Like the anti-trans former collegiate athlete Riley Gaines, Cole is a professional, one of many in a sprawling and well-funded apparatus furthering Christian nationalism and authoritarian control.
Everything Chloe Cole says about her own experience can be 100% accurate . . .
. . . and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the 99+ happily transitioned people who so completely outnumber her. There is no such thing as Cole getting anything of what she says and implies she wants without hurting those 99 every bit as much as Cole claims she was.
"Cole is a superspreader of that rhetoric, a part of a swelling anti-trans industrial complex."
I feel I have no resources to shine the light on that it deserves. I would love to play a role, I would give my utmost. The open conspiracy that "anti-trans industrial complex" is should see 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 18 U.S.C. § 241, & 18 U.S.C. § 242 prosecution.
Needs to be added that even the transphobic rag the New York Post admits the SoCons only have 28 "detransitioner"* lawsuits . . . and If I recall they have spent over $100mn dollars and more than a decade in the infamously litigious US and only have 28 to show for it. The definitions underlying differing statistics are difficult to nail down, but there are at least 270,000 medically "fully" transitioned Americans, so that <1% regret rate is abjectly proven just by that count of 28. it would be wonderful info as to what effort the SoCons have made about that to be found and published.
*When they say detransitioner, SoCons mean someone who claims they are a false positive for endorsed medical transition and generally that they are in no way responsible for that, which is not the usage most people involved employ.
I think you're being unduly harsh on Kaine. Rather than falling for the BS, I think he was doing what you suggested in passing: making a political calculation, one consisting of expressing great sympathy for the witness and then describing it as an individual case that should be addressed as an individual case.
That is, don't argue with her, don't get into any debate, don't possibly generate sympathy by going after a seeming victim, but drain the emotional impact by emphasizing it's one case and we already have a system for situations like that.
So while I think he could have been a *little* sharper, perhaps by saying that despite her personal tragedy it represents a tiny fraction of those who have transitioned, no, I don't think he fell for the propaganda, even briefly. I think he de-fanged her.
I would like to have seen the contents of the letter he read.
I agree with you. Kaine has voted against us a couple of times in order to get a budget passed, and I've let my utter disgust be known to him several times. However, I don't see this as one of those times. I think his political strategy was just as you described. I would have liked one of the Democrats to ask a few critical questions, at the very least to complicate her legal case and possibly set up perjury charges. Cole said that the doctor told her parents that if they didn't do surgery on her, she would commit suicide. Couldn't one Democrat have asked her if she indicated to her parents or the doctor that she might commit suicide? And if she did indicate this, is that how she felt at the time?
If you want to know the contents of the letter that Kaine discussed, there is a link in the Advocate article to the Senate hearing video. Kaine didn't read the whole letter in the hearing because it was long. However, he did discuss it, and he entered it into the record.
kaine is a career politician and can be held responsible for his actions. supporting chloe cole in any regard is actively transphobic. If he's falling for disinfo, he needs a transgender consultant with the support of the trans community on his staff.
Of course he can be held responsible for his actions but calling what he did "actively transphobic" and "falling for disinfo" is way over the top.
The very post under discussion here says that after describing Cole's case as one to be dealt with by malpractice law rather than GAC legislation, "Kaine then pivoted to talking about the careful, methodical considerations of gender-affirming care providers and parents, and he emphasized the extremist rhetoric deployed by the right to vilify trans people."
How that is "actively transphobic" is beyond my understanding.
if you don't understand how its actively transphobic to validate chloe cole as anything but a transphobic grifter, I'm not going to be able to explain transphobia to you no matter how hard I try.
And if you can't understand the value of essentially (if politely) reducing Cole to an example of medical malpractice that says nothing about proper GAC, an experience by which I am quite confident Cole did not feel validated, then the feeling of having nothing to say is decidedly mutual.
If there were really as many detransitioners as the GOP claims they wouldn't need to fly the same half dozen or so all around the country to attend these hearings.
Make no mistake. When democrats do this sort of thing they aren’t falling for anything. Substantial portions of the DNC have no backbone and only want to operate based on how polls tell them to operate. We wouldn’t be where we were if the democrats had an actual backbone and actually bothered to try to craft a narrative to counter the republicans.
I can’t comment so much on Tim kaine, since I’ve seen him be a vocal ally even as of recent. But the dnc over all has a serious issue. They know what the moral and just answers are to all this. They just largely dont have a backbone with which to make a stand.
I think the senator did a good job. Based only on your excerpt, his subtle point seemed to be that the courts can already handle this so we do not need national laws favoring destransitioners. And there ARE doctors who fail to follow the standards of care. That is malpractice whether it is about gender affirming care or heart ailments. WPATH provides the standards and patients should be able to rely on their doctors to follow them. There ARE some bad doctors out there. I do not support Cole's advocacy but she is entitled to her day in court.
I agree. I think this is exactly the point Sen Kaine was making. From what I have read about the Chloe Cole case, it appears to me that in this particular case there was indeed medical malpractice, and WPATH standards of care were not followed, with injurious consequences. What happened, however, does not in any way offer grounds for condemning all gender-affirmative care.
"Kaine then pivoted to talking about the careful, methodical considerations of gender-affirming care providers and parents, and he emphasized the extremist rhetoric deployed by the right to vilify trans people."
Once again, we see an intelligent person being misled by individuals who have built careers on promoting controversial and often disputed claims about the transgender community. Like Donald Trump and many of his allies, they rely on repeating the same talking points, selective studies, and misleading interpretations over and over until they begin to sound like established fact.
The problem is that repetition is not evidence. Many of the claims being promoted are based on cherry-picked data, outlier studies, or conclusions that do not reflect the broader medical and scientific consensus. When information is stripped of context and repeated endlessly, it can create a false impression of certainty where significant evidence points in another direction.
At some point, medical professionals have an obligation to present complete and accurate information to patients and the public. Repeatedly promoting only one side of the evidence while ignoring contradictory research is not sound medical practice and undermines trust in the profession. Whether driven by ideology, politics, or personal beliefs, physicians should be guided by facts, not narratives.
People who should know better have a responsibility to examine the full body of research, not just the studies that support a predetermined conclusion. Public debate should be driven by facts, transparency, and honest analysis—not by misinformation repeated so often that it becomes accepted without scrutiny.
There are so many lies floating around, and they actually harm people and kill them. I’m not sure that the “detransitioners” have any real evidence on their side, but it’s irrelevant. Using people like this to justify oppression of trans people is wrong in so many ways.
Trans people don’t have an “agenda” or “ideology”. They don’t want the whole world to transition. They do want to have the same rights, opportunities, and protections as everyone else. The ability to fail is a human characteristic, and no one should load the dice in anyone’s favor.
We would not be listening to Ms. Cole if 25 years ago the DNC, Pelosi and Barney Frank had done the right thing and passed an inclusive ENDA law. We would be seeing thousands of successful, fully transitioned trans people testifying about how their transition was 100% the right thing to do for them.
There are far more unhappy patients of acute and common surgeries than for gender surgeries.
Due to the aging demographic running the country, it is very reasonable to say we have the dumbest group of politicians to ever run this country at least from a cultural and societal perspective. They can destroy the country and not suffer any of the consequences because they literally know they won't be around long enough.
We need to get all of these old ass politicians out of office who would be considered antiques by any other standard and let the younger generations have a say in what THEIR future looks like. Instead we have a situation where the younger generations are going to be left cleaning up this mess long after all of these old ass politicians are gone. We need politicians who are young enough to still have some skin in the game.
There are so many young anti-trans Republicans in Congress. Youth doesn’t guarantee the ability to listen and learn and not be an asshole. I’m 70 and I’m a getting tired of the ageism I’m seeing from progressives. The Dems need to develop a deep bench for sure, and not having done that for years is part of what got us here. But youth itself is no guarantee of good government. For example, we have Graham Platner, whose We Need Younger People message defeated a strong ally, Gov. Mills of Maine. And now we have a young, loud man whose hobby is sexting. And shame on Bernie for continuing to support him.
Just to put my reply into perspective, I'm 65, moderate and have no party affiliation. I'm not saying that younger = better and anything old is bad. What I am saying is, you have a whole gaggle of old politicians making very questionable decisions about not only the future of the country but the future of every single generation that is currently alive. Just like we had the opportunity of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, the younger generations at least deserve the same opportunities we had.
Of course they do. Are “old ass” Congresspersons like my state’s Rosa De Laura keeping that from happening? Nope. I’m respectfully asking you not to promote ageism. That’s all.
This is why Harris picked Tim Walz. We have to have the standard set. I refuse to be like Tim Kaine, former vice-presidential pick BTW, a modern Democrat doesn't have to somehow apologize for trans people, we know non/pre-op ladies can't go in the changing room, but we also know that it's unfortunate non-op trans women have to be treated this way, it's simply due to masculinity being a hazard in these spaces, and there have been professed trans women who exhibited it. I wish it were easier, honestly, that all trans women were cool, but they will find examples of where a penis in their space went wrong. In any event, Gaines is operating out of ignorance.
Of course Sen. Kaine might have accepted her word naively, but I personally have a hard time believing that anyone does it naively at this point in the decade-long anti-trans campaign. On a gut level, and speaking from my own biases, it just feels to me like anyone who echoes Chloe Cole is colluding intentionally.
Goddamnit!
Everything Chloe Cole says about her own experience can be 100% accurate . . .
. . . and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the 99+ happily transitioned people who so completely outnumber her. There is no such thing as Cole getting anything of what she says and implies she wants without hurting those 99 every bit as much as Cole claims she was.
"Cole is a superspreader of that rhetoric, a part of a swelling anti-trans industrial complex."
I feel I have no resources to shine the light on that it deserves. I would love to play a role, I would give my utmost. The open conspiracy that "anti-trans industrial complex" is should see 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 18 U.S.C. § 241, & 18 U.S.C. § 242 prosecution.
Needs to be added that even the transphobic rag the New York Post admits the SoCons only have 28 "detransitioner"* lawsuits . . . and If I recall they have spent over $100mn dollars and more than a decade in the infamously litigious US and only have 28 to show for it. The definitions underlying differing statistics are difficult to nail down, but there are at least 270,000 medically "fully" transitioned Americans, so that <1% regret rate is abjectly proven just by that count of 28. it would be wonderful info as to what effort the SoCons have made about that to be found and published.
*When they say detransitioner, SoCons mean someone who claims they are a false positive for endorsed medical transition and generally that they are in no way responsible for that, which is not the usage most people involved employ.
Thank you, Baum.
I think you're being unduly harsh on Kaine. Rather than falling for the BS, I think he was doing what you suggested in passing: making a political calculation, one consisting of expressing great sympathy for the witness and then describing it as an individual case that should be addressed as an individual case.
That is, don't argue with her, don't get into any debate, don't possibly generate sympathy by going after a seeming victim, but drain the emotional impact by emphasizing it's one case and we already have a system for situations like that.
So while I think he could have been a *little* sharper, perhaps by saying that despite her personal tragedy it represents a tiny fraction of those who have transitioned, no, I don't think he fell for the propaganda, even briefly. I think he de-fanged her.
I would like to have seen the contents of the letter he read.
I agree with you. Kaine has voted against us a couple of times in order to get a budget passed, and I've let my utter disgust be known to him several times. However, I don't see this as one of those times. I think his political strategy was just as you described. I would have liked one of the Democrats to ask a few critical questions, at the very least to complicate her legal case and possibly set up perjury charges. Cole said that the doctor told her parents that if they didn't do surgery on her, she would commit suicide. Couldn't one Democrat have asked her if she indicated to her parents or the doctor that she might commit suicide? And if she did indicate this, is that how she felt at the time?
If you want to know the contents of the letter that Kaine discussed, there is a link in the Advocate article to the Senate hearing video. Kaine didn't read the whole letter in the hearing because it was long. However, he did discuss it, and he entered it into the record.
yeah it seems like a pretty smart maneuver to me, actually.
kaine is a career politician and can be held responsible for his actions. supporting chloe cole in any regard is actively transphobic. If he's falling for disinfo, he needs a transgender consultant with the support of the trans community on his staff.
Of course he can be held responsible for his actions but calling what he did "actively transphobic" and "falling for disinfo" is way over the top.
The very post under discussion here says that after describing Cole's case as one to be dealt with by malpractice law rather than GAC legislation, "Kaine then pivoted to talking about the careful, methodical considerations of gender-affirming care providers and parents, and he emphasized the extremist rhetoric deployed by the right to vilify trans people."
How that is "actively transphobic" is beyond my understanding.
if you don't understand how its actively transphobic to validate chloe cole as anything but a transphobic grifter, I'm not going to be able to explain transphobia to you no matter how hard I try.
And if you can't understand the value of essentially (if politely) reducing Cole to an example of medical malpractice that says nothing about proper GAC, an experience by which I am quite confident Cole did not feel validated, then the feeling of having nothing to say is decidedly mutual.
Agreed. This article ain't it.
If there were really as many detransitioners as the GOP claims they wouldn't need to fly the same half dozen or so all around the country to attend these hearings.
Make no mistake. When democrats do this sort of thing they aren’t falling for anything. Substantial portions of the DNC have no backbone and only want to operate based on how polls tell them to operate. We wouldn’t be where we were if the democrats had an actual backbone and actually bothered to try to craft a narrative to counter the republicans.
I can’t comment so much on Tim kaine, since I’ve seen him be a vocal ally even as of recent. But the dnc over all has a serious issue. They know what the moral and just answers are to all this. They just largely dont have a backbone with which to make a stand.
I think the senator did a good job. Based only on your excerpt, his subtle point seemed to be that the courts can already handle this so we do not need national laws favoring destransitioners. And there ARE doctors who fail to follow the standards of care. That is malpractice whether it is about gender affirming care or heart ailments. WPATH provides the standards and patients should be able to rely on their doctors to follow them. There ARE some bad doctors out there. I do not support Cole's advocacy but she is entitled to her day in court.
I agree. I think this is exactly the point Sen Kaine was making. From what I have read about the Chloe Cole case, it appears to me that in this particular case there was indeed medical malpractice, and WPATH standards of care were not followed, with injurious consequences. What happened, however, does not in any way offer grounds for condemning all gender-affirmative care.
Chloe Cole has to be one of the worst people on the planet. She makes money off of hurting trans people because she made a mistake.
Is something missing in this graph?
"Kaine then pivoted to talking about the careful, methodical considerations of gender-affirming care providers and parents, and he emphasized the extremist rhetoric deployed by the right to vilify trans people."
Once again, we see an intelligent person being misled by individuals who have built careers on promoting controversial and often disputed claims about the transgender community. Like Donald Trump and many of his allies, they rely on repeating the same talking points, selective studies, and misleading interpretations over and over until they begin to sound like established fact.
The problem is that repetition is not evidence. Many of the claims being promoted are based on cherry-picked data, outlier studies, or conclusions that do not reflect the broader medical and scientific consensus. When information is stripped of context and repeated endlessly, it can create a false impression of certainty where significant evidence points in another direction.
At some point, medical professionals have an obligation to present complete and accurate information to patients and the public. Repeatedly promoting only one side of the evidence while ignoring contradictory research is not sound medical practice and undermines trust in the profession. Whether driven by ideology, politics, or personal beliefs, physicians should be guided by facts, not narratives.
People who should know better have a responsibility to examine the full body of research, not just the studies that support a predetermined conclusion. Public debate should be driven by facts, transparency, and honest analysis—not by misinformation repeated so often that it becomes accepted without scrutiny.
There are so many lies floating around, and they actually harm people and kill them. I’m not sure that the “detransitioners” have any real evidence on their side, but it’s irrelevant. Using people like this to justify oppression of trans people is wrong in so many ways.
Trans people don’t have an “agenda” or “ideology”. They don’t want the whole world to transition. They do want to have the same rights, opportunities, and protections as everyone else. The ability to fail is a human characteristic, and no one should load the dice in anyone’s favor.
We would not be listening to Ms. Cole if 25 years ago the DNC, Pelosi and Barney Frank had done the right thing and passed an inclusive ENDA law. We would be seeing thousands of successful, fully transitioned trans people testifying about how their transition was 100% the right thing to do for them.
There are far more unhappy patients of acute and common surgeries than for gender surgeries.
Due to the aging demographic running the country, it is very reasonable to say we have the dumbest group of politicians to ever run this country at least from a cultural and societal perspective. They can destroy the country and not suffer any of the consequences because they literally know they won't be around long enough.
We need to get all of these old ass politicians out of office who would be considered antiques by any other standard and let the younger generations have a say in what THEIR future looks like. Instead we have a situation where the younger generations are going to be left cleaning up this mess long after all of these old ass politicians are gone. We need politicians who are young enough to still have some skin in the game.
Check out the Leaders We Deserve movement.
There are so many young anti-trans Republicans in Congress. Youth doesn’t guarantee the ability to listen and learn and not be an asshole. I’m 70 and I’m a getting tired of the ageism I’m seeing from progressives. The Dems need to develop a deep bench for sure, and not having done that for years is part of what got us here. But youth itself is no guarantee of good government. For example, we have Graham Platner, whose We Need Younger People message defeated a strong ally, Gov. Mills of Maine. And now we have a young, loud man whose hobby is sexting. And shame on Bernie for continuing to support him.
Just to put my reply into perspective, I'm 65, moderate and have no party affiliation. I'm not saying that younger = better and anything old is bad. What I am saying is, you have a whole gaggle of old politicians making very questionable decisions about not only the future of the country but the future of every single generation that is currently alive. Just like we had the opportunity of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, the younger generations at least deserve the same opportunities we had.
Of course they do. Are “old ass” Congresspersons like my state’s Rosa De Laura keeping that from happening? Nope. I’m respectfully asking you not to promote ageism. That’s all.
I wonder what motivates rich people to pay for this?
https://moldingminds.substack.com/p/the-manufacture-of-the-anti-trans?r=9zecz&utm_medium=ios
Disappointing, but unfortunately part of a larger trend of Democrats pivoting towards the right.
The anti-trans hate machine is well funded and organized, this incident is the latest example of that.
What was the hearing for and is there any place we can hear the rest of the testimony given?
This is why Harris picked Tim Walz. We have to have the standard set. I refuse to be like Tim Kaine, former vice-presidential pick BTW, a modern Democrat doesn't have to somehow apologize for trans people, we know non/pre-op ladies can't go in the changing room, but we also know that it's unfortunate non-op trans women have to be treated this way, it's simply due to masculinity being a hazard in these spaces, and there have been professed trans women who exhibited it. I wish it were easier, honestly, that all trans women were cool, but they will find examples of where a penis in their space went wrong. In any event, Gaines is operating out of ignorance.
Of course Sen. Kaine might have accepted her word naively, but I personally have a hard time believing that anyone does it naively at this point in the decade-long anti-trans campaign. On a gut level, and speaking from my own biases, it just feels to me like anyone who echoes Chloe Cole is colluding intentionally.