Erin Reed has an in-depth examination of Trump’s anti-trans Executive Order [gift link]. Key points:
- The focus is mainly transgender women, and the goal is removing them from public spaces.
- HHS has a big role in the EO. After he outlaws vaccines, RFK Jr will probably get right on that.
- The definition of “sex” in the order must also apply to passports and other documents.
- The order will have an impact in places like prisons, where states like Florida already do things like forcibly shear trans women’s hair, etc.
Read the whole thing. Lamda Legal has come out strongly against and vows to fight it in court. (Important to note that their press release indicates that the legal action will take place after rule making in the bureaucracies, so this EO isn’t going to make a “right now” difference.)
Somewhat related, since the “way in” to the trans issue for Republicans was women’s sports, this piece relays the findings of a study in the journal Sociology of Sport.
The researchers found that respondents who viewed female athletes as less deserving of attention, support, and media coverage were more likely to oppose transgender inclusion in sports. For example, individuals who disagreed with statements like “Women’s sports deserve the same amount of media coverage as men’s sports” were significantly less likely to support transgender athletes’ rights.
The researchers also found that adherence to traditional standards of femininity—such as prioritizing thinness and attractiveness—was a strong predictor of opposition to transgender athlete inclusion. For instance, respondents who endorsed the idea that women should be thin or that women’s muscles were less attractive were less supportive of transgender athletes competing in alignment with their gender identity.
Similarly, those who agreed with statements like “Female athletes will never be as good as male athletes” were more likely to oppose allowing transgender athletes to compete according to their gender identity and to support sex testing.
This is unsurprising to me, but apparently TERFs just don’t get that the hatred focused on trans women isn’t just about them being trans, it’s about them being women.
Quinerly
Breaking….New affidavit in Hegseth confirmation. Sounds like second wife/ someone related to wife.
Edited to add…obviously not clear cut once I found a link
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/senators-received-affidavit-containing-new-allegations-pete-hegseth-de-rcna188342
MrSnrub
How to change gender marker today, before the rules go into effect:
https://www.thestranger.com/queer/2025/01/17/79801617/updated-documents-trans-people-should-change-now-how-to-do-it-and-what-they-can-change-later
zhena gogolia
I’m trying to celebrate small victories. I was able to turn off Apple news alerts on my phone so I don’t have to hear about it every time Trump takes a shit.
I can’t remember a single alert about the previous president.
zhena gogolia
@MrSnrub: We had a legal clinic in our church for LGBT+ issues before the inauguration, and there’s going to be another one soon.
Barbara
Stated another way, all the resistance and panic associated with transgender people is focused on transgender women. They don’t give a flying fuck about transgender men. It is based in a view of women as an inferior member of the species whose identity and characteristics should be controlled by men. I am going to go on record that I have definitely had my differences in philosophical debates on feminism and transgender women, but never in a million years would I refuse to acknowledge that they are women much less that their existence is bad for non-trans women.
The use of gender in identifying documents is not exactly irrelevant — for instance, you might justifiably want to make sure there is gender compatibility if you are arrested or otherwise subject to search or pat down. But for purposes of job application confirmation and many other uses for which these documents are used — gender not only shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t be allowed to matter.
Belafon
“Female athletes will never be as good as male athletes”
Which is why no amount of time a trans girl is on hormones will convince people like this that they have no innate physical advantages.
NotMax
Endless crawl seen on a news video of Felon 47 speaking.
“This video may contain allegations that are factually questionable or cannot be independently confirmed by [this network].”
Betty Cracker
Yep. Even the name of the EO, “protecting women” blah blah blah, is condescending bullshit. Remember when Trump said he’d “protect women whether they like it or not”? This is the made up threat he’s “protecting” us from as he appoints fellow rapists and sex pests to key government roles.
I fell down a Bluesky rabbit hole the other day and ended up reading an Emily Yoffe column at Bari Weiss’s neo-reactionary “Free Press” site. Yoffe interviewed a “senior official” about the EO, and from the content, you wouldn’t know trans men existed at all.
Starfish (she/her)
TERFs are NEVER going to admit that trans-women are women. Racist white women are going to use trans-accusations to attempt to disqualify black athletes who are better than they are. Remember all the “concern” about Michelle Obama’s exposed arms and all the racist things they tossed at her? It is going to go down like that, but against children who are good at sports.
suzanne
Which is a thing that I have never understood about their worldview. Like, where are you living, where you are apparently untouched by misogyny?
The other thing about the trans-people-in-sports debate that I simply cannot grasp is…. why does it matter to you so much?! The percentage of people who will play sports at any competitive level where this might make a difference to an outcome is infinitesimally small. The vast majority of us will top out at “softball game with church friends” level. “Running my city’s half-marathon” level. “Throwing darts at the bar” level. Shit, if Bowling Alone is accurate….. we’re not even doing that!
narya
I have a list of a variety of chromososal/hormonal variations that counter the “there’s only two sexes” crap, lifted from a friend’s FB page; I’m happy to share it if folks would find it useful. I only have a picture of it, rather than text, so I didn’t want to try to post it here. I’m not claiming that it is either complete or correct. And, at least for me, I don’t really care why or how someone is trans; if they say they are, they are.
Renie
OT – for something not depressing. pictures are out today of F1 racer Lewis Hamilton in Ferrari Red!! This year’s F1 races will be exciting.
/back to depressing issues
Lobo
@Betty Cracker: In my imperfect way, I was trying to make this point. Again, thanks for the comment in previous thread.
Trollhattan
@suzanne:
IMHO it’s due to the whole “eating the dogs, eating the cats” issue. If only they’d stop that….{whisper-whisper}
I’m being told that’s a different initiative entirely.
Heard on BBC Trump has taken the US out of WHO and gone home. Am not going to be able to keep up.
Leto
A quick video about being brave. Sound icon bottom right hand, although there’s subtitles attached.
Barbara
@suzanne: It only matters at elite levels, agreed, and elite athletes are outliers in so many other ways it’s probably impossible to factor in the component of — let’s say, broader shoulders or height — and hard to ignore the impact of more than a decade of training in elementary and high school. For instance, female volleyball players are taller than the average male, and taller than probably 80% of other women. I am guessing that the volleyball players being targeted in high school are the physical outliers who really excel at the sport, with no evidence whatsoever that they were not identified as female on a birth certificate.
It’s just another way to harass and control women.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Lobo: Ain’t nobody perfect here, just a bunch of goofballs trying to learn from each other. Love and support!
Steve LaBonne
That study is really unsurprising- both transphobia and homophobica are closely related to misogyny, because they’re all about reinforcing the “traditional” gender hierarchy. The refusal of TERFs to see this is maddening.
Citizen Alan
@Trollhattan: As much as I still hope to visit Europe someday, I think the EU would be completely justified in not allowing Americans to be admitted without independent verification of immunization. Just don’t even acknowledge an American’s passport unless it’s accompanied by 30 pages of documentation about every vaccine they’ve ever had … or not had.
gvg
Disney missed an opportunity in Finding Nemo. Clownfish change sex naturally. After mommy was killed, daddy should have been gradually changing to a larger female. It’s amazing how unaware most people are about nature. There are a lot more natural normals out there than just male female with the male dominate.
Kay
Thanks so much for the post, mm. We have to stop accepting bad faith, fascist-adjacent filters to the information we need. We can all read an EO. We’re all at least as smart as any of the media hacks who are re-printing GOP press releases.
Sister Golden Bear
That far understates things. The EO will require trans women to be sent to men’s prisons (and trans men to women’s prisons), where they’re routinely raped and sexually assaulted. In fact many prisons have informal policies where trans women are “given” to, and forced to share cells with, aggressive prisoners. The EO also forcibly medically detransitions trans people in prisons. It’s more than just haircuts, it’s denying them hormones.
Belafon
@suzanne: Because we’ve turned being an athlete into a necessity to getting college without having to pay for it, and that person might beat their daughter.
Similar to the thing about TERFS, I argued with my mom for many years over how she, knowing how her rights to have a checking account and other things were limited until the 1970s, could not understand why minorities just want to have the same rights as everyone else.
kindness
Republicans aren’t going to stop at Trans folk. That next shoe will drop in just a bit.
Lobo
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
I really weep for the kids whether in this community or the separated family community. So much hate, harm, and humiliation directed at all these communities. That’s why I will try to fight. For the kids.
RevRick
@Betty Cracker: They absolutely don’t care about protecting women. They’re disdain for women’s sports puts lie to their concern about fairness or whatever other justification they conjure up. And the way their “concern” manifests itself in practice will mean subjecting women to all sorts of degrading treatment.
RevRick
@Sister Golden Bear: It’s denying their right to simply live.
Sister Golden Bear
There was a leak regarding the anti-trans plans by a right-wing media outlet that also mentioned that Trump was going to have the FDA investigate if trans healthcare is harmful — decades of research shows that it isn’t, and in fact is the only successful treatment for gender dysphoria. But the FDA could be used to be ban trans healthcare, including hormones, for both children and adults. (After the SCOTUS hearing on trans healthcare for teens, TN’s attorney general openly said that if they win, they’ll ban adult trans healthcare next, and Florida has already effectively done so.)
This wasn’t in the current executive order, thankfully, but could well be in a follow-up EO, or RFK Jr. (or the new FDA head) could just order the FDA to do it.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: I noticed that Trump’s oppressive EO on birthright citizenship made a point of being gratuitously gendered, phrasing everything differently in terms of the mother and the father and noting that these were biological terms.
The more explicitly gendered every regulation is, the harder all this is to unravel.
ArchTeryx
It helps to understand something about the TERFs. The movement was, IIRC, started by neonazis in the UK. Farange and his UKIP goons were heavily involved in the initial spread. The point was to try and ensnare liberal women into being useful idiots for the fash, and give actual fash women cover to call for transwomen genocide. Joanne Rowling is just the most famous of the latter.
It’s bad faith ALL the way down, no matter how sincere the arguments sound. The TERFs are a hate movement run by neonazis, full stop. They just use the feminist aspect to fig-leaf that they are targeting a minority for genocide. That it’s all about transwomen, not all trans people (yet) is a tell right there. They’re using classic divide and conquer tactics.
And they work. I follow a trans person on Bluesky that constantly is yowlping about how the Democrats are useless and both parties are the same – pro-trans genocide. And constantly posts nutpicked quotes, lack of action, or stuff like the Laken Riley Act as proof. I’ve long ago ceased to try and convince her otherwise, but she figures she is totally on her own for her own life or death.
I can’t entirely blame her. The American public threw her under the bus, as well as all the rest of us that are targeted by this regime.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
Suit already filed by a coalition of groups against the birthright EO.
Matt McIrvin
@suzanne: I have a theory that anything that can be framed as sports cheating is a berzerk button in part because of the prevalence of sports gambling. Even if people don’t actually gamble on that particular sport, they imagine someone tricking a gambler.
Of course, sports is deliberately tribal too. A lot of these anxieties about hormones and trans athletes stem from Cold War-era jokes about East Bloc countries cheating at the Olympics.
Sister Golden Bear
@suzanne:
They’ve definitely been touched by misogyny, it’s just that they’ve chosen to blame trans women for it. Because they believe we’re really men. In fact one of their favor slurs for trans women is “TIMs” — “trans-identified men.”
In particular there was a strand of British radical feminism going back to the 70s, that specifically accused to trans women of being men intent on invading women spaces to undermine feminism. It was also heavy tied into gender essentialist theories that women inherently = good, men = inherently evil.
In the UK, one of the major TERF pipelines has been the Mumsnet forum, which as the name suggests, is an online group for mothers with kids, especially young kids. Who often were stressed out and isolated. It’s easier to blame a tiny minority than blame the system.
It’s honestly reached Q Anon cult levels, where there’s regularly mournful posts by TERFs about how they’ve been disowned/cut off by family and friends, which only seems to deepen their resolve.
John S.
@NotMax:
Including our new, young Washington AG Nick Brown. Fortunately, he can learn a lot from our current governor, Bob Ferguson, who was previously AG and brought many suits against the previous Trump shit show.
Matt McIrvin
@ArchTeryx: The *original* TERFs of the 1960s and 70s were, I think, primarily American and were separatist radical feminists with a strange sort of Great Replacement theory about men scheming to replace all cis women with trans women. But if any of them are still around, you don’t hear much from them. Their theory too obviously bears no contact with reality.
KatKapCC
And as usual, no recognition from the GOP that intersex people exist.
suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: I have a theory that some people care about sports to ludicrous levels because their lives under late capitalism are deeply alienating, unfair, and miserable. There is literally nothing else to feel good about for them.
Sports, at their best, are about human relationship. Having fun together, good-natured competition, pushing oneself a bit further. There’s no reason that trans people can’t be part of that; in fact, there’s every reason that they should.
Steve LaBonne
About the EOs in general, Josh Marshall once again has some useful observations.
sixthdoctor
FreeState Justice in Maryland is hosting a free two-hour workshop this Saturday at 10AM on legal training for LGBTQ+ individuals (estate planning, name changes, etc.) and it will be webcast as well: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/189nZ4JNJf/
karen gail
As I see the goal is women, all females no matter what age they are.
I know so many males who make fun of women “traveling in packs” there is a reason we do; because we need someone to guard our backs, to guard the door when we go into bathroom stall, to keep an eye out when we use public facilities.
I used to do a lot of traveling on own, some areas of country would make me uneasy but not unsafe; but the last 20 or 30 years I always take a dog with me and have stopped eating alone in many places. Since Trump’s actions have freed hate, I find fewer and fewer places where it would be safe for a younger woman (under 50) to be alone; even when going for short run to store I take my Shepherd with me.
Trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
Online gambling will ruin sports as we know it and I’ll be surprised if it does not drop past high school down to yoot sports.
“Why did Savannah miss that tumbling pass? Do you have money on this meet?”
“Brittany’s mom threatened us.”
Sister Golden Bear
@Leto: Thanks, I needed that. I don’t know them, but I love them.
Matt McIrvin
@gvg: Kids’ stories about anthropomorphized animals nearly always force them into traditional human gender roles even if those animals are radically different. E.g. all those movies about ants or bees that imagine legions of male workers.
narya
@Renie: Depends on what kind of vehicle they give him . . . I would love to see some actual racing again this year instead of “parades.”
laura
The ways men; and the women who love them; hate women is so wide, so deep and often unseen throughout the world. Despite my white privilege, my personal history is rife with misogyny- some incidents are “seared in the amygdala” to this day. A recent incident was getting my shit jumped in these here comments when I audaciously suggested that perhaps young, fresh faced harvard grad should do some actual time doing the work before being given the velvet rope treatment and concierge service to cochair of the DNC.
Funny old world.
NotMax
@John S.
AFAIK also a separate suit from a coalition including the ACLU, NAACP and others.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Renie: That is exciting! I hope Ferrari has its car ready to go
Sister Golden Bear
@Barbara:
The only decent reporting I’ve seen about the San Jose State volleyball players who’s been accused of being a trans woman — she’s not confirmed/denied it herself — came from a sports reporter who looked at both her personal stats and the stats of both her team and the teams that refused to play SJSU because of her.
Needless to say, the stats didn’t remotely support the accusation that she had a dangerously fast hitting ability (the speed was on par with other women players), and while she is 6’2″, her own team had a half dozen players over 6 feet, and one of the teams refusing to play her had nearly a dozen.
It’s devolved into targeting any player in high school girls sports who outcompeted someone’s precious darling, and any mediocre college athlete with an ax to grind. Like the former college swimmer who never placed higher than fifth, who’s become one of the leading advocates for banning trans women athletes because she was “cheated” by them. (Again, no one seems to give a shit about trans boys/men in sports.)
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: I know there has been litigation in the use of gendered terms in immigration laws and rules — e.g., presumptions of parenthood for mothers but not fathers. It’s possible that they are following some of these existing regulations, but you are correct — what if the father is an actual citizen and not in one of the illegal or temporary categories?
Few of us could actually prove the citizenship of our parents if a birth certificate is no longer sufficient to provide a presumption of being a “natural born American.”
Other countries have different rules — but they tend to have already constructed a “national identity” registry in which it is clear at birth whether the parents are on the registry or not. We don’t do that — indeed, opposition to the notion of a national identity document is most vehement among conservatives — the very people who want to wield national identity as a cudgel against “outsiders.”
Indeed, my advice to anyone who is challenged about their citizenship is to challenge the challenger right back. Show me proof of your citizenship!
ETA: they are using the text of “not subject to the authority of the U.S.” as the hook for eliminating status for the children of temporary or undocumented immigrants, but that has long been interpreted as being applicable to people who — even while in the U.S. — are subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign government, i.e., diplomats who have diplomatic immunity according to agreement with other nations. A temporary visa holder is clearly subject to the authority and jurisdiction of the USG, as are undocumented immigrants.
Sister Golden Bear
@Matt McIrvin:
You’re thinking of Sheila Jeffreys, Germaine Greer, Mary Daly, and Janice Raymond. Raymond’s 1979 The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male, based on her dissertation overseen by Daly, espouses exactly that theory. Sayth Raymond:
Daly died awhile back, but unfortunately the rest are alive and still pushing their transphobia, albeit they’re not high profile these days. But their legacy lives on, and has gotten even more hateful.
Dr Daniel Price (Saint Vincent)
The vast majority of those who wish transgender women to be excluded from competition in women-only sports could not name three athletes in such events, even if one were to give them Caitlin Clark and Simone Biles as starters.
NotMax
FYI.
Trump fires first woman to lead a US military service
@NotMax
Confirmed. State AG suit filed in Massachusetts, ACLU et al suit on behalf of immigrant groups filed in New Hampshire.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: Yep, that’s it. Thanks.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: I need to figure out how to do that, I’ve been getting multiple alerts about what he does every day for months. I’d get one about Biden maybe once every other day or so. They’re so thrilled to have FFOTUS back.
Barbara
@Sister Golden Bear: I keep reminding myself of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s decision to permit gender reassignment treatment for transgender females in Iran on the basis that no man in his right mind would actually want to bear the social burdens of being female, ergo, the desire must be deep seated and genuine. It still sounds right to me.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: I couldn’t even tell from the sloppy language of the EO whether what it implied was actually gender-asymmetrical or if it was just gratuitously using such language to be irritating.
The theory it’s based on, the perverse reading of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as somehow being about blood ancestry, is something that’s been kicking around in right-wingnut circles for years, but usually even they are talking primarily about undocumented immigrants (and obsessing about the so-called “crime” of them even being here), not about people on work visas!
Trollhattan
@Sister Golden Bear:
One of my kid’s roomates plays volleyball and is 6’5″. Definitely a young woman I look up to.
That’s my total expertise on the matter, although was once on a flight with our WNBA team (guess who does not get a charter?) and the centers were probably on par with Franke, heightwise. The rest, not so much.
Can you imagine the # of “How’s the weather up there?”/day they hear? Bet that never gets old.
Barbara
@Sister Golden Bear: There are women on elite teams that are 6’5″ and taller.
Sister Golden Bear
@KatKapCC:
In their minds intersex people must be surgically “fixed.” Historically that’s been involuntarily, as infants. Or in other words, the exact sort of thing they falsely claim happens with trans teens.
Also worth noting that a study looked at breast reduction surgery on teens during the past few years. Of the 150 documented cases, 146 were for cis gender boys with gynomastia, only four were for trans boys. Anti-trans folks don’t have any problems with gender affirming surgery when it’s affirming cisgenderedness.
Belafon
@NotMax: I want to know who that “Senior official from DHS” is.
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: Right — like H1B visa holders who are in the U.S. for years and years would have children who are not considered to be citizens because the visa is time limited, i.e., temporary.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: I remember times when it seemed like American culture regarded gayness as more taboo than trans-ness, albeit with what we might call an extreme “transmed” gatekeeping attitude toward the latter (identity requires surgery and they need to make SUPER sure before letting you have the surgery). Now the panic is reversed.
Sister Golden Bear
@Barbara:
Honestly that’s one of the reasons the haters are so focused on trans women. They can sort of tolerate trans men because that’s a step up in status. But the notion that someone assigned male at birth would willingly give up male privilege to live as a woman makes them go berserk.
On a happier note, I remember seeing a someone sharing that her mother always hated being a woman and thought women were worthless — until her mother learned about trans women. The fact that someone would fight so hard to be a woman made her realize her own worth as a woman.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: Nor do they have any problems with fairly radical body modification surgery that has nothing to do with gender and has higher regret rates, e.g. my metal knee.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: I kind of feel the same way about trans guys, that they make me feel like there must be something not purely embarrassing about being a man if they’re fighting so hard for it.
TBone
Two things
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/01/21/reproductive-rights-government-website-shut-down/77846157007/
And Hannah Arendt because fascism is the marriage of corporate and government power:
https://bsky.app/profile/manisha.bsky.social/post/3lgankvwmok2a
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
If trans men are required to use the women’s restrooms, I can tell you it would be a lot more noticeable and freak out a lot more people than it ever does when trans women use the women’s restrooms.
(Though as you say, they don’t give a damn about trans men, so they’re not going to police the men’s rooms to exclude trans men.)
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: They lost that battle, so they’re switching targets. They’ll move back if they get the chance.
Sister Golden Bear
@Trollhattan: @Barbara:
Not surprised at all. Elite athletes (and even mediocre college athletes are elite compared to the general population) are inherently outliers.
Can’t find it at the moment, I’ve seen a good breakdown about how eleven-time Olympic medalist Matt Bondi is literally a genetic freak. Massive hands and feet, an unreal lung capacity, and unique abilities to process lactic acid better.
Lobo
From Daily Kos: Does this mean we are all female?
Definition from EO: “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
Another Scott
@narya:
There’s a table here of various variations.
Even if there were only 2, and as you point out, there aren’t, there are animals which change from F to M and back.
Sequential Hermaphroditism (as opposed to Simultaneous Hermaphroditism.
Nature is more diverse and complicated and wonderful than the monsters demand. We have to keep pushing back against their broken world-views.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Sister Golden Bear
@Matt McIrvin: The reversal was entirely intentional. We’ve seen leaked documents from LGBTQ+ groups and around the mid-2010s they realized they’d lost on same-sex marriage, and LGB acceptance more generally.
So they intentionally targeted trans people — there’s fewer of us, fewer cis people know us, and we’re more “mysterious” — as a wedge issue. With the long-term goal of normalizing broad LGBTQ+ sentiments, as seen in the later “groomer” hysteria, where trans people and drag queens were intentionally conflated.
rusty
@Trollhattan: I just saw the head for the US at the WHO pointed out that congress originally voted the US ascension to the WHO, so only they can rescind it. Hopefully another lawsuit (although where the funding for the suit will come from I don’t know) will at least drag this out.
Gloria DryGarden
@narya: i would find your list from Facebook useful, if you care to post it here
lowtechcyclist
From the EO:
What a silly (and I would think fundamentally inapplicable) definition. At conception, the newly fertilized egg isn’t producing any reproductive cells. It hasn’t even gotten to its first cell division yet.
Under this definition, AFAICT, nobody belongs to any sex.
Barbara
@Sister Golden Bear: Most elite QBs have disproportionately large hands. There is a biathlon skier from Norway who has been insanely successful and people have studied his skiing technique to understand it — and basically cannot find a way to replicate the efficiency of his striding. It’s similar with Katie Ledecky and swimming.
Is it unfair that their success probably depends on a combination of genetic and physical traits that cannot be trained for? It’s just insane to obsess about this.
narya
@Sister Golden Bear: We really generally don’t have a sense just how much better the top athletes are. I had a friend who was a great high school athlete, and particularly loved baseball. He once batted against a rival HS athlete who ended up with a cup of coffee in AAA, I think; friend said he never saw the pitches.
Barbara
@rusty: Yes, so I assumed. I am not sure about WHO, but a lot of these organizations are part of congressional actions ratifying treaties of one kind or another — this is especially true for asylum seekers. Congress has modified the terms around the edges but getting rid of it altogether would require repealing a treaty.
John S.
@NotMax:
Excellent. Let the hard slog of fighting everything tooth and nail begin.
ETA: Brown filed a multi-state lawsuit in Washington this morning. Oregon, Illinois and Arizona also joined the complaint.
Sister Golden Bear
@Matt McIrvin: Genital reassignment surgery has the lowest regret rate (<1 percent) of any surgery. It’s been well researched.
As one study noted, for comparison: “The percentage of patients reporting regret ranged from 0 to 47.1% in breast reconstruction, 5.1–9.1% in breast augmentation, and 10.82–33.3% in body contouring. In other surgical subspecialties, 30% of patients experience regret following prostatectomy and up to 19.5 % following bariatric surgery. Rate of regret after GAS is approximately 1%. Other life decisions, such as having children and getting a tattoo have regret rates of 7% and 16.2 %, respectively.”
Albeit one reason for the low regret rate is because the extremely high level of medical gatekeeper. In order for trans women to have bottom surgery, medical best practice requires sign off from two separate mental health practitioners. No other surgery requires even one sign off.
Steve LaBonne
@lowtechcyclist: My postdoc work was in developmental genetics (of Drosophila). The profound ignorance of these fools about biology is astounding. Let’s hope it limits their effectiveness.
Trivia Man
@zhena gogolia: great idea. When you mentioned it earlier i started trying to instigate a clinic here. I am not able to lead but i am offering my support if someone else can take charge. Do what we can.
narya
@Gloria DryGarden: I’m getting a “your comment is too long” error message, unfortunately. The conditions are: 5-alpha reductase deficiency, i.e., born female but grow a penis at puberty; x and Y chromosome but insensitive to androgens, so appear female; x and Y chromosomes with all of the genitalia (penis, testes, uterus, fallopian tubes); x and Y chromosomes, but your Y is missing the SRY gene, giving you a female body; two X chromosomes, but one of the Xs has an SRY gene, which gives you a male body; two X chromosomes and a Y, which will give you a male body; two X chromosomes but your adrenal gland doesn’t produce enough cortisol, and your body develops as a male; born with XX AND XY chromosomes (chimerism).
So much variety!
Trivia Man
@Barbara: my position – if you are not actively and currently trying to connect with me for sexual purposes, my genitals and self identification are irrelevant.
Barbara
@Sister Golden Bear: Women are often refused surgical contraception — e.g., tubal ligation — on the basis of psychological factors. Sometimes even without benefit of psychological referrals.
Nothing should surprise us about the hysteria over “monkeying around” with God’s plan for reproductive capacity. Women have endured a desire to control their reproductive potential ever since that kind of surgery became feasible. This is why we need to see transgender policy through the lens of gender politics. Women have long been ostracized for failing to meet gender norms. This is a way of policing those norms by picking on a group that is seen as not worthy of protection — just like prostitutes are often laughed at if they report having been raped. And lots of women go right along with that kind of classification of worthiness.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: But the EO doesn’t even have an allowance for the possibility that someone was surgically “fixed”, but the wrong way to fit their definitions of male and female–which could easily happen and does.
lowtechcyclist
@suzanne:
This. There used to be an expression, “don’t make a freakin’ federal case of this,” usually said in exasperation to someone who was going on at great length about something that may have been wrong but hardly rated the attention.
But that’s exactly what they’ve done here: made a Federal issue out of something that didn’t have any reason to go any higher up than the governing board of one’s high school or college athletic conference.
Conservatives also used to say things like, “the government that governs least, governs best.” Buahahaha.
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2: This worked for me:
Trollhattan
O/T and holy crap, overnight low at my kid’s corner of NC is predicted to be 12 degrees.
Prediction: North Carolina plumbers are about to become very, very busy.
zhena gogolia
@Sister Golden Bear:
Plausible, and so depressing.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: See: Lauren Sanchez.
zhena gogolia
@Trivia Man: I think GLAAD organized it, but we hosted it and our minister was there along with a justice of the peace to do marriages.
VeniceRiley
TERF means trans exclusionary radical feminist.
Excuse me if I don’t think they’re the primary actor here, which is, as usual when something awful, is cis (mostly white) men.
NotMax
@Trollhattan
Crochet woolen doilies to keep plumber’s crack warm?
:)
Trollhattan
@NotMax:
“If you don’t mind ma’am, just stuff it with money.”
Bupalos
Without comment as to whether “They” hate women, I think we lose politically with this “They hate women” framing. It’s dependent on someone accepting the idea that supporting traditional gender roles represents a deliberate attempt to harm people. It leaves you in the position of understanding your grandfather as hating your grandmother and your grandmother hating herself. It has a whif of ideological cant.
I think we do better politically with a framing that emphasizes small mindedness, fear, or personal inability to embrace freedom generally. I think it’s on the whole more accurate, and politically more potent.
So I’d favor “they are unable to expand their conception of feminine expression, just as your great grandfather couldn’t imagine a woman voting.”
Matt McIrvin
@VeniceRiley: It’s why I kind of dislike talking about TERFs, it’s an obsolete term that most accurately refers to the long-ago radical feminists I mentioned above. That’s not really the modern transphobia movement, though one of the strains distantly stems from that, especially in the UK.
sab
@Trollhattan: 6 inches in Baton Rouge and still snowing. BIL lives there with his Cajun wife. He’s from Ohio. No city snowplows, nobody has snow shovels. Nobody has salt. Nobody knows how to drive in the stuff, and after six or eight inches without snowplows nobody who thinks they do know how actually does know how to drive in this stuff.
zhena gogolia
@sab: Wow!
Central Planning
@Barbara:
And, what are the chances that they were lucky enough to like a sport that their inherent traits can take advantage of, their family thought to have them try that sport, and they could afford that kind of training?
Is it unfair? Sure. But I thought Rs/conservatives were all about NOT equalizing the playing field/equal opportunity.
I swear I can’t understand their thought processes. Ever.
Mark
Trans people are just one group of people that the MAGA crowd hates.
1500+ Brown Shirts were pardoned yesterday.
Sister Golden Bear
@Barbara:
Sadly I’ve heard of too many women who were denied surgical contraception, and I definitely don’t mean to downplay that. My point is merely that two psychological approvals are a required perquisite of the official standards of care, which I believe is unique. I could be wrong.
And yes, I absolutely agree we need to see transgender policy through the lens of gender politics, and as part of long running efforts to punish cis women for failing to meet gender norms. FWIW, the vast majority of reported cases involving supposed trans women in women’s restrooms, being were confronted by other women, were in fact cisgender women who looked “too masculine.” It’s been problem for butch lesbians in particular even since I can remember.
sab
@Matt McIrvin: I agree. UKTerfs led a lot of other women astray. I find that dynamic horriyfingly fascinating because, in my experience, so different from here. I read JK Rowling comments and she lives on a whole different planet from where I live.
It is really, really hard to get care for trans kids. Most the women I know who are not brainwashed evangelical MAGAS are pretty much “Hi, welcome aboard” to transwomen. Nobody I know wants to see trans girls beat up in male bathrooms.
I have met some evangelical MAGA women who do shock me, but they pretty much always have.
Ramalama
@lowtechcyclist:
I got the looks and comments a lot when I wore my hair short. I didn’t look like a guy but since I didn’t look like a girly girl, the default was to occasionally freak out.
LAC
Ahhh, with a stroke of a pen, the price of eggs has gone down…no? Ummm, groceries? No, that either? Well, at least the GOP has messaging to explain how this helps americans with their kitchen table issues.
Jaysus freaking christ…
Trollhattan
@sab: Mind-blowing.
Can recall once in Seattle we got a couple feet when I was in high school and the place just shut down (it’s mostly just a bunch of hills stuffed together). But they do have insulation and furnaces and I can’t guess how many homes in LA have both/either of those. And the temptation to get out the F-250/Suburban must be powerful. “Hell, it got four-wheel, let’s go!”
Miss Bianca
@Barbara:
With you there! Man, that study is a mind-blower, isn’t it? Even though I really shouldn’t be surprised that “anti-trans women” turns out to be…anti-women, period.
zhena gogolia
@LAC: None of them gave a shit about the price of eggs.
Kirk
Many of the EOs are legally challengeable, and there’s a bit of a gish gallop going on. There are many that either as a whole or in small part make me want to flee or fight.
For example, after 120 days of cutting people he wants to start rehiring. There are a few changes in the rules, of course, including a requirement that they “defend the Constitution and faithfully serve the Executive Branch”.
For example, not only is the death penalty to be used, it’s to be requested every time it comes up as a punishment. And states are to be pushed to use it. And if any of the Biden commutees are eligible for state trials that can result in the death penalty they are to be remanded for trial with a federal recommendation for the death penalty. And the AG is to work on subverting SCOTUS precedents preventing the death penalty from being used.
Miss Bianca
@Barbara: I hate the idea that the Ayatollah Khomeini and I shared even the most fleeting of thoughts, but yeah…when I consider the misogyny and lack of social power compared to men that most women, even the most sheltered, experience on a daily basis, I too have found myself thinking something very similar, on occasion.
Jay
I guess that for the Dolt47 humping Bruce Jenner it’s back to the Men’s room from now on.
Day two and the New Gilded Rage already sucks.
Suzanne
@Barbara:
This. This shit is inherently unfair, some people are just better physically adapted to certain sports. But lots of things are unfair. The answer isn’t to be discriminatory, it’s to make the stakes lower. Like…. why does anyone need to win?
Sister Golden Bear
@Jay: I hate Caitlyn Jenner with the fire of a 10,000 suns, but deadnaming her is an asshole move.
sab
@Suzanne: I would hate to be a young gymnast competeing against Simone Biles just because of her astonishing talent and aptitude, but that is just life.
My sister was very good competitive swimmer in Florida in our youth ( she always clobbered me and everyone else) but then she got up against Catie Ball at a state meet who went on to win gold in the Olympics. Just a whole different level of athlete.
sab
@Sister Golden Bear: Deadnaming. Good to remind us that even trans people can be assholes but they have still transitioned. ( Is that grammer even right?) Don’t detransition them just beause they are assholes. Recognizimg some of them are asswoles is part of dealing with the whole issue. No group of people is perfect or even okay.
Jay
@Sister Golden Bear:
Just sticking to the intent of Dolt 47’s EO.
Of course, we know that the odds of the leopards eating Catlin Jenner’s face are zero. She’s rich, connected and got her’s, so F the rest of U.
Probably the only Trans person in the world that given a chance, I would deadname, misgender and get arrested for using the wrong washroom in the real world. Good thing I’m not TSA or CBP.
Citizen Alan
@laura: To me, the most startling thing is the level of misogyny among conservative women! I still remember being utterly flabbergasted during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings when my RWNJ sister was totally on his side because she lived in fear of either of her two sons being falsely accused of rape. It was something she was much more worried than the possibility of her daughter, who was about to start at Mississippi State, actually being raped, a possibility about which she was completely dismissive because “I raised her to not get into those situations” or some such nonsense.
Citizen Alan
@Belafon: They already are. My understanding is that Idaho is laying the groundwork for a test case to reverse Obergafell, if not Lawrence v. Texas.
prostratedragon
@Trollhattan:
True that.
UncleEbeneezer
Of course people who care less about women’s sports are more likely to be Transphobes. But sadly even some women who DO care about women’s sports are just as bad. Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Judy Murray have all shown disgusting behavior.
Citizen Alan
@Sister Golden Bear: I think the point was that deadnaming Caitlyn Jenner is an irrelevant issue if the government forces her to switch to a driver’s license that identifies her as Bruce and says she’s a male.
gene108
@Starfish (she/her):
Common trope on the right is Michelle Obama is a man.
sab
I worked really hard on Kerry’s campaign. He had a long history of supporting gay rights, but in Ohio the gays pretty much thought he wasn’t doing enough. I thought then and still thought that was fucking disloyal and counter productive.
There was a lot about LGBT rights, and we were all L , G and B we know and support, but what the heck is T.
That was 2004.
Years later I found out my own young unhappy nephew was actually a trans girl. Having known the child since babyhood it made perfect sense to me. Can’t remember what year.
Trivia Man
@Jay: I laughed when jenner was yelping about KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMENS SPORTS… but also insisted on using the women’s tees at her golf course.
dnfree
@gvg:
I am assured by a right-wing Christian acquaintance (on Facebook) that humans are completely separate from any other form of life and are not animals at all, because God created them separately to be like God. So no comparisons to other animals are valid.
If people are like God….well, what does that imply about God?
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: There’s a whole subculture of “transvestigators” who insist that basically every famous woman is secretly trans and “prove” this through minute examination of videos and pictures. It’s disturbing and of course even talking about it wanders perilously close to the trap of “of course Obama isn’t a Muslim, how dare you slander him like that?” “Oh you think being a Muslim is bad now?” rinse, repeat.
Sister Golden Bear
@sab:
Yes, that’s the correct way of referring to it.
@Citizen Alan:
Yeah, but we don’t have to deadname Jenner, even to make a point.
@Matt McIrvin:
On multiple occasions “transinvestigators” have also “proved” J.K. Rowling is trans — apparently not recognizing her when shown photos.
Sister Golden Bear
@Trivia Man: One of many, many reasons the vast majority of trans people hate Jenner with the heat of 10,000 suns.
I knew one of the trans activists who took part in her post-transition documentary, who tried to educate her. But she’s just a selfish asshole who didn’t want to listen. Classic IGMFU.
Another Scott
@dnfree:
Maybe ask if they’re aware of the contradictions between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.
(There are 2 creation stories in Genesis, that are clearly different, seemingly a consequence of two different yet powerful faith traditions that both had to be included.)
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Darkrose
@Sister Golden Bear: I hate Riley “Fifth Place” Gaines so much. Lia Thomas didn’t keep you off the podium–the four cis women who swam better than you did.
Darkrose
In her most recent book, Britney Griner described being confronted by security in an airport bathroom in the US because someone reported her as male. She did what she always did in those situations and dropped her pants. It was infuriating and heartbreaking to read, especially since you *know* the women who reported her are probably all up in the “We have to defend women’s sports!” bullshit.
This book was mostly about her time in the Russian prison system. There’s zero difference between the transphobes here and the prison guards who tried to get her cellmate to tell them about her genitalia.
Darkrose
@gene108: And Serena Williams…and Brittney Griner…
Black women do not have, nor have we ever had, the presumption of femininity that white women have by default.
ETA: This is on my mind right now because I just had a research consultation with a student doing her honors thesis on Black female athletes.
Jay
@Darkrose:
On swim team, (summer, HS and winter), my nickname was “Crew”.
I think I only got gold, once. I always made the heats, made the final, and would take second or third to better swimmers.
But I was always key to the teams, because I filled out the relay teams, enabling the team to have a “pretty damn good”, but not a Medalist, in the slots that better swimmers avoided.
It always allowed us, as a team to medal.
kwAwk
Sports is the place where you could have helped deflate Trump’s hate. Like it or not, biological males are on average 5.5 inches taller than biological females and 30 lbs heavier. Trans-women will be the same. For every trans-woman you’re allowing in to women’s sports you’re excluding a biological females that is shorter and smaller.
It’s not saying that women can’t be as technically achieved as men or that their sports can’t be just as entertaining as men, it’s that there are physical biological differences between men and women. I read once, that Serina Williams, arguably the best pound for pound tennis player in the world, has said that if she played on the men’s tour she’d be ranked about 70th in the world. The size and strength difference is that much.
And it’s not about sports gambling, it is about pay in women’s sports more. As more and more money is paid out for women’s sports the more incentive there will be for men to simply declare themselves women and take the meds to get the money. If you think that won’t happen then you’re a fool. Think of all the crazy crap Lance Armstrong put in his body to win the Tour de France. You think there aren’t guys out there who will take an estrogen pill to make millions of dollars a year playing in the WNBA.
Sister Golden Bear
@Darkrose: It’s not coincidence that whenever women’s sports does chromosome testing, etc. to determine whether women athletes are “female enough” it’s always Black and other WOC who end up being targeted the most.
FWIW, so far chromosome testing always gets quietly dropped because of the number of cis women tested who showed “anomalies.”
Fun fact: If a woman has a son, some of the fetus’ XY chromosomes can remain in her body indefinitely. There’s also other reasons as well. Unless we do widespread testing we’ll never know for sure, but there’s a growing number of biologists who suspect people with chimeric chromosomes aren’t uncommon. I.e. they mostly have the same chromosomes matching the same they were assigned at birth, but may have some opposite sex chromosomes as well that normally go unnoticed. Given that 1:2,000 people are visibly intersex, it seems likely there are additional folks who are invisibly intersex as well.
Darkrose
@kwAwk: Take your bullshit elsewhere, transphobe.
Dan B
All mentions of LGBTQ and HIV have been removed from federal websites.
Bill Arnold
@lowtechcyclist:
“a person belonging, at conception” also is an assertion of zygote personhood.
This is a religious statement, and not a universal one.
kwAwk
@Darkrose: And this is why we lose elections. When someone disagrees, the name calling starts.
Manyakitty
@Trivia Man: this is also my approach. It also applies in the reverse.
VeniceRiley
Who supports taking Jenner’s mens decathlon Olympic gold medal away? Maybe give her the womens co-gold for that year./s
How far shall we take this? It’s all about the power of the (male) locker room priests … Erm police, uh, politicians. They’re trying for Taliban authority over all women, and any wedge that is a tool is of use and the can and will use them all, not just this one.
Manyakitty
@Matt McIrvin: what in the actual fuck is WRONG with those people? God in heaven.
dnfree
@Another Scott:
I am very aware of the two creation stories, which as you point out, are quite obvious once you see them. I’ve pointed that out, but just as humans aren’t animals, there aren’t two creation stories. Also there is no evidence for evolution and the Genesis story is much more plausible.
Bostondreams
@Darkrose:That comment you reference was so so dumb and said with such supposed authority. ‘Declaring themselves women’ and ‘Taking an estrogen pill’ isn’t how it works. These people are literally going to go through years of therapy, body changes, and everything else for THE CHANCE to make some money? and spend a fortune for that chance? Because it isn’t freaking cheap. My god this is just so wrong in so many ways.
Bostondreams
@Sister Golden Bear: So, last year, flying out of Worcester Airport in Massachusetts. My daughter, 15 at the time, is queer and pretty masc-presenting (calls themself butch, for what it’s worth). They went in the bathroom and came out a few minutes later, but I didn’t notice anything wrong. On the plane, they told me that some idiot woman security guard told them they were in the wrong damn bathroom. They told the guard that they were female and did their business. I was so mad that they didn’t tell me before we got on the plane. Mind your own damn business, you fool. Probably best they didn’t tell me I guess. :/