They better be wrong about them achieving their “desired effect” (which is banning gender affirming care for people of all ages) without any lawsuits or prosecutions! I know some providers have capitulated, but others are fighting back and I hope those ones aren’t just going to give up so easily!
FFS, I cannot comprehend why they are willing to expend so much political capital on hate. Even when all of the actual science proves them wrong, they still double and triple down on their verified lies.
Showing them the science simply doesn't work. They'll just double down and claim it's "liberal propaganda" or else blow it off and say it doesn't matter somehow. It's not just transgender issues either - it's very broad thing. That's not just my personal observation. There was an excellent (albeit depressing) study released a while back dealing with this:
Conservatism is anti-science and pro-cruelty. Even the specifics of what constitutes conservative worldviews change over time, those two fundamental facts remain the same. Conservatism is always about opposing progress and keeping marginalized people down (or even eliminating them altogether).
Funny you should mention Rebecca Watson. She's how I learned about the study I cited above.
I definitely agree that fear of change is a core element of conservatism, perhaps even the primary motivating factor. But there's something else conservatives have in common - a genuine bitterness and resentment toward change.
I believe that more than anything else, conservatism is about hierarchy - about a social order where everyone knows their place and stays there, and those who don't get knocked back down or worse. When you believe that your race/gender/culture/religion/nation occupies the superior place by right, it becomes not merely rules or principles - it becomes a part of your identity.
Change is an assault on conservative identity. I think the best summation of that comes from a video game of all things - Xenoblade Chronicles 2. XBC2 can be cringy and even problematic at times, but like all Xeno games it definitely had interesting things to say. In one of the big showdowns where the heroes confront the requisite JRPG fantasy pope villain, he gets up on his high horse about how humanity will never change (which actually speaks of another fact about conservatism - it's often misanthropic). When the protagonist rightly points out that this asshole is the one who won't change and hates those that try to, fantasy pope replies "and why should I have to change? If I change I lose everything. I lose my very self." In his voice you can hear not just fear (change = loss) but rage and resentment at the very idea that he should change his worldview, and thus himself. Conservatism in a nutshell.
This is why the people who never cease whining about others being offended, who constantly deride and mock them, are in fact some of the most easily offended people in the world themselves. And the very existence of transgender people is offensive to them. Anyone and anything that challenges their hierarchy is offensive to them. The absolute GALL that anyone would dare to dispute their "rightful" place in the world is offensive to them on not just a cultural but a personal level.
Fear, resentment, and hubris - a nasty cocktail.
Welp, that was an overly long post, but then I never was known for my brevity. :)
I suppose I'd say that the rage, bitterness, and commitment to hierarchy are products of the fear rather than separate from it, but I don't want to quibble over words - despite, um, having just, um, done precisely that. So maybe we can settle on exchanging "fear of change" with "fear of uncertainty."
Never mind. The point is that we agree that "just the facts" aren't going to move them because their underlying emotional commitment is not to "truth" or "justice," which carry implications of working to find our way as individuals and a society as we puzzle out what they mean, but to THE TRUTH, to a notion of eternal, unchanging, precepts and standards laid down by a perfect source, whether that be some form of god or antiquity or just "the way it's always been."
The sort of change we would hope to see in them, sadly, requires time - and, usually (but not always), some direct personal impact. No necessarily a harmful impact, but one close enough to "me and mine" to be real.
(What were you saying about not being known for brevity?)
OH, I FORGOT! Thank you for your wonderful response!
It’s abhorrent. Worse yet, I think the phrase: “expending political capital on hate” is, more precisely, “politically capitalizing on hate.”
And the fact that the science proves them wrong furthers their ultimate goal of detaching us from reality, making us doubt what we see, what we know to be true.
Fascism needs an enemy. They exploit the preconceived disgust of people who don't actually know anyone who is trans and who only knows the charicature made up by rright wing media
Sorry if this is old news to you; I've posted it more than once. But a German comedian said it eloquently. (This is my translation; perhaps not the smoothest)
“Why does Alice Schwarzer [a prominent anti-trans journalist] stand with TERFs, AfD-fascists and Nazis with respect to trans people? Because, ladies and gentlemen and all in between and outside, trans people through their very existence fracture their tiny world. Because trans people have to follow their own rules in order to find their place in society, and these rules are quite different and individual, and this simply won't fit into the thought processes of TERFs and Nazis, because they have it easy and can simply believe in anything – in Alice Schwarzer or in God or in Germany or in anything else. Only when trans people are false can the von Storchs and Schwarzers be right.”
The origins of this attitude are deeper than most political postures. It goes right to their hearts.
And since when the actual data is considered, courts have found the gender critical to be "obvious charlatans", I think that will not go well for them.
The administration will just ignore the lower courts, like it is already doing, and the Supreme Court will just rubber stamp whatever the administration wants to do. All of the checks and balances in our government are gone.
Because they do not really think we exist. They think we are mentally ill, willfully perverse, or "lead astray" actually cisgender people -- they think we are frauds.
They believe one of these three things.
A) The gender of a person has no physical, biological existence as a characteristic of human sexual dimorphism.
B) The gender of a person physically exists, but is always magically identical to the apparent sex of the person (which is always strictly binary in result, nevermind the exceptions).
C) That even though gender is physical anatomy developing in utero and may not be identical to the visible sex of a person, it is moral to force someone to ignore their gender and live their life by how their visible sex developed.
Not only are all three completely without evidence for them, all available physical/biological evidence and clinical results are contrary both.
In a fraud trial, that would come out and needs only be persuasive to one person to prevent a conviction.
Because all such prosecutions are themselves fraudulent, there must be 42 U.S.C. § 1983 & 18 U.S.C. § 242 prosecutions of those carrying them out.
Because trans people are self-realized or in the process. Because trans people possess a degree of personal courage and a willingness to engage in brutal self-scrutiny that terrifies them, lest they be forced to confront their own demons. And because the thought of the level of self-love and self-acceptance it takes to even contemplate transition is completely foreign in their experience. Hate is easy and they are cowardly and lazy. Broad brush? Yes. Wrong. Nope.
“On the one hand, they may not need to successfully prosecute someone or win a lawsuit to achieve their desired effect.”
I disagree. Their “desired effect” is banning gender affirming care for people of all ages, and they’re not going to succeed at banning it for literally everyone without a lawsuit or prosecution (or even with a lawsuit or prosecution.) Trans people will find ways to get care regardless, especially as long as it’s still legal in some states.
Plus the children’s hospitals that are still providing care after everything that’s happened must know what’s at stake and have decided that they’re not going down without a fight if they’re still still choosing to provide care despite all of Trump’s threats.
How did Strangio fumble so badly the basic misdirecting question (in the Skrmetti oral argument) of whether GAC reduces suicide?
Yes, it does. Most people who are transgender who self-delete do so as adults after a lifetime (longer or shorter) of abuse. GAC is the opposite of that abuse and reduces suicidality and completed attempts quite drastically towards the lower cisgender typical levels. It is good that so few youth are faced with Leelah Alcorn's situation and make her choice at that age -- that the numbers are at that age so few is not evidence against GAC or against the statistical certainty that it is life saving.
I am stunned at the level of vitriol and hatefulness by the federal government. They literally want to eliminate trans people. Will they next create "reeducation camps" that they can put people in--first youths, and then moving on to adults? I put nothing past them at this point. It is insane, and so scary.
They should know better…every single time these MAGATS have tried to expose the so called “Fraud” in anything that they attack leads to the exposure TO THEIR OWN FRAUDULENT ACTIONS! These MAGA people are so sick and twisted that they’re infected by TDS…Trans Derangement Syndrome! They see any woman who doesn’t meet their”standards” of what women should be, they label her a “Transgender!” As though we’re a different species from them! 👿 I frankly don’t find that to be demeaning, I mean who would want to be included with THEM as a species! Jokes aside, we are all human beings who don’t want anything more than to exist in peace with dignity and respect for WHO WE ARE! 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 MAGA has forsaken it’s humanity for BARBARISM! 👿🔥
And there it is: "My goal is this: to see the decimation of the deceitful gender industry for both minors *and adults* and to see that the individuals who set society on this course are held accountable civilly and criminally." This was NEVER about children; they don't give two shits about children. Power and control, domination and suppression: the goals of all fascist regimes.
Thanks, S. Baum, for reporting this story, no matter how infuriating and frightening it is.
Why is it that conservatives' demand that trans and intersex people "live within the body that God gave you" seems not to apply to cis-gender people who get plastic surgery because they're not happy with the body that God gave them? Conservatives' fear and cowardice blinds them to their hypocrisy.
Thank you for keeping us informed! and Kudos to my state's Senator, Ron Wyden for speaking out against this attempt by the FTC under Trump to spell SCIENCE :"FASCIST". We all must work hard to flip the seats in Congress come time to vote. Stay Strong.
Guess that means they've settled on "being trans is fraud" as their main line of attack, going forward. That no major medical organizations were allowed to put their $0.02 in is rather telling- not that it'd have made a difference to whatever malevolent propaganda comes down the pipe next; this regime has made it quite clear they aren't interested in evidence they haven't procured from their own rectums.
"and presenting a list of doctors, hospitals, and medical associations she declared were at the center of “the crime board.” "
Was this list made public anywhere? I want to know if any of my own medical providers are in danger. I know at least one of my previous medical providers has been targeted by the far right.
I mean the list of associations will be just every legitimate medical professional association. Only christofascist groups like ACPeds and the alliance “defending medicine,” wouldn’t be on the list.
Once again these racist trump minions are trying to control peoples lives anyway they can - it is very disappointing to say it nicely and totally immoral while not trans myself I have a very close relative who is and thus disgusts me to no end
Realizing I can be accused of over-generalizing, I still will wonder how many of these people, when you actually dig past the slurs and slogans, the sneering and sermonizing, and get down to the basic "why" of them, their answer will be "but duh Bible!"
I hate that your predictions have been so accurate. Thank you for your hard work keeping us informed.
They better be wrong about them achieving their “desired effect” (which is banning gender affirming care for people of all ages) without any lawsuits or prosecutions! I know some providers have capitulated, but others are fighting back and I hope those ones aren’t just going to give up so easily!
FFS, I cannot comprehend why they are willing to expend so much political capital on hate. Even when all of the actual science proves them wrong, they still double and triple down on their verified lies.
Showing them the science simply doesn't work. They'll just double down and claim it's "liberal propaganda" or else blow it off and say it doesn't matter somehow. It's not just transgender issues either - it's very broad thing. That's not just my personal observation. There was an excellent (albeit depressing) study released a while back dealing with this:
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1080362
Conservatism is anti-science and pro-cruelty. Even the specifics of what constitutes conservative worldviews change over time, those two fundamental facts remain the same. Conservatism is always about opposing progress and keeping marginalized people down (or even eliminating them altogether).
It's long been shown that a single factor that unites conservatives across all categories of age, sex, gender, race, and whatnot is "fear of change."
As science journalist Rebecca Watson said a few years ago, "Study: Conservatives are Terrified (and That's Why They're Conservative)."
https://www.patreon.com/posts/41033663
Funny you should mention Rebecca Watson. She's how I learned about the study I cited above.
I definitely agree that fear of change is a core element of conservatism, perhaps even the primary motivating factor. But there's something else conservatives have in common - a genuine bitterness and resentment toward change.
I believe that more than anything else, conservatism is about hierarchy - about a social order where everyone knows their place and stays there, and those who don't get knocked back down or worse. When you believe that your race/gender/culture/religion/nation occupies the superior place by right, it becomes not merely rules or principles - it becomes a part of your identity.
Change is an assault on conservative identity. I think the best summation of that comes from a video game of all things - Xenoblade Chronicles 2. XBC2 can be cringy and even problematic at times, but like all Xeno games it definitely had interesting things to say. In one of the big showdowns where the heroes confront the requisite JRPG fantasy pope villain, he gets up on his high horse about how humanity will never change (which actually speaks of another fact about conservatism - it's often misanthropic). When the protagonist rightly points out that this asshole is the one who won't change and hates those that try to, fantasy pope replies "and why should I have to change? If I change I lose everything. I lose my very self." In his voice you can hear not just fear (change = loss) but rage and resentment at the very idea that he should change his worldview, and thus himself. Conservatism in a nutshell.
This is why the people who never cease whining about others being offended, who constantly deride and mock them, are in fact some of the most easily offended people in the world themselves. And the very existence of transgender people is offensive to them. Anyone and anything that challenges their hierarchy is offensive to them. The absolute GALL that anyone would dare to dispute their "rightful" place in the world is offensive to them on not just a cultural but a personal level.
Fear, resentment, and hubris - a nasty cocktail.
Welp, that was an overly long post, but then I never was known for my brevity. :)
I suppose I'd say that the rage, bitterness, and commitment to hierarchy are products of the fear rather than separate from it, but I don't want to quibble over words - despite, um, having just, um, done precisely that. So maybe we can settle on exchanging "fear of change" with "fear of uncertainty."
Never mind. The point is that we agree that "just the facts" aren't going to move them because their underlying emotional commitment is not to "truth" or "justice," which carry implications of working to find our way as individuals and a society as we puzzle out what they mean, but to THE TRUTH, to a notion of eternal, unchanging, precepts and standards laid down by a perfect source, whether that be some form of god or antiquity or just "the way it's always been."
The sort of change we would hope to see in them, sadly, requires time - and, usually (but not always), some direct personal impact. No necessarily a harmful impact, but one close enough to "me and mine" to be real.
(What were you saying about not being known for brevity?)
OH, I FORGOT! Thank you for your wonderful response!
They think their bigoted opinions are the real/proper world, and that they are saving it. They are factless child abusing imbeciles
It’s abhorrent. Worse yet, I think the phrase: “expending political capital on hate” is, more precisely, “politically capitalizing on hate.”
And the fact that the science proves them wrong furthers their ultimate goal of detaching us from reality, making us doubt what we see, what we know to be true.
It’s absolutely sickening.
Fascism needs an enemy. They exploit the preconceived disgust of people who don't actually know anyone who is trans and who only knows the charicature made up by rright wing media
Sorry if this is old news to you; I've posted it more than once. But a German comedian said it eloquently. (This is my translation; perhaps not the smoothest)
“Why does Alice Schwarzer [a prominent anti-trans journalist] stand with TERFs, AfD-fascists and Nazis with respect to trans people? Because, ladies and gentlemen and all in between and outside, trans people through their very existence fracture their tiny world. Because trans people have to follow their own rules in order to find their place in society, and these rules are quite different and individual, and this simply won't fit into the thought processes of TERFs and Nazis, because they have it easy and can simply believe in anything – in Alice Schwarzer or in God or in Germany or in anything else. Only when trans people are false can the von Storchs and Schwarzers be right.”
The origins of this attitude are deeper than most political postures. It goes right to their hearts.
https://jaynasheats.substack.com/p/trans-rights-are-human-rights-but
And since when the actual data is considered, courts have found the gender critical to be "obvious charlatans", I think that will not go well for them.
im not sure data will matter anymore depending on which court its in front of.
Only needs one in a jury to prevent a guilty verdict.
The administration will just ignore the lower courts, like it is already doing, and the Supreme Court will just rubber stamp whatever the administration wants to do. All of the checks and balances in our government are gone.
Look if they start ignoring "Not Guilty" verdicts & hung juries*, it's time to start shooting & monkeywrenching.
*Or preventing defense counsel from presenting a case.
Jesus Christ why do they hate trans people?
Transgender people are everything they are not.
Because they do not really think we exist. They think we are mentally ill, willfully perverse, or "lead astray" actually cisgender people -- they think we are frauds.
They believe one of these three things.
A) The gender of a person has no physical, biological existence as a characteristic of human sexual dimorphism.
B) The gender of a person physically exists, but is always magically identical to the apparent sex of the person (which is always strictly binary in result, nevermind the exceptions).
C) That even though gender is physical anatomy developing in utero and may not be identical to the visible sex of a person, it is moral to force someone to ignore their gender and live their life by how their visible sex developed.
Not only are all three completely without evidence for them, all available physical/biological evidence and clinical results are contrary both.
In a fraud trial, that would come out and needs only be persuasive to one person to prevent a conviction.
Because all such prosecutions are themselves fraudulent, there must be 42 U.S.C. § 1983 & 18 U.S.C. § 242 prosecutions of those carrying them out.
Because trans people are self-realized or in the process. Because trans people possess a degree of personal courage and a willingness to engage in brutal self-scrutiny that terrifies them, lest they be forced to confront their own demons. And because the thought of the level of self-love and self-acceptance it takes to even contemplate transition is completely foreign in their experience. Hate is easy and they are cowardly and lazy. Broad brush? Yes. Wrong. Nope.
“On the one hand, they may not need to successfully prosecute someone or win a lawsuit to achieve their desired effect.”
I disagree. Their “desired effect” is banning gender affirming care for people of all ages, and they’re not going to succeed at banning it for literally everyone without a lawsuit or prosecution (or even with a lawsuit or prosecution.) Trans people will find ways to get care regardless, especially as long as it’s still legal in some states.
Plus the children’s hospitals that are still providing care after everything that’s happened must know what’s at stake and have decided that they’re not going down without a fight if they’re still still choosing to provide care despite all of Trump’s threats.
How did Strangio fumble so badly the basic misdirecting question (in the Skrmetti oral argument) of whether GAC reduces suicide?
Yes, it does. Most people who are transgender who self-delete do so as adults after a lifetime (longer or shorter) of abuse. GAC is the opposite of that abuse and reduces suicidality and completed attempts quite drastically towards the lower cisgender typical levels. It is good that so few youth are faced with Leelah Alcorn's situation and make her choice at that age -- that the numbers are at that age so few is not evidence against GAC or against the statistical certainty that it is life saving.
I am stunned at the level of vitriol and hatefulness by the federal government. They literally want to eliminate trans people. Will they next create "reeducation camps" that they can put people in--first youths, and then moving on to adults? I put nothing past them at this point. It is insane, and so scary.
They should know better…every single time these MAGATS have tried to expose the so called “Fraud” in anything that they attack leads to the exposure TO THEIR OWN FRAUDULENT ACTIONS! These MAGA people are so sick and twisted that they’re infected by TDS…Trans Derangement Syndrome! They see any woman who doesn’t meet their”standards” of what women should be, they label her a “Transgender!” As though we’re a different species from them! 👿 I frankly don’t find that to be demeaning, I mean who would want to be included with THEM as a species! Jokes aside, we are all human beings who don’t want anything more than to exist in peace with dignity and respect for WHO WE ARE! 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 MAGA has forsaken it’s humanity for BARBARISM! 👿🔥
And there it is: "My goal is this: to see the decimation of the deceitful gender industry for both minors *and adults* and to see that the individuals who set society on this course are held accountable civilly and criminally." This was NEVER about children; they don't give two shits about children. Power and control, domination and suppression: the goals of all fascist regimes.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Thanks, S. Baum, for reporting this story, no matter how infuriating and frightening it is.
Why is it that conservatives' demand that trans and intersex people "live within the body that God gave you" seems not to apply to cis-gender people who get plastic surgery because they're not happy with the body that God gave them? Conservatives' fear and cowardice blinds them to their hypocrisy.
Another terrifying development.
Thank you for keeping us informed! and Kudos to my state's Senator, Ron Wyden for speaking out against this attempt by the FTC under Trump to spell SCIENCE :"FASCIST". We all must work hard to flip the seats in Congress come time to vote. Stay Strong.
Guess that means they've settled on "being trans is fraud" as their main line of attack, going forward. That no major medical organizations were allowed to put their $0.02 in is rather telling- not that it'd have made a difference to whatever malevolent propaganda comes down the pipe next; this regime has made it quite clear they aren't interested in evidence they haven't procured from their own rectums.
"and presenting a list of doctors, hospitals, and medical associations she declared were at the center of “the crime board.” "
Was this list made public anywhere? I want to know if any of my own medical providers are in danger. I know at least one of my previous medical providers has been targeted by the far right.
I mean the list of associations will be just every legitimate medical professional association. Only christofascist groups like ACPeds and the alliance “defending medicine,” wouldn’t be on the list.
"I hold in my hand...." (I'm sure some of us are old enough to get the reference.)
Once again these racist trump minions are trying to control peoples lives anyway they can - it is very disappointing to say it nicely and totally immoral while not trans myself I have a very close relative who is and thus disgusts me to no end
Realizing I can be accused of over-generalizing, I still will wonder how many of these people, when you actually dig past the slurs and slogans, the sneering and sermonizing, and get down to the basic "why" of them, their answer will be "but duh Bible!"