend about how there were 87 anti-trans bills in state legislatures, and how upsetting it was that pro-choice advocates and cis-women couldn’t see that if trans people were losing their bodily agency, that abortion and women’s bodies were next on the docket… Now we are in a veritable ocean of legislation targeted at both, and we have to remember that these fights are linked.
Greg Abbot has officially directed Family and Protective Services to begin investigating all trans children in Texas and prosecuting their parents as child abusers.
He has also instructed all teachers, doctors, and caregivers to begin reporting any trans students they see. pic.twitter.com/AO4FdYNuym
— Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) February 23, 2022
This is still in effect a year later, as it was first blocked by a lower court, but then the TX Supreme Court rapidly overruled that judgement… This has been the foundation for the recent bounty hunter laws. The ACLU has a great article about Texas’ attempts to Tear Parents and Trans Youth Apart One Year Later…
And in recent cruelty, HB150 passing in Kentucky, “combines Don’t Say Gay policies, forced outing, pronoun bans, and a gender affirming care ban for trans youth has one last cruel wrinkle: it tells doctors exactly how they are to medically detransition the trans teens under their care. It passed the House and was immediately rushed to the Senate for final passage, where it passed 30-7 on a nearly party line vote.”
Rep White cruelly stands and says, “This is a sissy bill. I voted yes but I wanted more teeth in it.”
Holy hell how cruel. pic.twitter.com/3lMReSzX2w
— Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) March 16, 2023
And it’s become very very clear that what is happening across out country is an intentional, well-planned campaign of hatred that is not based in science or healthcare, but is about making it difficult and shameful to be transgender…
Inside the Secret Working Group That Helped Push Anti-Trans Laws Across the Country
Leaked emails give a glimpse of the religious-right networks behind transgender health care bans.
On a Saturday afternoon in August 2019, South Dakota Republican state Rep. Fred Deutsch sent an email to 18 anti-trans activists, doctors, and lawyers withthe text of a bill he planned to introduce that would make it a felony for doctors to give transgender children under 16 gender-affirming medical care. “I have no doubt this will be an uphill battle when we get to session,” Deutsch warned the group. “As always, please do not share this with the media. The longer we can fly under the radar the better.”
The message was one in a trove of emails obtained by Mother Jones between Deutsch and representatives of a network of activists and organizations at the forefront of the anti-trans movement. They show the degree to which these activists shaped Deutsch’s repressive legislation, a version of which was signed into law in February, and the tactics, alliances, and goals of a movement that has sought to foist their agenda on a national scale.
The emails demonstrate close collaboration between groups working behind the scenes to push bills banning transgender health care, including ADF—which has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people in Europe—and the ACPeds—which has opposed adoption by gay couples and supported conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth. In recent years, ADF has drafted legislation banning trans children from using school restrooms or playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. (Both groups are also staunchly anti-abortion; ADF, which drafted the Mississippi abortion ban at the heart of the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, is currently representing ACPeds in a closely-watched lawsuit to ban an abortion pill, mifepristone, nationally.)
“These are groups who we know are not interested in the best-practice care for trans kids,” says Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel for the Human Rights Campaign. “These bills are coming from national organizations whose purpose is to harm LGBTQ people.”
More than half of transgender and nonbinary kids have considered suicide, according to a 2021 survey by the Trevor Project, and 93 percent say they worry about state laws denying transgender people access to gender-affirming medical care. This treatment approach—which typically includes puberty blockers for pubescent children, cross-sex hormones for teenagers or adults, and, almost exclusively for adults, surgeries—represents a broad medical agreement that such care can be crucial for supporting trans kids’ wellbeing. Gender-affirming care is supported by the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society, and other major medical organizations. And studies have found that it is associated with better mental health outcomes over both short and longer-term periods
Highly recommend you read the whole article!
More soon, but this is as far as I can play in the anti-trans waters today without getting overwhelmed <3
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
This shit makes me sick. What the fuck is wrong with these people [sic]? How do they sleep at night? I really don’t get it.
JPL
An anti-trans law, which prevents hormone treatment of children is heading to the desk of Brian Kemp. There are some exceptions, but not enough. Let’s let doctors be doctors. I hate this shit.
Brachiator
And it’s become very very clear that what is happening across out country is an intentional, well-planned campaign of hatred that is not based in science or healthcare, but is about making it difficult and shameful to be transgender…
As with the anti-abortion measures, this is all justified as part of “protecting” babies and children.
In addition to the cruelty and hatred is an increasing rejection of science often, ironically, in the name of “liberty.”
cain
Through this, our healthcare will also be under attack – anything that can be used to help transgender folks transition will likely be banned even though they are useful for straight women/men for hormone imbalance.
I can imagine that going through menopause is going to be a lot harder for some who might need hormone therapy.
Prenatal healthcare, pregnancy support – we are going to see some serious problems and they of course will stubbornly not change and double down. Evil fucks.
Geo Wilcox
Nothing more than Christian Nationalist making sure no one ever has any fun. Fuck ’em all with a red hot poker (although I suspect some would enjoy that a bit too much).
The Up and Up
I follow people who retweet/boost Erin’s posts. I sometimes hear from others mired in a Southern hellscape on how blessed I am to reside in a trans friendly state.
West of the Cascades
Better news out of New Mexico last week – https://nmpoliticalreport.com/2023/03/16/guv-signs-reproductive-and-gender-affirming-healthcare-act-into-law/ –
The Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Healthcare Act, which prohibits public bodies from discriminating against reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare, is one of two significant reproductive rights bills before the Legislature this year. This was the first to pass the Legislature and be signed into law. The other bill, the Reproductive Health Provider Protections, is currently waiting to be heard on the House floor [AND I BELIEVE THAT ONE HAS NOW PASSED, TOO]
Old School
All the attacks by states are maddening.
However, the Texas story is over a year old and was blocked by the courts last fall. I think it is still blocked unless you know otherwise.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geo Wilcox: Not to nitpick, but this is a bigger issue than not wanting people to have fun. People will die because of these moves.
Sister Golden Bear
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you for calling this out. It is indeed a matter or life or death for trans kids and adults. About 40% of trans kids attempt suicide because life is that awful for them — and that study was done before the current tsunami of anti-trans legislation. Gender affirming care brings that attempted suicide rate to almost comparable to cis-het teens
And thank you again Eddie for your work. I’m also having trouble keeping up on all the genocide Republicans are implementing.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
Some of the people making these moves or pushing for them to be made intend that people will die because of these moves. Some of those have made public statements asserting that trans people should die. Many more such statements have been made in private forums. They are murderous bigots, and these bigots should not be treated politely, or even as normal humans with valid claims of moral behavior.
MisterDancer
Fuck yes. Trans people are already dying over the harassment these laws and hate rhetoric generate alone, as I alluded to in an earlier comment.
None of what comes out of these spaces is just what it looks. It’s about creating followers (and thus money/power) thru feeding them hate and power-over other, fellow humans.
Jay
Thank you planet eddie, please make sure that you take care of yourself. We need these posts.
Sister Golden Bear
Also worth noting that one major reason there’s far fewer older trans people is because we’re the only one who survived. So many of us died without ever coming out of the closet.
It’s common among trans kids to be shocked to see an adult trans person with gray hair. They assume they’ll never live long enough to go gray.
Mallard Filmore
Last night, BellyCat suggested I post this in today’s thread:
YouTube:
link: https://youtu.be/kT0HJkr1jj4
title: “Science Proves There are More than Two Human Sexes”
(XXY, XYY, XX that develop as men, XY that develop as women (maybe fully functional too), or develop as both.)
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9YAFYIBOU
title: “Trans athletes in women’s sports: Is this fair?”
Evinfuilt
@Bill Arnold:
When I came out to my parents (early 2000s) they literally told me they wished I would die. They wanted to have a funeral for me, and just cut me off and pretend I no longer exist. So yes, the goal is the death of all Transgendered people.
Lapassionara
I know we hate the effin NYTimes, but its Sunday Opinion Section contained a piece by a Rabbi who pointed out the places in scripture where there are more genders than male and female. He made a Biblical-based argument for the acceptance of trans women and men. Very interesting I thought.
Joy in FL
Before I finished reading your post, I called my state senator. I asked him to treat transgender people as human beings with rights under the law. It’s Florida, and he is GOP, so my voicemail will not affect the evil the legislature will continue to do. But I had to call, and I wanted you to know.
Thank you for your post and for being you.
Tim C.
@Evinfuilt: If my kids ever came out to me, I would have to decide if I would make the now classic, “Hi Trans! I’m Dad!” Dad Joke or to give them a hug and say “How can I help?” first.
planet eddie
@Old School:
From what I know, the Texas Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s injunction. And the ACLU says the directive is still in effect.
https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/texas-attempt-to-tear-parents-and-trans-youth-apart-one-year-later
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/13/1098779201/texas-supreme-court-transgender-gender-affirming-child-abuse
I updated the post to reflect that this law is still current and certainly not old news!
bbleh
The Nazis have identified a target they think they can successfully demonize and bully. And I fear that in some states, at least for now, they may not be wrong about that.
As much as I support efforts to fight this kind of literally lethal bigotry, if I were trans or the parent of a trans kid, and living in Texas — or anywhere in the neo-Confederacy — I’d develop an escape plan. I’d have advised a Jew living in Germany in the 1930s to do the same. Doesn’t mean now is the time, but I’d have it as a fallback.
They’ll fail eventually. This is about their last ditch*, but people will be injured terribly and even die because of them. I’d plan on not being one of their victims.
* yes they managed a salient on reproductive rights, but it won’t last long IMO
UncleEbeneezer
@Evinfuilt: Wow, that is absolutely horrible. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.
planet eddie
@Sister Golden Bear: The amount of times I meet younger trans folks and they are just so astounded to meet a thriving “older” trans person… :(
LesGS
A proposed anti-trans Florida law (Bill 254) is looking like it could be read so that children could be removed from a parent if that parent is receiving gender affirming care. (“The disapproving parent could take temporary custody of children if “it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because the child, or a sibling or parent of the child” is “at risk of or is being subjected to the provision of sex reassignment prescriptions or procedures””).
When I finally figured out what was up with me back in the late 1990s, I was terrified to come out to my husband for fear he would divorce me, and that he would be given complete custody of the kids (then around 7 and 10) and I’d never see them again. It was a miserable year for both of us before I finally broke down and told him. We did manage to work it out; we’re still married and the kids are in their 30s and fine. (Well, a little quirky, but they were born that way.)
When I first read that Florida bill, my breath caught and my heart leapt as I flashed back to that year of terrified silence. These laws are just brutal, gunning for people who are already in a vulnerable situation.
Old School
@Lapassionara:
Interesting. Here’s a (non-gift) link to the column for those interested.
MomSense
The involvement of family and protective services in Texas is absolutely horrifying. This is a tragedy. I know families are settled and it’s so hard to pick up your life and move, but I would seriously consider getting the fuck out.
narya
@Sister Golden Bear: Just sent you a follow request on mastodon–GingerChef.
Another Scott
@Mallard Filmore: Biology is complicated and always has been. Trying to force people into binary boxes has never been “natural”, it’s about social control and is anti-science.
Remember Lydia Fairchild.
We cannot let the monsters win, for all kinds of reasons.
Thanks for this, eddie and everyone. Keep up the fight.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
Republican love stealing children away from their parents.
narya
@planet eddie: I wish I could introduce you to a couple of local folks. One came out VERY late, and another has been out forever, but both in their 60s. It’s lovely. The one one who came out late is currently dealing w/ cancer, so is living as male ATM; the side effect is that this has enabled her to reconcile with the ex-wife and the kid who was not on board, and I understand that they have become more accepting (don’t know for sure). Mostly I want her to recover from the cancer so I can start taking her wine classes again!
The Up and Up
@cain:
Here is a
Jessica Mason Pieklo, Imani Gandy – Boom! Lawyered 6 March podcast
https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/03/06/the-political-war-on-trans-people/
They have a one about Conservatives targeting pharmacies also. Walgreens doesn’t do HRT in my neck of the woods.
also
March 31 is Trans Day of Visibility. Just FYI
Lapassionara
@Old School: Thank you. I still haven’t figured out linking on an iPad. I read the dead tree version, then gave it to my granddaughter who is trying to be an ally at her school.
Bill Arnold
@Evinfuilt:
That sucks. Sorry that you had to go through that. Was there ever any sort of change on their part?
artem1s
I get your frustration but pro-choice advocates and cis women have been screaming into the wilderness that it wasn’t just abortion that was under attack for 50 years prior to Dodd. We were told not be so hysterical.
WaterGirl
@Sister Golden Bear:
That’s chilling.
eversor
Keep making the mistake this all about trans and not about Christianity and we will all lose everything. It’s Christianity full stop that is the issue. Women, gay marriage, trans, it’s all about Christianity. Either take Christianity out or give up. And if you aren’t willing to take out Christianity than there is no point in any of these fights
Anybody who is not anti Christian is anti trans, anti woman, anti gay, and pro patriarchy and brutality full stop. Worse than a fascist. Get rid of Christianity.
Sister Golden Bear
@Evinfuilt: I’m so sorry. Unfortunately this isn’t uncommon. I know someone who was disowned by her entire extended family only 3-4 years ago. Hugs, if hugs are OK.
@Joy in FL: Thank you for allying.
Argiope
@MomSense: it’s also terrible for the people who work at child protective services. I’m a mandated reporter (healthcare) and I think we need to rise up en masse and refuse to cooperate. The social workers, physicians and nurses need to just decide not to comply. I’m not sure how we organize to do that, but professional ethics demand we push back. Looking to organize with colleagues if anyone has any ideas for me.
Sister Golden Bear
@eversor: I personally know a number of pro-trans cis-het Christians who are actively fighting for our rights. So you can take your jeremiad and kindly fuck off into the sun.
Another Scott
@eversor: On the off-chance that today you’re willing to think that maybe you’re wrong, I submit that it’s not just about “Christianity.”
International Sociology:
It’s about reactionary politics, punching down, and not religion.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@eversor:
“I Don’t Want to Change Myself” – Anti-LGBT Conversion Practices, Discrimination, and Violence in Malaysia
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
Heh. I see what you etymologically did there.
planet eddie
@artem1s: I mean, we can go back back (way back) and see how these things are linked. There were anti-drag laws from the mid 1850s that were used against both women and trans folks through the early 1900s all the way up to (and past) Stonewall.
Technically a lot of those laws are still on the books! As well as “trans panic” laws that allow people to murder transgender people due to temporary insanity.
These things have always been linked, but many cis-women do not fight for their more marginalized siblings, or worse yet go the JK Rowling path of claiming that trans people are trying to harm women’s rights. My masters at Brown was partially focused on the anti-trans feminist movement, and it’s devastating.
Frank Wilhoit
Okay, folks. Here we go.
This is what happens when you say that racism is “the” problem. Or that anti-Semitism is “the” problem. Or single out any other class of victims.
Raise the cost of one victim and you cut the cost of all the others.
It is no good trying to manage a bully one victim at a time. All victims are fungible. All victims are victims of convenience. The convenience starts off with “looks different”, which is as cheap and lazy as you can get. This class and that class are made more expensive, until finally here we are talking about the victimization of classes whose convenience is that they are not already protected by black-letter Federal law.
Do you see?
There are no downstream solutions to upstream problems. The bully is the problem, not his instantaneous choice of target.
narya
@planet eddie: I remember reading a short story (no idea where . . .) that talked about laws requiring women to wear a prescribed number of pieces of women-identified clothing or face arrest. The story posited a space-time wrinkle that enabled the folks in the story to avoid that crap.
planet eddie
@eversor: There is a long history of trans oppression in numerous countries and cultures that are not Christian. One of the TERF movements in this country is premised within a female-born Wiccanism that celebrates the binary of gender…
So… no…
Chacal Charles Calthrop
Kudos to everyone here for your hard work & thanks for keeping the rest of us informed.
Here in indigo NYC, it’s hard to find conservative judges, but the real estate lobby seems to find them in family court, where all the worse judges seem to get their start. And it seems to me that one of the lizard-brain-level differences between liberals and conservatives is that liberals worry about other people’s money (who has too much, who has too little, who abuses their wealth to have power over other people) and conservatives worry about other people’s sex (in the form of supporting a social hierarchy based on sex). Insisting that biology has to be simple and always supports the favored hierarchy would be part of that. Trust me, those judges are incapable of understanding complexity in other areas of the law as well — it’s just that there isn’t an equivalent simple version of credit derivatives.
planet eddie
@narya: Feel free to introduce via email! I always love to meet glorious trans folks :D
narya
@planet eddie: Hah! I will do that when I’m back out in the world again and see them!
Kay
The anti woke ninnies have a new theory they pulled out of their ass:
They have announced that liberalism is a mental disorder. They all agree with this theory because they all read one anothers substacks, and nothing else.
These people are absolutely no different than the Fox hosts who blame bank failures on The Woke.
There’s another thing I’ve noticed. A lot of the anti woke warriors supported invading Iraq.
Ninnies then and ninnies now. Then were afraid of WMD now they’re afraid of the Oberlin student council.
jonas
Well of course. Feature, not a bug.
I cannot eat as much as I want to vomit at these fucking pieces of shit in these red states.
livewyre
I’d ask you-know-who (the one who was already cautioned with a ban from the topic) to put down the wedge issue splitting off religion from social progress, but the wedge is being pushed for a reason. The fewer allies and organizing structures we have access to, the easier we are to exterminate. And this one has dissembled and backpedaled using pretty much every Gish-gallop fallacy in the book, in previous discussions. That leaves hate.
Sister Golden Bear
@planet eddie:
It was indeed.
That said, Trans Day of Visibility is coming on the 31st. I’m not sure if you were planning to do any posts about it, but I was thinking of putting one together. Especially in these dark days, it’s critical to also point out trans/non-binary joy and celebration.
UncleEbeneezer
In the spirit of knowing our enemies, I was listening to an excellent podcast about the deputy gangs in LASD, it mentioned a group called the Council For National Policy, which is a coalition of extremist, right-wing people/groups that meet and drive a lot of this stuff. Scroll through their Membership list and it’s a veritable who’s who of right-wing scumbags, politicians and hate groups:
“The Council for National Policy (CNP) is an umbrella organization and networking group for conservative and Republican activists in the United States. It was launched in 1981 during the Reagan administration by Tim LaHaye and the Christian right, to “bring more focus and force to conservative advocacy”.[1][2][3] The membership list for September 2020 was later leaked, showing that members included prominent Republicans and conservatives, wealthy entrepreneurs, and media proprietors, together with anti-abortion and anti-Islamic extremists. Members are instructed not to reveal their membership or even name the group.[4]
The CNP has been described by The New York Times as “a little-known club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country”, who meet three times yearly behind closed doors at undisclosed locations for a confidential conference.[5] The Nation has called it a secretive organization that “networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy”.[6] The organization has been described by Anne Nelson as a “pluto-theocracy” (plutocracy/theocracy).[7]”
In 2022, our former Sheriff Villanueva attended their SoCal conference and was photographed with a virulent Transphobe. You can see the Meeting Program here. Speakers included members/founders of:
Promise Keepers, Heritage Foundation, Family Foundation of VA, First Liberty, America First Policy Institute, Alliance Defending Freedom, American Principles Project and Calvary Temple. All of whom spread Transphobia and actively fight expansion of LGBTQ laws.
As that great article above notes, this Trans Panic has been very organized at the highest levels of the Right.
rikyrah
These are evil, rotten people. The entire lot of them.
Just pus-filled with hate.
skerry
@narya: I’m old enough to remember when girls had to wear skirts/dresses to school. I was sent home in fifth grade for wearing a “pantsuit.”
I worry returning to those days may be a goal for the anti-everything crowd.
Baud
@skerry:
They don’t have a fixed goal. They will push for more until they are denied more.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
This. A great example is how they started going after trans kids and as soon as that looked possible started to go after trans adults. Pretty soon, any sign of gender nonconformity will be punishable, and they’re the ones who will get to define what standard people are supposed to conform to. Of course it isn’t just gender they care about. Race, religion, national origin, and whatever other scheme you can imagine to divide people up into smaller groups will be used to do just that. Everyone will have to behave the way they say.
Suzanne
@skerry:
That is absolutely the goal. They want women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. Trans people eradicated from public life. White cis het patriarchy.
UncleEbeneezer
WTF are you even talking about? So this wouldn’t have happened if people had refrained from saying “Black Lives Matter” or “Transgender Rights Are Human Rights?” You think groups/people focussing on, prioritizing and fighting for their identities is what caused this? You think the GOP/Nazis would have just left LGBTQ People alone if our side just stuck with some sort of “Up With People” general slogan? You think this is an appropriate response to this post written by someone in the cross-hairs, whose group is being singled out for this horrific political assault? Seriously??
Fair Economist
@Roger Moore:
We’re already there, with these drag laws. Republic of Gideon express.
Dan B
@Baud: Uganda passed a law that makes it illegal to tell people you’re LGBTQ. Ten years on prison. They believe the West is pushing its values on Uganda. The anti-LGBTQ laws are from the colonial era. It’s already a life sentence for sodomy.
The next step is extermination.
cmorenc
@eversor: “Christianity must be taken out” is frankly one of the stupidest, most futilely counterproductive proposals ever. The enemy is the perversion of the sort of self-righteous authoritarian fanaticism that infects segments other religions than just Christianity, eg muslims in the mideast, or hinduism in india. The basic premise of Christianity is not grounded in hatred, but in love and acceptance – consider the parable of Christ saving the adultress from being stoned to death by a mob “let he who is without sin throw the first stone”.
From a pure tactical standpoint of persuasion, you will get deeply counterproductive results telling people Christianity must be destroyed. Better to relentlessly remind less fanatic christians about the parable of christ and the woman getting stoned, etc, and what the New Testament was actually about.
Frankly, I am offended by your own hateful fanaticism intolerantly painting everyone of Christian religion with the colors of evil self- righteous fanatics who are perverting it with their own hateful bigoted natures.
Omnes Omnibus
@eversor: Please go blow a goat. Assuming you can find a consenting goat.
Baud
@Dan B:
Authoritarians use the same tactics everywhere because it has a proven track record.
Bill Arnold
@planet eddie:
Is that related to Dianic Wicca/Zsuzsanna Budapest? That, in the strong genetic determinism variant, is some arrogantly incorrect dogma, curiously with (very) very old roots. (Though the trans-woman-accepting softer version (female mind states are fine) is … [not wrong]. Superposition of different-gendered mind states for the absolute win, though. :-)
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne:
Fixed it for you. They’re already talking about it. But otherwise spot on. And also a fundamentalist Christian theocracy with dominion over everyone else.
Roger Moore
@Fair Economist:
They’re just the start. They’re vaguely worded and apply only to men wearing women’s clothing. Just wait until they start making them more detailed and specific, and start telling women they aren’t allowed to wear “men’s” clothing, like pants.
They’ll also try to control popular culture, by declaring anything that doesn’t conform to their rigid rules to be obscene. If you want to broadcast your TV show in Florida, all the women’s outfits will have to pass muster with Florida decency laws. Oh, and you won’t be allowed to portray forbidden kinds of relationships, or whatever else they get in their minds.
prostratedragon
@Mallard Filmore: I remember my genetics prof trying to get the class to see this and take it seriously, in about 1972 (some of us did). I really don’t see why the idea — the fact — of variation in fundamental gender elicits such terror in many people.
Sister Golden Bear
A bit of good news — Erin Reed reports that Maryland’s legislature passed a bill yesterday requiring Medicaid to cover modern gender-affirming care procedures for economically disadvantaged trans residents. As the fourth state to mandate coverage of these modern standards of care, Maryland has positioned itself among the most protective states for transgender people.
Joy in FL
@Sister Golden Bear: absolutely.
Alison Rose
@eversor: Other people have already told you to fuck off, but I’m also gonna once again tell you to fuck off with this shit. WE FUCKING GET IT. You hate Christians. We get it. You never shut the fuck up about it…you know, kind of like fundie Christians.
There are queer Christians. There are trans Christians. There are feminist Christians. And there are cis het white male Christians who have the backs of all the others. So no, it’s not “Christianity” that’s the problem, it’s some people’s interpretation of Christianity that’s the problem.
You seriously need to stop this shit. It’s not cute, it’s not edgy, it’s not speaking truth to power or whatever the hell it is you think you’re doing. It’s insulting and childish and stupid as hell. You come across like a complete braindead dipshit when you say stuff like this. Blather about it in your group chat and stop bringing it here.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
👍
kalakal
@eversor: Good thinking Captain Category Error*. Let’s murder or forcibly recondition over a quarter of the world’s population, that’ll make for a planet filled with piece, love and tolerance for all. Do seriously think you are going to achieve a positive result by advocating death on a scale only exceeded in history by the Bubonic Plague? To win people to your way of thinking?
You keep hammering on at this, doesn’t the pushback tell you anything?
* i know it’s fallacy of composition amongst others
Roger Moore
@prostratedragon:
Note that this is about biological sex, not about gender. Gender is the social construct we’ve built around biological sex. To put it another way, male and female are about sex; masculine and feminine are about gender.
I think the gender angle is exactly why some people get so worked up about anything associated with biological sex. They are gender essentialists; they believe there are only two genders that are immutably tied to one’s biological sex at birth. The last thing they want to hear about is all the weird ways biological sex can differ from their rigid binary view. If biological sex is more complicated than male and female, then gender can’t be as simple as masculine and feminine.
As an example, this is exactly why so most intersex babies have sex assignment surgery. People don’t want to deal with the complications of having a baby who doesn’t conform to their ideal, so they surgically coerce them into conformity.
prostratedragon
UncleEbenezer@54: Aha. The original Fight Club.
prostratedragon
skerry@56: No need to worry.
Dan B
@Roger Moore: In India there is little sex assignment because there are few who can afford the cost. Before the British the nearly 2% of intersex, called Hijra, were sent to l8ve with others as family. They were regarded as good luck and paid to appear at weddings. Today they intimidate people and demand a payoff to go away. We ran into some at a stoneyard in Gurgaon, a suburb of Delhi. I was fascinated but Rekha was frightened so the proprietors 0aid them off. It’s sad what the Brits did to these people.
planet eddie
@Sister Golden Bear: let’s do it!! Maybe we can collab :)
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: Maybe Frank will clarify his remarks, but I think he’s saying we have to stick together against the common enemy or be picked off one group at a time.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Because they’re so “pro-family.”
prostratedragon
Roger Moore@75:
If biological sex is more complicated than male and female, then gender can’t be as simple as masculine and feminine.
And? Not challenging you at all, just failing to see why these facts about her/him/they over there should be such a threat to “me” here. Call it analytical interest: most of us have to accommodate on a regular basis to realities that turn out to violate our preconception.
ColoradoGuy
Hating on the gays was a winning strategy for the GOP for more than forty years. Think about the explosion that Gays In The Military caused Bill Clinton (and helped win control of Congress for Newt Gingrich), and initiative after initiative that demonized gay people … and helped elect Reagan.
The GOP hasn’t forgotten that hate, pitched just the right way, wins elections in many parts of the country. They have been the party of hate since the HUAC Joe McCarthy/Richard Nixon/Roy Cohn days … that’s their true base, and they know it.
Quiltingfool
@Another Scott: There was a Discovery (I think) documentary about Lydia Fairchild’s case. I taught genetics in my 8th grade science class (very, very basic, lol) and in class we watched the documentary as an introduction to chimerism. The kids were fascinated and we had some great discussions.
The discussions weren’t solely about chimerism, though. Lydia was white, and the father of her children were black. The state “assumed” that Lydia was just looking for a check and had gotten her children from her sister. Her family was flabbergasted, as her mother had been present at the birth of Lydia’s first child. The state had a person present during the birth of the second child, so when the child and Lydia had no shared DNA they had to rethink their position.
Karen was also a chimera who did not discover this until she needed a kidney transplant and it was found that none of her 3 sons shared her DNA! One son had more alleles in common with Karen’s brother! Karen felt that she was not doubted (as Lydia was) as her sons’ mother because she was a white woman, a teacher, and was seen by the community as “respectable.”
My students were mostly from low-income rural families, and although they were all white, they knew that because they were poor, (white trash), they probably would have been disbelieved, the same as Lydia.
The documentary did double duty.
planet eddie
@Sister Golden Bear: yes!!! I just saw that! I wanna post something more optimistic later this week.
Bill Arnold
@Roger Moore:
This essay, inspired by a 2008 California referendum to ban same sex marriage, covers a lot of modes by which gender phenotype at birth does not correspond with basic(/naive) XX/XY genetics. (Author is IIRC a lawyer, and from the text is trans-supportive.)
Kudzu and the California Marriage Amendment (Rick Moen, August 25, 2008, last updated October 21, 2018)
[sample]
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: Possibly, but he said it in a very disingenuous, bad faith, strawman way. Because this:
is complete bullshit. No one has ever said that. No one has said only racism matters, or only antisemitism, or only transphobia. He pulled this “argument” out of his ass, and if he meant to say “we should all have each other’s backs” there were far better ways to put it.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: Ok that I totally agree with that. But what he’s saying reads an awful lot like the scolding that is regularly meted out towards marginalized groups to police their tone when they dare center their own struggles.
Jacqueline Squid Onassis
Yeah, it’s been bad and it’s going to get worse for us. The only thing keeping me afloat this week was the video of some Proud Boys getting run out of NYC when they tried to intimidate a Drag Queen Story Hour.
I feel confident that we’ll win this battle in the long run but that does nothing to stop the cruelty nor the pain and lost lives in the trans community.
UncleEbeneezer
@Alison Rose: This. It’s reminiscent of the “You mean, ‘ALL Lives’ Matter” response we saw even from many on the Left, when BLM first came to prominence, from people in our coalition who resented the idea of centering Black Lives. It reeks of sentiments that those people are somehow messing up our unity which is just another version of blaming GOP cruelty/extremism on Identity Politics.
Jacqueline Squid Onassis
@Sister Golden Bear:
It’s easy to be an old, grey haired trans lady if you don’t transition until your 50s. I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to maintain the ability of trans people to transition earlier rather than later in life. I sure wish I’d been able to do so.
RaflW
@JPL: “Let’s let doctors be doctors. I hate this shit.”
@Brachiator: “In addition to the cruelty and hatred is an increasing rejection of science often, ironically, in the name of ‘liberty.’”
Yes and yes. They’re connected. The all-out push to discredit Fauci has been about far more than just denying that Covid needed to change how society functioned for a time. It was, i believe, an opportunistic attack by broader anti-science, anti-progress, nutbag conservatives.
The Idaho GOP’s response to the closing of the hospital OB GYN practice has been to say “midwifery!” Of course there is nothing at all wrong with midwifes. Many countries have far more midwives and better maternal outcomes. But they also have hospitals and obstetrics when, as the do, things go wrong.
These assholes I suspect want just midwives. Probably fellow Chirstofacist midwives. “Under his Wings” as Mother Jones reported from S.D.
Frank Wilhoit
@Alison Rose: There are uncountably many instances, recent and historical, of persons saying exactly these things. Exceptions are rare. This by itself is not what matters: what matters is the victim-oriented perspective, which makes such errors automatic.
My point is that nothing is about the victims, any victims, even if the victims say it is about the victims. It is all and only about the bullies. Denied one victim, they at once choose another. Denied any human victims, they will pull the wings off flies. There is no coexistence with them. The only thing you can do with a bully is hit him, once, so hard that the shock never fades. I had to do this when I was six. The purpose of society, if it had one, is so that no six-year-old, or any-year-old, should have to do that: it should have already been done for them.
I repeat (breach of etiquette though it be) that to raise the cost of one victim lowers the cost of every other. Historical examples abound. Wait and watch: the bullies who are the subject of the OP will pivot to a cheaper victim as soon as one emerges. At what price will you buy that?
TriassicSands
Apologies for the length.
I (old, straight, white male) completely agree. However, considering the current media, there is no chance that anti-trans actions will ever be able to compete with an ex-president about to be indicted, even if it is for what must be the least important criminality in which he has engaged. Hell, they can’t even compete with a routine Trump rally.
The political coverage priorities of the MSM are almost always wrong, especially when there is news about Donald Trump and the neo-fascist Republicans. The Washington Post parades its “Democracy Dies in Darkness” nonsense around while constantly shining the light on the wrong things or, sometimes, turning it out altogether. The Times continues its bothsiderism and false equivalence. For both the “horse race” is what matters most.
Apparently, violating the rights of what is a relatively small community — when compared with the 74,000,000 idiots and bigots who voted for a criminal in the last presidential election — is not really all that important. Both the Post and the Times, detract from what good actual journalism they do, by continuing to cover the GOP as if it were just another ordinary responsible governing partner. Television and cable news shows continue to invite authoritarian thugs to speak on their shows, often with little or no push back no matter how blatant the lies become. They elevate access above every other journalistic value. Of course, it’s sooo important to hear one thug after another stand up and spout vile nonsense and undemocratic lies and have the questioner fail to challenge them in any meaningful way.
In the case of every Republican politician who claims Trump won in 2020 or who voted to overturn the election, if they are to appear on a broadcast program (or any venue) operated by supposed journalists, they should be immediately questioned about their past votes, their continued aiding and abetting of Trump, and the Republican goal of achieving one permanent majority party through bigotry, disenfranchisement, and the violation of the rights of human beings. If American voters were well-informed (and significantly more engaged and intelligent), we would already have achieved such a goal, but one with the Democrats in the majority. The thought today that in January 2025, the GOP could control the White House and both houses of Congress is almost too horrendous to contemplate.
Today, the assault on the rights and safety of the LGBTQ+ community is absolutely among the most important domestic issues of our time. If their rights are threatened, no one’s rights are safe.
Sister Golden Bear
@Jacqueline Squid Onassis: Agree on both counts. I also wish I’d been able to transition decades earlier.
@TriassicSands:
I dunno, the FTFNYT has somehow found a way to run trans hit piece after trans hit piece. Just saying….
Frank Wilhoit
@UncleEbeneezer: No class of victims are the problem, and the class of all victims is not the problem. The bullies are the problem, the problem, the only problem, and the root cause. By definition, if you are cleaning up behind them, they are still ahead of you; and if you try to block them going in one direction, they will go in another. Bullies don’t care if you make one victim more expensive than another; they can pivot faster than you can congratulate yourself. Deny them human victims and they will abuse animals; deny them animals and they will mutilate plants; deny them any living thing and they will attack their inanimate physical surroundings. You have seen this; everyone has.
Roger Moore
@prostratedragon:
It’s a threat to biblical literalists. It’s right there in Genesis, not only that God created humans as male and female, but that he did so in His own image. A human who isn’t male or female but something in between is monstrous, a rejection of God’s plan for humanity. Someone who knowingly rejects their sex assigned at birth is rejecting God.
Alison Rose
@Frank Wilhoit: Point me to any post, comment, article, etc, where someone says “The only oppression that matters is this one”. Don’t just say “people have said” if you can’t back it up with receipts. While it is true that a particular marginalized group might focus more intently on the harm being done to their community, that does not mean that they do not care about other communities, and in fact, many of us who are marginalized exist in multiple communities at once. But if something particularly horrid has happened, then you might narrow your focus temporarily. That does not imply a complete disregard of focus on others. You are choosing to read something into it that is not there.
I don’t even understand your “it’s not about victims” shit. Victims matters. Victims should be heard and listened to and supported and given space to take the lead when they want to. But again, no one has ever said we should ONLY focus on victims and not on their attackers. What the fuck do you think the point of Eddie’s posts have been, or Erin’s, or Sister Golden Bear’s comments, etc, regarding attacks on the trans community? They’re not saying “let’s all sit around in a drum circle sharing our stories of harm”, they’re giving us concrete, actionable information about the bullies so that we can all do our part to help them fight back.
Removing victims from the conversation ERASES THE REAL WORLD IMPACT AND HARM OF THE BULLIES. You are telling people who are already marginalized and oppressed and at risk of harm or death to shut up and disappear because you don’t like the way they are discussing or fighting their own victimization. That is utter bullshit.
No one is “raising the cost of one victim” at the expense of another. I honestly don’t even know where the hell you’re getting this from. But I think you really need to think twice about saying shit like this on these posts, or this blog, or the internet.
Sister Golden Bear
@Frank Wilhoit: I think I get what you’re saying, but honestly you’re coming across like this is more of a theoretical exercise, rather than, ya know, Republicans committing genocide against us.
Of course,
bulliesRepublicans switch targets depending on who they think is vulnerable and who they think they can gin up the most moral panic against. No shit. They switched to trans people because LGB people gained enough acceptance that it was (temporarily) politically unacceptable for them to continue the same level of vitriol. But it comes off like you’re blaming those LGB people for Republicans switching targets. But maybe I’m lost in a sea of your words.Legendary gay activist José Sarria put it far more succinctly: “United we stand, divided they catch us one by one.”
@Alison Rose:
It is indeed.
Sister Golden Bear
@Alison Rose:
St. Bernard of the Northeastern Mountains and his followers have said class is the only thing that matters — but they’re full of shit. The TERFs think that the supposed oppression of
womenwhite, middle-class British mums is the only oppression that matters. But the former aren’t really relevant in mainstream politics, nor anywhere not on Twitter, and the latter are, ya know, the people doing the oppressing.Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: Yeah, the only instances of people saying “only this oppression matters” (where “oppression” is often imagined, in the cases you mention) are bullshit and absurd and certainly not the way the majority of activists approach the issue. Some white feminists in the US can tend toward obliviousness when it comes to issues of race intersecting with gender oppression, but they’re also dimwits who no one should be holding up as emblematic of an ideal whole.
MisterDancer
Agreed — same with the asswipes in the Black community who seem to think Jewish people did some shit to us, when in fact there’s a long history of community between the two.
Frank’s welcome to actually drop more than vague references as proof of his assertions. If I can spend time digging thru search engines and my own offline notes to give y’all links and sources on even shit everyone knows, he can spend some time backing his claims — especially since he asserts they are just all over the place, so he should have some nice set of data for us, and not just a couple or 3 anecdotes, right?
Because otherwise, what he says sounds like bullshit to me, and hurtful in a thread where a vulnerable group is building community.
There’s nothing in this post, or this thread, that was exclusionary and deserved those comments.
Janee
Once you con, cajole or terrorize people into sadistic acts no decent human could stomach, they don’t dare admit that they were wrong. To do so would be to acknowledge their outright sadism and inhumanity. At some point any tie to humanity is lost forever.
J R in WV
@eversor:
While there are plenty of christo-fascists out there… there are also many Christian leaders who are not christo-fascists, who support gay and trans and all of the rainbow of folks from A to Z. I am well acquainted with a bishop of the Episcopal Church [spouse of one of my best friends from college 45 years ago] who had a Native American drum circle at their investiture as a Bishop.
I wish you would relax a little in your sorry crusade against ALL Christians. They aren’t all Fascists at all!! Back into the pie safe for you!
Alison Rose
@MisterDancer: It’s always really broken my heart to see animosity between white Jews and non-Jewish Black people. As two groups that have been the targets of such violent hatred, it seems so clear to me that we should always band together, especially since historically, the groups that hated one of us hated the other as well. I remember when I first learned about the white Jewish lawyers from the North who went South to help during the Civil Rights Movement. I was so proud of that, for them to recognize the importance of that fight, to see some of our own history in it.
Omnes Omnibus
I am not sure why this issue touches my rage button more than a lot of others, but it does. As a straight, cis, WASPy dude, I don’t come across a ton of trans people in my ordinary circles. I went to a counter-TERF rally at the Madison library a year or so back, and I was stuck by how vulnerable they young people seemed. My intent when I showed up was to stand in quiet support and show that people who looked like me were behind the trans demonstrators, but the group of TERFs that they were protesting were so unnecessarily hurtful and hateful that I found myself in the front line of the crowd shouting “How can you look at these people and not see they are woman?” I don’t really understand what it is like to be trans, but I know that people who are don’t need a ration of shit from anyone. And that’s enough to get me all angered up I guess. Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.
RaflW
@Roger Moore: I don’t have whichever subscription, so I only watched a handful of episodes of Handmaid’s Tale on Delta flights a while back (boy did I feel awkward watching a seatback TV next to strangers while ‘ritual’ was happening). N E way…
The scenes early in the show where basically brownshirts come and harass women who aren’t dressed right, and then when the debit card doesn’t work at the coffee shop because only men make financial decisions (IIRC) — that’s where at least some parts of the US could, all too conceivably, be headed.
What I can’t get my brain around is that we’re actually an incredibly diverse country. Far more so than the conformist 50s, say. And as Jen Rubin noted in a recent column, only about 16% of the country are the sort of fundamentalist-athoritarian Christians who might want this. (A certain jagoff can stfu about how all Christians are bad.)
This fight is absolutely for realz. But we are struggling to maintain control against a (well funded, yes) small minority of control freaks. Everything they propose is unpopular, except for the trans-bashing which even that I think is unpopular but most folks don’t yet now how to ally around.
A lot of what the right in this country is trying to do is create a sense of this wave crashing over us. But the mid-terms show us that the wave can easily vanish. Its up to us to make that happen.
Bill Arnold
@Sister Golden Bear:
Attempting a single sentence summary, societies need to build into their fabric strong resistance to allowing bullying/othering/scapegoating of minorities.
This is difficult[1] but necessary.
What’s missing is the process, which must included stomping on outbreaks of any such behavior that actually arrise, until the pattern of transgression-leads-to-stomping becomes understood and ingrained.
And also education about the evils of such behavior all through childhood, which the US right wing is also attacking, not coincidentally.
[1] e.g R. Girard’s works, or maybe this for a summary: René Girard’s apocalyptic modernity (2011, 16 pages including notes/refs), an easy though wordy read, about Girard’s “Achever Clausewitz”, and about scapegoating at various scales, as an ancient human [uniquely human? “Crow Courts”?] form of control over feedback loops of violence rooted in mimetic desire, that doesn’t scale well to large populations.
mardam
If you’re hiding behind “religion” to do crap like this, you’re doing it wrong.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah the thing is, you don’t even NEED to be some expert in Gender Studies to be able to easily see which side any decent person should be on. All you have to do is look at which side all the Nazis are on and immediately go to the other one!! At the risk of Godwin’ing the discussion, Nazis are pretty damn reliable in always supporting the absolute worst position of any policy/issue. I don’t really understand inflation. My brain just can’t really grok stuff like that. But if pressed for a stance I would just note whatever the Nazis are saying/pushing and know that it’s probably worth fighting against. If Nazi’s are giving you high fives, you know you are in the wrong. This is what pisses me off so much about TERF’s and people like Martina Navratilova who are way too comfy spreading TERF-approved bullshit. As someone who is generally a champion of marginalized groups, she should know better just by the fact that so many Nazi’s are liking her TERF-lite pearl-clutching about Trans Athletes.
Thanks for being an ally for LGBTQ people. The amount of silence from our fellow cis/het/white men really breaks my heart. So many, even the ones who are on the right side, are just sitting there and saying nothing. It’s so disappointing and enraging. Like you, I believe we have to do our part in speaking up and normalizing doing so. Cheers.