Whenever people/Russian trolls make the argument that we shouldn’t impeach Donald Trump because “Mike Pence is just as bad,” I tend to roll my eyes. Pence is horrible, of course. He’s a homophobe and a bigot and he agrees with Trump 99% of the time. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Impeachment Train needs to leave the g–damn station. Here’s the thing though: every so often, we do see Pence’s fingerprints on something horrible coming out of this administration. There are some “culture wars” that I honestly believe Trump doesn’t give a sh-t about. This is one of them. Apparently, the Trump administration – or mostly Pence and Jeff Sessions – want to legally maneuver transgender people out of existence.
The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law. A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.
Now the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.
The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.
“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
The new definition would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.
Well done, Caitlyn Jenner. I’m so glad she felt so strongly about voting for Republicans when all they want to do is deadname her and refuse to recognize her gender identity. This kind of move is just the kind of petty cruelty and Nazism that the Evangelicals love. This was this trade-off, this was one of their “gets” in their transactional power play: they are political whores who look the other way about a serial sexual assailant and adulterer in the White House, and they’ll actively campaign for a sexual assailant on the Supreme Court, all so they can “get” these kinds of things. In their minds, women have no reproductive rights and transgender people have no rights to exist. The ends justify the means, even as they’ve all sold their souls to the point of depravity and multiple human rights crises.
After the NYT reported this, the Human Rights Campaign and other organizations are pushing even more voter drives and campaigns. #WontBeErased is where trans people can tell their stories.
Trans people #WontBeErased
Trans people #WontBeErased
Trans people #WontBeErased
Trans people #WontBeErased
Trans people #WontBeErased
Trans people #WontBeErased
Trans people #WontBeErased
Trans people #WontBeErased
Trans people #WontBeErased
Trans people #WontBeErased— GLAAD (@glaad) October 21, 2018
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Oh Jesus. *reaches for the tequila bottle and voting ballot*
We need trucks full of bottles of tequila.
Without even mentioning that intersex people, at birth, might not be female or male.
#thirdgender
#itistime
Seriously! There are more than two sexes. Sex and gender are not the same thing. This is not the least bit grounded in science.
This administration really wants me to become an alcoholic.
This just smacks of Miller, Pence, and “Mother” *shudder*. I just can NOT understand why this is ANYONE’S business except the person and their doctors. And yes, I know just *existing* “offends” those a$$wipes.
I don’t think I’ve EVER known so much rage as I have felt in these last 2 years. And it scares me that I am capable of feeling this! I have always thought I was such a peaceful person!
I agree completely. Sustaining this level of rage and outright hatred is exhausting.
Oh, God, is this what it feels like to be an Evangelical??
but you must, my dear, because without our outrage…they will continue to debase genuine thought, reflection and kindness.
It’s getting harder and harder to find any comfort in this world. I’m still angry, still talking, still fighting, and I am exhausted and I know we can’t stop. Despite being a pessimist, I kept asking myself how the f*ck this could be happening so I started researching it. I recommend listening to the Hidden Brain podcast to understand the psychology of this. I’m not hopeful but it helps to look at history and see examples of similar regimes of oppression overestimating their power and underestimating the oppressed, and toppling fantastically.
Here’s a small token of comfort that helps me; thought I’d share. Listening to this song helps. From “Keep Ya Head Up” by Tupac Shakur:
“You know it makes me unhappy? (What’s that)
When brothas make babies, and leave a young mother to be a pappy.
And since we all came from a woman,
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman,
I wonder why we take from our women?
Why we rape our women— Do we hate our women?!
I think it’s time to kill for our women.
Time to heal our women, be real to our women.
And if we don’t we’ll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies.
And since a man can’t make one,
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one.
So will the real men get up?!
I know you’re fed up ladies, but keep your head up”
RIP Tupac Shakur
Thank you, Lark and Guest, for your words. And Stumpycorgi, for putting the lyrics up here. Powerful words, can’t be said enough! ❤️
Yes, I try not to hate and #PresidentMiller makes it so tough. I don’t drink and sometimes that feels like a good option too. But thanks @dietcokehead for the other suggestion, getting my ballot out too. To everyone else above too, thanks for helping me know there’s hope.
They’re mobilizing their base for the midterms, obviously.
This is just the opening gambit. 45 is picking off the lowest hanging fruit first because he knows not only is it an easy get with the base, it’s something moderates will easily hand over in a fight. Going after trans rights is going to have a lot of people on the left showing their asses for they hypocrites they are, unfortunately. And he knows it. This is a win-win for him.
Once he’s greased those wheels, it will be a steep downhill slide.
Now that Kavanaugh is in (i.e. with abortion potentially lost as a political frenzy generator) is this the new hot button topic to rile up the Trump base and keep ’em red? SO SAD. There are scores of important issues—the environment, healthcare, social security, defense spending—at stake in this election. Please media, don’t give ALL your attention to Trump’s idiot policy on gender, and the fiasco Syria. Please talk about the issues and the candidates. Gender identity is not about genitals, it’s a feeling, okay? Accept it and move on. Fox News, I’m looking at you.
Exactly. Gender identity isnt about genitals, it’s about a feeling. I dont see how laws can be made based on feeling yet not fact. This is a grey area. Society needs to be more accepting of trans people FOR SURE. but to change laws on a basis of feeling, which is incredibly objective and changes depending on who your talking to, seems like a bad idea.
@ Gabbyhands : so true about the “low hanging fruit”. Smells like mid-30’s Germany to me.
First they came from the transsexuals and I wasn’t a transsexual, so I said nothing …..
The opening Gambit was Mexicans are all criminal rapists, they are coming for your White jobs and your White Women. Next were Muslims, shutting them out of the country, encouraging discrimination and violence against them. Then there were Black Americans, setting Jeff Sessions to bring back the war on Black Americans sent to jail at higher rates for drug offenses, then encouraging police officers to countinue their brutality and murdering of innocent Black citizens. Followed by deporting Mexican parents of US citizen children who have lived life quietly without crime. Then kidnapping and locking up Mexican children just because their parents are poor immigrants seeking asylum.
Let’s be honest up to now many White Women who voted for Trump still thought he was a harmless joke. Now that he has moved to transgendered Americans the White population finally realized that this could affect them personally and their children. But many non-Whites have been suffering under the boots of this administration for 2 years now. So no this was not the opening gambit just who is left after coming for many before.
Hey Caitlin,
You going to the White House to discuss this with your good friend? Cuz this is MUCH better than Hilary, right?
She doesn’t care. If things get too rough for her in the US she will just pack up and move.
Caitlyn has the money and connections to go anywhere in the world.
She only cares about herself
When you think this administration couldn’t go any lower.
They always dig deeper.
The only thing they are good at.
F-k em. F-k em all. Transgender is first, let’s bring back slavery is next. Go out and vote people because these people have no soul, or standards and they’re out to drag the country back 100 years.
Sadly, I think that you are right. Things were always bad for marginalized people but this is downright terrifying.
Muslim Americans were first, Mexican immigrants next, then African-Americans third. People just didn’t notice because it didn’t affect them personally. The powers that be in America never, ever start with populations that include Whites first. They start with people of color first and when they get away with it then they eventually come to the most vulnerable Whites next.
How much more evil can these people do? The level of hate and willful ignorance exhibited by so-called Christian Evangelicals is mind blowing. And yet, they’ll trumpet they are obedient followers of Jesus Christ. No, I honestly believe they’d crucify the actual Christ cause he wouldn’t agree with their rabid, hateful, fanaticism.
Jesus couldn’t get into the country. He would be profiled as a radicalized Middle Eastern terrorist because he was a brown Palestinian and turned back at the border, if not just sent directly to Guantanamo.
If Jesus did manage to sneak in, he would be arrested for speaking Aramaic at a restaurant while talking to his mom on a cell phone.
Agreed 100%. How do you walk out of church and think, yeah this is the person Jesus want us to follow and support.
Also, I suggest reading an oped by Doug Pagitt in USA Today. It’s exactly what I’ve been thinking this whole time and what a lot of us Christians feel whose family/friends have turned into people we don’t recognize.
Thank you for recommending that Pagitt op-ed. I just tweeted it. I think it’s exactly the message that American Christians need right now.
A liberal Christian I went to HS with reposted this tweet today and I thought it was so on point:
If you ignore the witness of teenage girls
If you tell refugees “go back where you came from”
If you close your doors to dirty field laborers
If you would turn a child over to a tyrant
Don’t put up a Nativity this year
That needs to be a bumper sticker.
Wow. Lala, I love that.
This is so powerful. Love it.
Regressive politics are so…regressive. No, Mr. President. They may both start with gen, but genitalia and gender are not the same. You can squeeze your eyes shut and wish real hard, and write a law about it and even punish people who disagree with you, but gender identity—distinct from genitalia at birth—is here to stay.
This is horrific and just the beginning. They know that most moderates will roll over and let this pass. I am so sorry to people who will be affected by this cruelty
…Americans, please vote these people out. The damage they are causing will be permanent.
What absolute tools. Do they not realize they will actually make the situation they are bitching about worse? It won’t “fix” the bathroom situation or “unconfuse” the “poor” kids who had to share a bathroom with transgender individuals. Because now you’ll have people who don’t “look” like the gender you’re saying they are in the bathroom anyway (due to surgery, hormones, etc.). How exactly does this fix anything other than otherize LGBTQI individuals?
Yes, they realize. It doesn’t fix anything. They don’t care.
A transgender woman just won some international cycling competition. Yeah… men want to take everything from us and now they want our sports titles, too. A person who is biologically male should not be allowed to compete in womens sports!
This is an interesting gray area… maybe it needs to be a separate category? Trans Olympics?
If they are on female hormones for a length of time they ought to be competing in the women’s group. And trans women are not MEN taking anything from you. They are women. When some sports trophy is more important to you than human rights…..
With or without surgery, a transgender female has the same estrogen levels as birthright women. That brings her within the same range for sporting events, I think.
Birthright women vary considerably in the required attributes for athletic events, and as more and more women have been allowed into sports dominated by men and girls have been provided with the same access to athletics in school, the male-female gap in athletic records have been rapidly narrowing. Turns out women may need to train differently but the results are not necessarily much different based on size when appropriate. We need to use it or lose it much more than men when it comes to muscle retention, due to different body chemistry. I’ve known tiny skinny women who were extremely strong simply because they used their muscles in daily life much more than wimps like me.
Chromosomal anomalies (in particular differences in the X and Y sex chromosomes, number and combinations) are also fairly common so sex assignment at birth based on visible genitals is no sure thing, even if we forget about the fact that birth sex has always been a spectrum rather than binary. Intersex folks can’t be neatly categorized as male or female and if they are surgically altered to visually fit one sex or the other as babies, at puberty Mother Nature often shows the choice was wrong. So adults who were altered are now saying that it is better not to mess with intersex children but they should be just accepted the way they are and allowed to design their own approach to gender roles.
Everything we know is pointing to gender fluidity being more realistic for humans than rigid roles, both physically and psychologically.
The anti-science Trumpies and Pencies are just engaging in pseudo-science, ignoring the real complexities to fit Pence’s religious beliefs. We already know that Trump has no religious or ethical framework of his own, unless you count “Me, me, me, everything for me! Nothing for you!” as a religion.
It drives me nuts that they say this is science based and then make you pick 1 of 2 options. There are more than 2 sexes. I believe there are 5 (including those with both types of sex organs, but one or the other is non-functional, and those where neither is function).
@JWoolman
Fantastic comment!! Bravo.
I am not definitely on the binary spectrum and God, did I have a hellish life with people trying to make me fit in a box!
jwoolman- Amen! As someone with Turner’s Syndrome, I’m not 100% on the binary spectrum, and it’s insane the amount of folks who keep spouting “It’s science- there’s two genders!” don’t know what the f**k they’re talking about. Intersex people like me exist. This is a dangerous slippery slope for transgender and intersex people.
Yes, but when it comes to athletic potential, the % body fat:muscle ratio is different between people with XX and XY chromosomes. I don’t know if hormones change that – maybe they do… Like I said: gray area. Because fairness. (Like professional sports are fair, LOL. All the doping, don’t get me started…)
I appreciate the sentiment of this comment, but please don’t use the term “birthright women” to refer to women who were assigned female at birth. Trans women are women by birthright, too. Please just get comfortable with the term “cis women” or “cisgender women”.
I have wondered about that in that the male body into which some women were born continues to confer musculoskeletal benefits.
Some women naturally produce very high levels of testosterone with no intervention or doping, just how their body works. They excel at elite sports. The number of women with higher than normal T levels in the elite sporting world is many times higher than in the general population. They have an advantage. Should they be excluded as well? Nothing is binary.
They would have an advantage because even the bones they grew are laid down differently and being on female hormones for years won’t undo those advantages. I read an interesting Australian article about this. One trans competitor was below the acceptable limit of T but even that was ten times higher than in the highest T level of the cis women. So it is an issue and I don’t know that there’s a simple solution 🤷🏼♀️ I really have no idea how this could be handled but it is true that trans women would absolutely on average have an advantage over cis women in athletic performance. I do think the way Katy posed this was very bigoted though. Trans women aren’t men
Katy, as a woman who had huge testosterone levels and could compete with men in men’s sports I find your statement, silly, misinformed and totally out of line.
By that logic, intersex individuals shouldn’t be allowed to compete either, nor should people with differing levels of hormones (which covers a huge number of people, FYI).
This is some TERF BS, right here. Guess what? Discriminating against transwomen doesn’t improve the plight of women. We’re all being oppressed by the patriarchy, and the sooner we recognize that and address it, the sooner we can start making some real progress. The only people who benefit when the oppressed are at each other’s throats are the oppressors.
Nobody is “taking everything away” from you. This is hate-based bullshit. Nobody is taking *anything* away from you. This is about a basic human right to be and express who you actually are. If you would deny that5 to anyone, you are the oppressor. You are supporting the oppression that hurts us all.
Word on what everyone else is saying about hormone levels.
That “man” sacrificed the benefits of the privilege conferred to the male sex, underwent surgery and hormones treatments to achieve their feminine appearance, and now has to spend the rest of her life having to battle people like you stripping away their gender validity. If you want to turn sex into a battle, maybe consider some respect for those who willingly chose to fight for your side.
@Veronica
By all means support trans women but this narrative that the “sacrifice ” of undergoing hormone therapy and or surgery is some nobler form of womanhood is misogynistic .
Also while this may have not have been your intent yout comment “consider some respect for those who willingly chose to fight for your side”comes across as very patronising as natal women should be some how grateful that trans women gave up their male privilege (which many deny having in the first place ) and condescended to be women .
I have been seeing this sentiment a lot and it rubs me the wrong way it is this very thinking that made Caitlyn Jenner “Women of the Year”.
You should google him. He is a fully male being who claims to simply feel like a woman – he hasn’t had any surgery or hormone replacement.
How come we don’t hear this issue in regards to men’s sports? All the stories I’ve heard in regards to this is transwomen is ciswomen sports and never about transmen in cismen sport?
If it’s really an issue, it would make more sense to develop functional categories like they do in boxing (based on weight in that case). Different individuals even of the same sex are on uneven playing fields in various sports for all sorts of reasons. Maybe sex/gender is not the right criterion to use.
T.E.R.F.s (and other complicit, bigoted types of radfems) are down with being political whores too, when it’s convenient for them. Sad but true.
Please do not use that highly offensive term.
Aw, did the TERF get their feelings hurt for being called what they are? That’s so sad.
I don’t use TERF anymore only because it is not really accurate– The T and the E are accurate, but not the R or the F.
Policing other people’s bodies is *not* a feminist position, never mind a radical feminist position.
Advocating for the continued oppression (and in some cases nothing less than the annihilation) of an entire subset of humanity is *not* a feminist position.
I could go on.
The horrifying abuse that transphobic “feminists” advocate is *exactly* the same oppressive shit that has been used against all women throughout history. It divides us , and ultimately hurts all of us.
This is not feminism.
Had to access Urban Dictionary to find out what the initials stand for. Never heard it before.
I agree, Katy.
It really baffles me how people care so damn much what’s going on in someone else’s body, pants or bedroom.
You have neighbors living in poverty, in abusive households, with debilitating illnesses and so much more. Yet your biggest problem is that John loves Steve, or that Bud identifies as Judy? Really?
You know, there is a term for acting against your own best interest, feeling persecution when there is none, and obsessing with things that have no impact on your life. Mental illness.
+1000.
The bathroom controversy is especially ridiculous. Absolutely the last thing I would worry about in considering public bathroom safety would be a birthright male on estrogen…. Really, transgender women are no threat to me in or out of the bathroom. Well, no more of a threat than any other woman, we have some crazies ourselves. The threats are birthright males without estrogen, people. Testosterone combined with the current male culture is not our friend.
Besides, any birthright male rapist filled with enough testosterone to get it up could just disguise himself as a woman and enter any women’s bathroom he wants. Hasn’t that ever occurred to these fools?
And how exactly are they going to enforce such laws? Do we all get strip searched before allowed inside, or what? That’s gonna make for some long lines at the stalls.
Actually this is just another link in the chain – if you don’t look feminine enough, you don’t get to tinkle in the girls’ bathroom.
Oh, you lost your hair to chemotherapy? Too bad so sad. Go pee in the bushes.
You like your hair short or find pants comfortable? Then hold it, you commie b*tch.
Oh, you are wearing a suit because you are the boss? Well now you are fired because you tried to use the wrong bathroom. Also, you still can’t pee there.
Or maybe you are a 6. Well, this bathroom is 7s and up. Oh, and we get to grab you by the presidential area before you can go in.
+1000
The right are authoritarians, they want to control every aspect of. persons life including sex. They are underneath true fascists bent on implementing it through a religious theocracy.
#Truth.
Sex is biological. Gender is made up of social and cultural traits that are often associated with a biological sex but not synonymous with sex. There is an entire spectrum. Why don’t they contact Webster’s dictionary and ask for a full rewrite of whatever they don’t like. They can’t legislate away how people feel and identify; Pence isn’t saving any souls if that’s what he thinks he’s doing.
its not about saving souls, it’s about hate. They like to fall back on religious language like “Saving your soul” when discussing things like this and reproductive rights but it’s not based on anything other than hate and fear, they just want to couch it in a moralistic way so they can feel good about it.
I agree, its about hate. They pretend its about religion.
It’s not that hard to understand but the willful ignorance is mind-blowing. I don’t know what they think they are doing but it’s truly evil. It just never ends with Trump and his minions.
There is not such a thing as biological sex. Intersex people are proof of that.
I remember growing up learning how the US went to Afghanistan to bring democracy and to “save women” “make them free” (I know it was bullshit excuse to go there but still)
This country sees itself as the best of the best and yet this administration is as low and the countries they critized for ages.
The complete and utter cruelty of this administration makes me feel physically ill and I’m not even American. They are pandering to their base and to the Christian right, who confusingly do not behave in any way that is Christian and don’t do anything right. Trump isn’t religious in any way, shape or form, so this has Pence written all over it. Trump just loves to take any opportunity he can to be cruel and this is definitely cruel.
1.) Science does not support the idea of firmly segregated genders, and it doesn’t even support a simple sex dichotomy, either. Genetically, sex can be very complicated, and our social binaries do not reflect the breadth of the diversity.
2.) Everybody involved in this decision and who spent 2016 railing about how Hillary would be just as bad can f*ck off.
Thank you! I have Turner’s syndrome, a condition which causes a woman to miss an X chromosome, either partially or completely. This affects anywhere from 1/2000 to 1/5000 women. Would I be “female” by these standards? The male equivalent is XYY syndrome where a male has an extra Y chromosome. What label will such folks have? It’s silly.
The morons in power are all too stupid to understand anything more complex than a simple binary. Yes/No, Bad/Good, Woman/Man.. Morons like them shouldn’t be allowed to have this much power, it’s too dangerous.
The country is ruled by an Idiocracy.
Well said, Veronica.
I’m certainly not a Russian Bot.
And I’m not American (though my Trump supporting brother is…sadly). I’m a white, straightish cis, Canadian, female. I am very aware of the privilege I have just for being born that way.
Pence terrifies me. I mean, so does Trump, I won’t lie. They’re both reprehensible human beings.
The thing is, basic (and equal) human rights for every single individual in America (and the world for that matter) is the most important thing to me.
Trump and his supporters may want to kick every minority out of the U.S. and take away the voices and identities of any who remain but, in my opinion, Pence wants them all dead. Pence doesn’t believe that any LGBTQI deserves to even live, let alone live with the basic human rights afforded to us “normal” people.
And he uses his version of Christianity to validate his beliefs.
I’m sorry but I’d rather Trump pushed his bigly button and wipe us all out than see one more trans person murdered. One more LGBTQI person beaten up and left for dead. One more teenager committing suicide.
Or one more person of colour shot and killed on the street just because of the colour of their skin for that matter. But that’s a post for another day.
Today I just want to curl up under a blanket and cry.
Penc his the same dog we have dealt with before in America honestly. He is above all a slimy politician and we are use to those in America. What we aren’t used to is having sexist, racist, bigoted ashat in office with zero political goals other than boosting his ego. Trump in the long run is very dangerous for this country and yours as well. Pence has religious ideology but Trump encourages his whole cult he wants to help them build their religious empire. Trump already has built up a cult, Pence not so much.
Why is the article conflating sex and gender?
Emperor Zero sycophant DeSantis got destroyed last night.
Deflect with lies on twitter to your shrinking MAGAt base, you fat orange turd stain. There’s no “Middle East” terrorists mixed in with the caravan of Central Americans trying to flee oppression, you offspring of orangutan and cooking lard (no offense to innocent orangs).
Vote to save democracy.
So, Pence is relying on Science now? The hypocrisy and Irony is insane.
Yeah that was one of my main takeaways, too, that’s really rich, isn’t it?
Don’t worry, it’s not like he’s getting the science right or anything.
Oh, so in this situation they stand behind science? Ok, Jan.
It is scary that so many people are so determinated to go against other people basic and human rights just because of prejudice camuflated in religious and economic opinion.
I am brazilian and the society here is electing a facist as president, it is a nightmere. It is terrible to discover that there are so many idiots narrow minded and racists people around is.
100%.
It sets a terrible precedent if we don’t pursue trump for his crimes just because Pence is lurking.
What I don’t understand is what kind of society Republicans want. What would their dream world be like? A world where everyone poor is a slave or just dies away? What the hell is it that they want?
I know what Democrats want. It’s very simple, they want everyone to be free, happy and healthy. But Republicans? Why are they so evil, why do they think they benefit of inequality? Are they such morons they just can’t see the big picture?
You believe Democrats, many of whom are underwritten by the private prison system, many of whom condone drone use to execute individuals without trial, many of whom have supported the continuation of Gitmo, “want everyone to be free, happy, and healthy?” I’m not saying your assessment of Republicans is wrong, but your assessment of Democrats is. It’s far too broad and idealistic. Certainly the Democratic platform is friendlier to LGBT individuals and people in poverty… but check out just how many minorities are serving time in a private prison, or how many people have been executed without due process, or how many suspects are held indefinitely at Guantanamo. There is foulness in both parties and to suggest otherwise is naive.
No, I don’t think the world is black and white, I’m not six years old.
I don’t get what the Republican goal is nowadays is what I’m saying, that’s all.
Fair enough. But that wasn’t “all” you were saying… as evidenced by all the other stuff you said that was a bit whack.
So what is the solution? To make it all worse the way this current administration is doing? To jack it up and see just how sadistic we can be until everything explodes and we have generations of long lasting harm on our hands? What is your goal? What exactly are you accomplishing in all of this?
The democratic party is not a party of unicorns– who has said that they are? But they are at least democratic. They have their problems but your assertion that they are equally to blame for this mess does *not* hold up to scrutiny. What we have now in this administration is beyond monstrous, and if you vote for this, *THIS* is what you are standing for. “Both sides” did not make this happen.
Both can have flaws and it’s our job as constituents to stop ignoring egregious human rights violations because some parts of their ideology matches ours. That’s “what I am trying to accomplish”- holding all our representatives accountable.
Also, nowhere did I say both parties are “equally to blame for this mess.” I just don’t abide sanctifying Democrats just because they aren’t Republicans.
Who has said we should not hold all politicians accountable? You are resorting to a straw man argument. NOBODY in this thread has suggested that Democrats are perfect little saints or has suggested they be “sanctified”. That is not the point. It is very clear where this hatred is coming from– very distinct sources for very precise reasons:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/22/authoritarians-target-trans-people-democracy-patriarchy
We MUST vote out the people who are causing this mess, and waiting for a precious unicorn to save you (please no more Jill Steins!) is not going to work. We will have to vote for some less than perfect democrats in this election, or we will be in for another six years of this and much worse.
This is literally what the OP said and to what I was responding: “I know what Democrats want. It’s very simple, they want everyone to be free, happy and healthy.”
So, yeah, sounds like they are perfect little saints in this person’s eyes. I don’t need nor care about your insulting rhetoric. Butt out if you can’t follow the thread.
Republicans are easy, Democrats simply get fooled by their effective PR and beliywhat they say as opposed to what they do. They want unlimited power and the world to go back to White men being dominant, domineering and in charge of everyone else that is not a white male. White Women Republicans want to go back to being power adjacent where they are ahead of everyone elsetoo except for their White males. No these people are not religious, the use religion to get voters and to maintain the status quo just as in times of slavery when the Bible was used to justify slavery (complete opposite of what the Bible says). These days the Bible is used to justify greed and prejudice (again, opposite of what the Bible says).
How anyone would think that this would be a great world to anyone is what I just don’t get. You, rich white guy, would have to live separated from the “riffraff,” in a walled city. I guess some people dream of that. The opposite of equality, how wonderful.
So let’s make it all illegal! What a great idea! No HRT, no cesarean sections, no assisted childbirth, and while we are at it no dying of the hair or getting any kind of plastic surgery of any kind, not even mastectomies for cis women. Having a miscarriage? Do it in the woods. This all sooooooooo unnatural! Anything you would deny to trans women, you must also deny to yourself.
Jaysus, do these people even listen to themselves?
Fuck this transphobic shit.
Seriously, there is very little in the way of medical procedures or medication that transwomen use that cis women do not also use. The thoughtless hypocrisy is amazing.
Transmisogyny is exactly the same as straight up misogyny. Policing other people’s bodies is *never* a feminist position. They may be coming for transwomen today but believe me, cis women who are reading this– they are coming for you next. If the law can police one part of one’s anatomy, they will not stop there.
So much to legislate and correct and this is what they come up with. This is why the lower courts have been rapidly filled with judges. This entire administration is a nightmare for oppressed people
Where’s Caitlin Jenner now? And the rest of the trump normalising Kardashian’-West’s. Smh.
That’s all I got.
What are they doing whilst using this issue to distract us???? THAT is the question, IMHO… and they laugh because we are distracted. They have us fighting them on so many levels, we cannot breathe. Meanwhile, we all need to earn livings, whilst they live off their inherited wealth. What are they distracting us from?
Take back Jesus. Jesus is a liberal by today’s standards. There is nothing to stop the left from changing the conversation: read the Bible, quote Jesus. Read the Constitution, quote amendments. There is nothing better to expose hypocrisy and prejudice than to DO THE WORK, dismantle the argument take away the monopoly the Right has claimed to both.
Three bathrooms: men, women, and bigots.
Problem solved.
Also, regardless of the science of genitalia, this is an issue of individual liberty and freedom, things that are the rockbed of this country.
Take back liberty, take back freedom, take back this conversation from those that would thwart it in imposing their religion in others.
Jesus was Jewish, Middle Eastern, a socialist, and if he arrived on the White House lawn today they’d crucify him again tomorrow.
I’m afraid this and the focus on illegal immigrants by democrats will ensure trump and the repubs a second term.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Caravan Issue is a trumped up bullshit campaign to “scare” the pearl-clutchers into voting red.
Meanwhile kids are caged and Saudi Arabia can change stories YET AGAIN about Khassogi’s death.
Just erase the entire 2 years and the monsters in charge.
It’s probably a good thing that a) I lost any desire to drink after growing up with an alcoholic mother and b) I’m allergic to alcohol or I’d probably drink myself into oblivion before this administration is over. I always tell my kids that “hate” is a very, very strong word when it comes to people so don’t use it, but that’s the only feeling I can manage to summon with this orange pox on our country. Disgust isn’t even strong enough a word.
Suddenly science and regulations are important to them?
Why/how does this sh1thead sh1thole subhuman get to run OUR country like he ran one of his sorry businesses? Have we already moved into a dicktatorship(spelling intentional)? Do the invertebrates in Congress have no say whatsoever?
Jershua, you do realize all Trump is doing is reversing a rule the Obama administration put in place. Not voted on legislation, just a rule.
The Trump admin is simply pulling the rule out & going back to the original Title IX criteria.
Calm down. Things were absolutely fine before the rule was in place. We’re just going back to that.
Calm down? Things were fine before!?
Wow bitch, check your privilege.
Vote, blue! It’s the only way to get our checks and balances back.
Exactly. And while we are on the subject of voting Blue, I hope the Democrats get their act together and come up with some strong candidates for 2020. Times awasting.
Janet,
There is no checks & balances with a Title IX rule that was originally put in place during the Obama administration & all Trump is doing is taking it out.
It has no true legal weight. Schools & other groups that receive Title IX funds can continue following the Obama rule, though they may risk losing their Title IX funding, or they can agree to follow the previous criteria for determining sex & gender (which is what this is doing by taking out the Obama rule.)
If this was a voted on piece of legislation, then yes voting Democratic would be a check on this.
If Donald Trump wins the mid-term election, I wouldn’t be surprised if he revolted the entire country into a Christian-regime, Alt-Right Theocracy that benefited the white, heterosexual, cisgender male population, while enforcing strict laws and stripping all rights and privileges from the rest of the of us.
Now that I think about it, didn’t something similar happen to Iran in 1979?
To be honest, I’m surprised that more Republicans have used the trans issue as a scare tactic yet. It’s been used already in the Illinois GOP governor primary by Jeanne Ives, a far right Republican from the Wheaton aka the Illinois suburb bible belt. Here’s the ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZwKZf2jtHI. The scary part is that Ives only lost narrowly to incumbent Bruce Rauner.
I protested in Houston today. Was called a liberal whore, a communist, a fascist, and a fucking idiot. I’ve never felt more alive or American!!
Not true. This is a months-long effort to protect sex-based protections for women, which involves maintaining a definition of the word “woman” that simply cannot be “whomever feels like one.” Human are a sexually dimorphic species (the few with intersex conditions does not make this unrue any more than vets losing their legs in war discredits the fact that humans are a bipedal species).
Nonsense. Women lose nothing by protecting transgender people. And Gender is not about “Whatever you feel like.”
Science does not support anything that you are saying. The simple scenario many of us learned in school is that two X chromosomes make someone female, and an X and a Y chromosome make someone male– but these are very simplistic ways of thinking about what is scientifically very complex.
Anatomy, hormones, cells, and chromosomes (not to mention personal identity convictions) are actually not usually aligned with one binary classification. New technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that chromosomal sex is a process, not an assignation. This is real.
As our understanding of biology continues to advance, our social, legal, and medical systems will have to evolve as well. I know this may be a stretch for you, but protecting the rights of all people to be who they actually are and express who they are protect ALL of us.