The lie pops up again
Misleading if not just plain dishonest.
Nobody is trying to “exclude LGBTQ+ students” from sports or healthcare or education. I’m sure there are way too many religious fanatics trying to convince lesbian and gay students to go straight, and they should stop, but mass exclusion is a different matter. People who aren’t delusional are trying to exclude male students from female sports, because including them is grossly unfair to the female athletes, and endorsement of cheating by the male students.
There are people who consider “gender-affirming” surgeries and hormones not health care but tragic mutilation at the behest of a fad. The NEA should not be supporting the mutilators.
Off thread but related, I saw a report last week that the hateful MTG has put forward a Bill that would forcibly detransition teens, make continued trans related care of adults unlawful, remove transition related healthcare from insurance coverage and prevent any discussion or counselling related to ‘trans’ unlawful for educators or medical and allied professionals.
I know none of us are fans of the ideology and ethics or the visible and rowdy version of trans activism, but on face value it sounds really awful. What I don’t have a sense of is how many ‘quiet’ transitions there are out there. People who are not autogynophiles, groomers, misogynists, MRA’s, or just sad and mislead. There most likely are some people out there who are genuinely dysphoric and who feel better living as other.
I think scepticism of ‘movement trans’ is well warranted, as is a requirement for wrap around care of the whole person, not rushing children into drugs or surgery. Protection of woman spaces and rights, again critical. I don’t want to be associated with the sheer cruelty and hate of the likes of MTG though.
Playing the Devil’s (MTG’s) Advocate here …
If you think that X is child abuse, then in what way is using legal means to stop X prima facie really awful?
A lot of them are genuinely dysphoric, but dysphoria is not veridical. Just like alcohol abuse is a bad solution to depression, transition is a bad solution to whatever emotional issue underlies gender confusion.
Do you think that there are any alcoholics for whom drinking themselves to death is the least bad solution? I would doubt it, though who knows.
Or anorexics for whom starving themselves to death is the least bad solution?
Rob — agreed.
Well, the people who are quietest about training are the ones we understand least about.
If you let MTG decide who can receive medical treatment, you might agree with her this time, but not last time or next (abortion anyone?).
What do we say when her next target is sexual health education and assistance?
As I understand MTG’s Bill it also forbids counselling and psychiatric care exploring whether you’re trans or something else is going on – yet that is something most of us would support – no?
I don’t think an alcoholic drinking is a good idea at all. Do we remove their ability to buy alcohol, to have health insurance that covers the results of alcohol abuse, that criminalises the retailer, distributor and manufacturer of the alcohol?
Where is the bright line test for being an alcoholic?
I think we’re all deeply skeptical of the TRA movement and want a big chunk of current dogma unwound. I wasn’t aware that anyone wanted to punish and hurt every trans person in the US, which I’m pretty sure is actually MTG’s aim. I’m sure she’s not wanting to ensure safe spaces for feminist women, or to protect lesbians from being conned into transition. The enemy of our enemy might have a point, but they’re not necessarily our friend.
‘There most likely are some people out there who are genuinely dysphoric and who feel better living as other.’
I’m sure it’s lovely for men who ‘feel better living as the other’ to have that opportunity. How lovely is it for the women in their lives, or the strange women they encounter in the bathroom/changing room/hospital/etc?
(Rob, you didn’t actually answer the questions raised by MTG’s Advocate. I’ll happily keep roleplaying this if you find it helpful in refining your arguments. The rest of this comment will be in character.)
The “if you let Mr. Politician make a law now, who knows what law Ms. Politician may make down the line” argument is a non-argument and a non-answer. Legislators make laws prescribing and proscribing behavior all the time. To do so is, in fact, the primary function of law.
Yes, we do. By which I, MTG’s Advocate, mean that we already do precisely that. We also do it with tobacco products. We restrict by legal means the way in which the products can be marketed, sold, produced, etc., and we have criminal penalties for related behaviors.
My, the MTG’s Advocate’s, stance was based on what you initially described. Regardless of concerns about the location of goalposts, if you believe that the notion of intrinsic “transness” is basically harmful, pseudoscientific snake oil, then ought you not believe it should be controlled by similar law? That is to say that the thing being forbidden is not counseling for people with gender dysphoria, it is counseling that’s based on harmful pseudoscience that posits some mystical mumbo-jumbo about being “really trans” and “gender ideninny”. Counsel all you want, but don’t ground that counseling in a particular faith claim.
Well said, guest. It’s a convenient example of something I’ve noted several times before: it’s easy to say, “let’s be nice and make an allowance for,” and focus entirely on those to whom the allowance is given and forget those from whom something must be taken in order to make that allowance possible.
Thing is, gender is, and always has been, such an absolute clusterfuck that I’m prepared to believe that there are people for whom medical transition is the least worst option. And since these people are by definition not autogynophiles, there are probably not many women in their lives to be hurt. I have no idea what would count as genuine dysphoria but I don’t doubt the term names something both real and potentially life destroying. Hell, my minor acts of gender dissent have brought me enough grief and I always have the option of just pretending to be a manly man. I can hardly imagine what it’s like for someone without that option trapped somewhere where MTG’s delusions are taken for reality. So yes, medical transition may be the least worst option but I suspect it’s significantly better than any of the others on offer.
And if we don’t let men who identify as women help little girls take off their bathing suits, then we’re preventing them from taking off bathing suits at all.
Not to mention, we have laws with strict penalties that prohibit buying alcohol for minors. Meanwhile, we seem to be rushing headlong toward the cliff of allowing minors to decide on life-altering surgery that they don’t understand, and aren’t told, all the implications of. We understand they are not able to exercise the best judgement when it comes to smoking or drinking, and that ads have traditionally targeted that market. Why is it so hard to see when it is something like having healthy parts of your body cut off because you believe you are not what you clearly are?