According to Trans Legislation Tracker, there are currently more than 300 bills pending in state legislatures that attack transgender health and well-being in one way or another. Some are directed at trans girls in high school sports. Some are directed at K-12 curricula. Some are directed at banning or regulating gender-affirming care among trans children and teens.
In just the past four years, the number of anti-trans bills introduced annually has skyrocketed by nearly 20x:
Anti-trans legislation has spread to a majority of US states:
This is the background for everything happening on the transgender front these days. Conservatives have mounted a vast and brutal attack on transgender people, and the size (and viciousness) of the attack is growing every year.
This has, unfortunately, produced a calamitous wedge issue among progressives. The question is how the medical establishment should treat gender dysphoric children and teens, and as you'd expect the research on this topic is (a) thin and (b) unsettled. What else could it be? It's both a difficult issue and a fairly recent one. It simply hasn't been around long enough to generate a well-accepted corpus of rigorous research that follows transitioning kids all the way into adulthood. Recent evidence hints that there may be some problems with current standards of care, but we don't know for sure.
So what do we do while we wait for more research? Given the ongoing assault on trans lives from conservatives, trans activists would basically like everyone to shut up. Maybe there are issues with currently popular treatments, but debating them in public does nothing but provide conservatives with political ammunition—usually twisted and willfully misinterpreted in service of their cause.
Non-activists don't accept this. As with most things, they believe that transparency and public debate are the best way to eventually establish best practices. Trying to hide the facts is both unlikely to succeed and bad for everyone in the long run.
The leadership of the trans community has long had a reputation for ruthlessness against heretics, and that plays into the ongoing war over how to discuss all this. Activists attack the non-activists with absolutely no holds barred: they are murderers, liars, zealots, and pawns of the right. Non-activists hit back with charges that the trans community has no interest in the truth.
The worst part of all this is that, as near as I can tell, both sides in this progressive civil war really and truly believe they have the best interests of the trans community at heart. But the war has long since reached such a fever pitch that everyone on every side probably thinks I'm being laughably naive here.
And me? I'm nearly always on the side of honest research being publicly debated. There are downsides to this—namely that partisans will often distort it for their own ends—but the downside of getting into the habit of suppressing honest research is far worse. At the same time, a topic that touches on raw emotions and life experiences as harrowingly as this one should be debated with extraordinary care and sensitivity to the harm it can produce. Facts and statistics are all very fine if you're literally presenting at a conference of fellow professionals, but outside that milieu it's not enough.¹ You need to make it crystal clear whose side you're on.
I'm on the side of trans people. I'm also on the side of (trying to) ferret out the truth—precisely because this is almost certainly best for everyone, both cis and trans, in the long run. These days, I'm not sure where that puts me.
¹Yes, I realize I'm hardly one to talk.
Do you live in Idaho?
Is this your state senator?
https://twitter.com/nichols_senator/status/1626106794916601856
Start making more money weekly. This is valuable part time work for everyone. The best part ,work from the comfort of your house and get paid from $10k-$20k each week . Start today and have your first cash at the end of this week. Visit this article
for more details.. https://createmaxwealth.blogspot.com
That’s terrible though not really surprising. It’s a measure of just how far we’ve gone into insanity. I don’t live in Idaho or ND which is also getting in on the act.
I don’t think there is anything we can do about this bizarre ideology. Too many believe it. All I can do is stay out of their way. Perhaps the result is that this mRNA technology is just a one and done. That’s a shame but we’ll likely never know what could have been.
You all are overthinking this.
There is a major election coming up in 2024 and conservatives have lost abortion as a tried and true "get 'em out to the polls" issue. They NEED a trans war to get their voters out. They're creating this drama out of whole cloth to drive turn out.
Fact is, they can pass all the legislation they want, peer interaction will determine which way things go. The kids have already decided this is the way it's going to be and the adults will have to get over it.
This statement is accurate and, under the circumstances, admirably restrained:
“Activists attack the non-activists with absolutely no holds barred: they are murderers, liars, zealots, and pawns of the right. Non-activists hit back with charges that the trans community has no interest in the truth.”
The less polite formulation of this observation is that the trans “Activists” have engaged in some of the most spectacularly self-destructive behavior I’ve ever seen. They pull off the remarkable feat of making the astonishingly counter productive “defund the police” movement look sober and intelligent in comparison.
I’m dispensing with any recognition that these trans activists might have good intentions. I’m honestly not even convinced of that much. The vitriolic attacks on someone like JK Rowling, in response to her assertion that she believes in biological sex, have been pathological in the shocking intensity of their hatred.
I feel that American culture tends to throw around the word “cult” far too easily. Just about any ideological, religious, or impassioned expression becomes a “cult” (cult movie following, cult church leader, etc.). But the trans activists really do embody a cult in the true sense of the term: they are ruthlessly exclusive to “outsiders,” and those outsiders consist of anyone who in any way deviates from an orthodoxy of unrivaled Leftist dogma. Lenin and Stalin would shake their heads in stunned envy and admiration.
In no other issue in my life has the “horseshoe theory” been more applicable than in regard to this trans debate. Yes, many conservative legislators do clearly seem to be operating with cynical and opportunistic motives. But they are responding to an evil cult. I am not referring to trans people themselves as evil ( many of them must be as horrified of trans activists as I am), but the cult that advocates on their behalf in a fury of rage and condemnation straight out of the Old Testament is indeed evil. I really do believe that. And Liberals/Moderates of all types need to condemn them in the starkest and most explicit terms.
Thank you. I had wondered whether i was the only one who was revolted by these folks. I wouldn't actually call them "leftists", though.
The part where you're lying? That part?
It isn't a horseshoe, it's a full circle.
Noted, you can't find a single dang instance of anyone with power being mean, but you can spend time defending a woman who said that minorities didn't deserve the presumption of innocence that everyone else enjoys.
Yep.
This whole comment thread is a wonderful example of Kevin's points. And forget the conservatives and what their doing - this is turning into an internecine war. Its all here - a lot of thoughtful and first-hand observations of what is going on are responded to as bigots, assorted forms of stupid and "pawns of the right." There is a constant demand for cites and studies ... and yet none are offered. Reasonable sources are dismissed as anti-trans.
I think there are two great stories that explain a lot of what's happening.
The first is the classic The Emperor's New Clothes. Whilst trans identified individuals have existed (under a slate of different names), the recent explosion suggests two suspicious weavers have arrived in town. Only the smart and clever people could see the fancy fabric of these clothes; Only the smart, educated and good-hearted people of today understand Trans. And if you call it out, well you're threatening the whole ponzi scheme of deception. Detransitioners are treated especially poorly by the trans community as apostates who dare to threaten the purity of thought. As Leo says above, its a cult.
(and don't take our word for it ... a number of detransitioners have decided its a cult)
And I'm really surprised that Orwell's 1984 isn't raised in this discussion. The role of a strong government telling us what to think (granted ... that one goes both ways) and more particularly the role of NewSpeak: the removal of biology as essential and determinative, the creation of fuzzy identities that cannot be known, compared or challenged, the removal of words from use because they are determined to be dangerous.
Early on in my child's journey through this hellscape I realized that many of the people recommending childhood transition were really asking for validation of their own choices - if a child does it, its pure and unsullied and thus my decision to transition is not driven by history of trauma, abuse or paraphilia. Its one of the most cynical uses of children and I'm astonished that so many institutions have fallen for it.
Remember, with wingnuts every accusation is a confession,
Fox News isn't news, and it isn't journalism, they're all crisis actors.