Utah’s Republican Governor Spencer Cox, as he vetoes a ban on trans athletes passed by the state legislature, notes 75,000 high school athletes and only four are transgender. “Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few.”
The governor noted that out of 75000 kids participating in high school sports in Utah, there were four transgender kids and one transgender student playing girls sport.
Jamie Lee Curtis celebrates her transgender daughter on twitter:
Happy birthday Ruby. I am proud 2 be your mother & am sending support 2 all trans families across the US targeted by conservative legislatures & I VOW 2 use my freedom of speech 2 SUPPORT my child & ALL trans children trying 2 live FREELY as who they are. #ProtectTransKids
[Photo of Jamie Lee Curtis in pro-trans t-shirt, dancing.]
Investigations of parents with transgender children for possible child abuse were temporarily halted across Texas on Friday after a state court ruled that the policy, ordered last month by Gov. Greg Abbott, had been improperly adopted and violated the State Constitution.
The injunction, issued by Judge Amy Clark Meachum in Travis County, stemmed from a legal challenge by the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl. Her family was among the first to be investigated by the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services under Mr. Abbott’s order, which directed state officials to consider medically accepted treatments for transgender youth — including hormones and puberty-suppressing drugs — as abuse.
In issuing the ruling, which came after a day of testimony, Judge Meachum said the governor’s actions, and those of the agency, “violate separation of powers by impermissibly encroaching into the legislative domain.” She said there was a “substantial likelihood” that plaintiffs would prevail after a trial on the merits because the governor’s order was “unconstitutional.”
Not only are these new orders unconstitutional, they represents crimes against the human rights of the American people, and a direct threat to the welfare of transgender kids.
Greg Abbott’s Republican Party is now actively promoting fascists policies, policies that – not without reason – echoes the ones of Vladimir Putin. They are both so afraid of freedom and diversity they feel themselves entitled to use the state to destroy those they do not like.
Now is the time for all good people to stand up and stop these violent bigots from destroying our world.
Yet, I don’t think using the photo in this way is the right way to go.
Here’s why:
1. Drag and crossdressing are often good ways for trans and queer people to explore and express their identities, but gender expression is not the same as gender identity.
John Mandel or Rudy Giuliani dressing up as women does not make them remotely transgender. Yet by juxtaposing the real lives of trans people with the shenanigans of these two right wing extremists, you might reinforce the idea that these are the same phenomena.
2. By making fun of a man dressing up as a woman (regardless of how bigoted he is), you also reinforce the idea that feminine expressions in men is ridiculous and laughable.
You risk reinforcing the sexist misogyny that permeates much of traditionalist homophobia and transphobia these days, which again may reinforce the guilt and shame induced into male assigned gender variant people who desperately try to find room for this side of their psyche and personality.
I understand that this was not the intention of those who have posted this photos, and i can relate to the feeling of schadenfreude. Yet, I am afraid these tactics might do more harm than good.
The American Republican Party’s decent into darkness is a tragedy and their treatment of trans kids is a crime. Still, it is important to keep in mind that they are losing in many states.
Pink News reports that the Texas House had a deadline to pass bills from the Texas Senate of midnight Tuesday (25 May), which expired before Senate Bill 29 (SB29) could receive a vote. It is dead and good people everywhere are celebrating.
In other news: Nashville’s top prosecutor has refused to enforce a “hateful” Tennessee law that demands businesses post signs saying trans people can use their bathrooms. District Attorney Glenn Funk said to News4 Nashville that he believes that every person is welcome and valued in Nashville:
“Enforcement of transphobic or homophobic laws is contrary to those values. My office will not promote hate.”
Photo text: From tweet by Texas representative Ana-Maria Ramos: “We did it! During a 14 hour day at the lege, we successfully stopped SB29 - an anti-trans sports bill that threatened to hurt our Texas trans youth. Today was a testament to the resilient spirit of the amazing trans community and all of the allies who stood by us all session.”
The Republican attacks against trans kids all over the US is often presented as “protecting kids”. Some of the anti-trans laws reveal what is really taking place: This is all about forcing kids to live up to the strict and narrow ideals of right wing extremists. They are all for surgery and hormone treatments, if they can be used to turn intersex kids into people they consider “normal”.
Intersex is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.
Sara Willa Ernst talked to Alicia Roth Weigel, an intersex advocate and member of Austin’s Human Rights Commission:
The bills seek to ban health care services like puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries for trans kids. But how would that affect intersex kids?
Not just in Texas, but states across the country, these bills often include a specific loophole that pertains to intersex kids. That might be why a lot of people read these bills and don’t even realize that they’re as much about intersex kids as they are about trans kids.
These specific loopholes block gender affirming procedures for trans kids who want them, and yet force them on intersex kids who may not even be asking for them.
I think that is the whole crux of this. This isn’t about logic. This isn’t about what’s healthiest for children. This is purely about what is considered normal in the eyes of Texas legislators and saying, trans kids are not “normal,” so let’s block them from being able to realize their true selves, because that true self is not “normal."
And yet intersex kids are born not "normal,” and so let’s make sure that we can “normalize” their bodies, whether or not they’re asking for that to happen.
Susan R. Bailey, president of the American Medical Association (AMA), criticises the Republican anti-trans bills over at Advocate, arguing that lawmakers in every state should focus on improving access to care instead of obstructing or criminalizing the care their constituents need.
She writes:
Even as we work to defeat a global pandemic, it is maddening that more states than ever before are considering legislative proposals that would directly harm transgender patients while promoting government intrusion into the patient-physician relationship, jeopardizing patient care, trust, and privacy.
The AMA is fighting dozens of regressive proposals to limit transgender rights that have been introduced or advanced in some 30 states. The most grievous are bills that seek to criminalize the provision of medically necessary gender-transition care to patients who are minors, and in some states, to treat the delivery of such care as child abuse.
This is wrong. Decisions about courses of treatment and other aspects of medical care should always be made within the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship. No state should legislatively prohibit certain transition-related services, nor limit the range of options physicians and families may consider in making decisions for pediatric patients.
She underlines that the AMA believes that everyone deserves quality, evidence-based medical care regardless of gender identity or any other factor:
Transgender rights are fundamental human rights, including the right to seek out and receive medical care tailored to an individual’s specific needs and circumstances.
You read that right. In a short interview with TMZ (embedded below) she even refers to trans girls as “biological boys”. This transgender woman wants to be elected on a transphobic policy.
This is sickening, I know, and her statements represents a true betrayal of all the transgender youth out there who want to use sports as a place for personal growth – like she did, a long time ago.
How can Jenner betray trans people in this way?
The question remains, though. How is this even possible?
I mean, we all know Jenner made some strange statements after she transitioned, but she has talked to a lot of trans women and trans men, so you would think she has learned a bit or two about the culture that creates transphobia.
She should be able to see through the tactics used by those who want to use trans kids as cultural scape goats in the struggle for traditionalist supremacy.
But no.
The power of the tribe
I cannot read her mind, but I have a few ideas as to what this is about.
I have lost a couple of trans friends who could not and would not abandon their right wing “tribe,” even as it became abundantly clear that the Republican Party in the US had weaponized transphobia in their so-called “culture war”.
It turned out that the strong traditionalist beliefs of my friends, and their fear of an open society, were stronger than their desire to protect transgender lives.
One of them went as far as telling me that she would rather sacrifice transgender rights than support anti-racist and pluralist policies. For her European “Christian” civilization was under attack, so she had to support those who defended this imaginary culture of hers, even if these persons where both homophobic and transphobic.
She had grown up with these values. Her friends most likely shared these values. Her family believed in them. To abandon them would mean to admit that she had been wrong all her life. She could not. She was stuck.
American Conservatism is no longer Conservative
I do not think Jenner shares my ex-friends beliefs about the end of Western Civilization, but it seems that she, like my ex-friends, is unable to understand how an oppressive system uses scapegoats (like radical women, Jews, black activists, immigrants, Muslims and trans people) to mobilize the fear of those who seek safety and comfort in “traditional values” and the status quo.
It might very well be that Jenner thinks that her opposition to trans girls in sports is a rational standpoint. It is not, but she may think so.
That is exactly how an oppressive system works: It even gets the oppressed to take part in the oppression, by appealing to a kind “common sense” that might be common, but very seldom sensible. Remember that the biggest opponents to voting rights for women were conservative women.
Jenner grew up in a world where free market liberalism (understood as Conservatism at the time) stood up against left wing Liberalism and Socialism. This dichotomy no longer describes the real cultural battles in America, as I see them. The Republican Party is no longer a Conservative party in the traditional sense. It is – at best – a radical populist party, and – at worst – a channel for totalitarian fascism.
But Jenner clearly thinks that there must even now be room for a “normal” Conservative in the party.
Playing the game
In order to get the MAGA-people to vote for her she needs to play the game of contemporary Republican politics, and that game requires her to sacrifice trans kids on the altar of electability. She is selling her soul for a prize she cannot possibly win.
This game was over at the time she came out as trans. The Trumpists and the white, right wing Evangelicals will never vote for a trans woman, because for them transgender people have become signs of the world their fear: A world where everyone is allowed to explore their own identities, find their own way and contribute to the world on the basis of their real abilities, and not by living up to the stereotypes of the past.
Jenner’s campaign for becoming governor will cost her most of her friends. Trans people will have nothing to do with her, and the right wing she tries to woo, will despise her regardless of much she tries to please them. What a sad, sad story!
Is it possible to be Conservative and pro-trans?
Some of my friends have asked me if it is possible to be politically Conservative and pro-transgender.
Yes, it is. I live in a country (Norway) where the Conservative Party is pro-LGBTQA. It has introduced legislation that helps and protects trans people. This kind of Conservatism respects the freedom the individual should have to be able go their own ways, and it believes in a social welfare policy that protects vulnerable groups.
The same applies to religion. Most of my Christian friends support trans people, as they see that support as a natural consequence of a gospel of love for all.
But again: The Republican Party in the US is no longer a Conservative party of this sorts. And it is hard to recognize Jesus in the things the white, right wing, American Evangelicals say these days. The balance between compassion and bigotry has tilted over. The compromise Jenner is looking for is no longer possible in the US.
Sorry, Caitlyn: The best thing you can do now is to abandon the campaign and admit that you were wrong!
The 20th century saw a dramatic rise in the number of left-handed people. Was it all part of a leftist conspiracy?
Right now ant-transgender activists, left and right, are trying to tell the world that the current rise in the number of transgender people is caused by a transgender cult.
Not that long ago, anxiety driven traditionalists did everything in their power to make left-handed people use their right hand (pun intended).
However, as soon as the medical and moral establishments eased up on their sinistrophobia,*) the left-handed came out of their mirror image closets and changed the world.
There was no leftist conspiracy, no left-handed cult, only people finally allowed to be themselves.
