"this might be hard to hold
because somewhere someone
at sometime may have lied to you,
told you that time is linear.
& that the world that you inherited
is the only world you can have.
& that we are now out of time,
especially we who have been displaced
to be outside of it."
Destiny Hemphill, "fragments salvaged from the oracles of mama-n-em" motherworld: a devotional for the alter-life
On time in a human life, please also see: "What Nobody Tells You About Middle Age", indi.ca, August 2023
In a Florida hearing on HB1421, which Erin Reed describes as "one of the most restrictive anti-trans bills in the United States," Florida Rep. David Borrero
"likely had one of the most insulting remarks of the day. He claimed that he supported the bill because transition 'kills people.' He stated, 'When someone transitions to different gender, that child, that brother, that daughter, that sister that you once knew is no more. That person no longer exists.'"
He ended
"with religious justifications for the bill. He said that the bill saves trans people and preserves them for 'who they are in the eyes of God.' A recent Vice article showed that the lobbyists responsible for these laws seemingly view them as part of an anti-trans religious crusade. The lobbyists at time sign off their emails with things like, 'Under His Wings,' which some have compared to the Handmaids Tale phrase 'Under His Eye.'"
Reed adds: "As these bills grow more radical every day, it should be clear that Republicans were only using children as a means to target transgender people no matter their age."
— Erin Reed on Substack, March 23, 2023. Please read and support her Substack and her work.
This tweet on April 20, 2023:
On April 22, 2023, the influential evangelical Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition gathered and played a recorded message from Trump. According to HuffPost:
"Trump said that if elected he would sign an executive order instructing federal agencies “to cease the promotion of sex and gender transition at any age” and to ask Congress to send him a bill banning “child sexual mutilation.”
“God created two genders ― male and female,” Trump said."
Although "not a single person on stage mentioned same-sex marriage," almost every likely political candidate "vowed to fight against 'woke' transgender policies."
I wrote about how they don't want transition at any age in a post on this blog, the one you're reading right now, in August 2022.
They won't allow a painting of a trans person
Costa Coffee put up a mural including a person with bright orange skin, turquoise hair, and chest surgery scars. See it at the link below. It's an illustration, and the person does not have a determinate age. Yet: "Detractors, mainly from the 'gender-critical' camp[,] threatened to boycott the coffee chain, leading to the hashtag #BoycottCostaCoffee being widely shared. Anti-trans activist Maya Forstater linked the illustration to promoting 'self-harm,' despite evidence showing top surgery improves the life quality of young trans individuals," Fox Fisher wrote. Fisher added: "For those unfamiliar with the trans experience, the sight of top surgery scars might seem shocking. However, for those of us who have undergone this journey, these scars are symbols of liberation. They’re a testament to our self-love and bodily autonomy." The issue here, as Fisher puts it, is that "they cannot stand seeing trans people existing in public, let alone being celebrated by major brands."
‘Costa featuring a trans masculine person was a breath of fresh air for trans people like me’ Opinion: "Representation matters. It is integral to fostering understanding, empathy, and acceptance," writes Fox Fisher, Attitude, August 2, 2023
Nope
This is satire, but essentially it's their real argument:
This is the article to which Laurison refers:
"To set transgender policy, look to the evidence" Paisley Currah, Nature, 27 September 2022
EVEN THOUGH
At an April 27, 2023 campaign event in New Hampshire, Donald Trump mocked trans athletes:
"Then, as he prepared to break out an impression of a woman struggling to lift weights at a competition, he surveyed the crowd.
“Should I do it?” he asked.
The audience cheered.
“I’m gonna do it,” he replied, and then he launched into his impression..." — HuffPost
Worth noting: Trump was really "supposed" (in an ideal world) to be in New York attending his trial for sexual assault, but he didn't feel like doing so.
Here's the Statista link from those tweets.
If there were a cure for gender dysphoria, someone would be selling it.
Appreciating this Twitter poem:
Parts of this poem:
your apathy will cost more than you realize you have to lose
they will steal your heart and burn your name and you will be left wondering why it was allowed
* * *
they will unmake you.
and that will be of your own doing.
you will all be unmade
* * *
I wanted to believe they could do it
I don’t anymore
no help is coming
— miss gender!, July 15, 2023
"In the discourse around gender-related care for youth, the true 'harm' that needs to be addressed is ultimately not gender affirmation. Instead, it is the lack of bodily autonomy for trans, intersex and other gender-diverse youth that should be raising alarm bells across the country. In a world where government officials are criminalizing empirically supported medical decisions between young people, their families and their health care providers, defending young people's say in what happens to our own bodies is not the problem. It's the solution." — Grayson Stevens. "I Received Gender-Affirming Care As A Minor. It Wasn’t What I Expected." "I quickly realized that as a teen, there would be elements of my gender transition that were fully beyond my control." HuffPost Personal. Oct 13, 2023
"As Republican-led states with supermajorities explore avenues to challenge gender affirming care, a new target is emerging: health insurance coverage for transgender adults and their essential medical needs.
The letter, principally authored by Attorneys General Marshall, Griffin, and Skrmetti from Alabama, Arkansas, and Tennessee respectively, aims to reverse the Dekker decision that permits transgender adults to retain Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care. The attorneys general reference the Dobbs decision, which overturned abortion rights, eight separate times.
* * *
Florida recently passed a law that has blocked up to 80% of all trans healthcare providers from practicing gender affirming care. Multiple states considered laws banning gender affirming care up to the age of 21 or 26. Furthermore, nationally, anti-trans budget amendments are being considered during the shutdown fight, including a FDA amendment as well as an HHS provision that could target marketplace insurance plans that provide gender affirming care, with potential disastrous consequences for trans people nationwide."
— Erin Reed, 19 Republican AGs Sign Letter Citing Anti-Abortion Ruling To Target Trans Adult Care, Erin in the Morning, Oct. 16, 2023
Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina are considering banning transition for people up to age 26
"Twenty-three states have banned gender-affirming care for transgender people under the age of 18 (at press time, care was still accessible in four of these states, while appeals move through the courts). Two of these states (Texas and Oklahoma), along with South Carolina, are considering banning gender-affirming care for transgender people up to age 26."
— The Gender Refugees: When the Andersons fled Iowa City in 2022, they joined a growing group of American families escaping states that have become hostile for transgender communities. Where do they go from here? jess Swanson, Elle Magazine, March 12, 2024
They do not recognize your gender
This isn't just about access to hormones. Politicians do not support verbally recognizing a child's gender.
Liz Truss: Schools should not let children change gender identity
Former prime minister calls for ‘social transitioning’ to be scrapped
Times UK
Colorado adults encounter a huge waiting list.
Trans man sues hospital for refusing trans patients surgeries that it offers cis patients He anticipated top surgery for eight months before getting a call saying that trans patients would no longer be able to get it. Alex Bollinger, LGBTQ Nation, February 15, 2024
Ken Zucker
Erin Reed writes:
"In the 1990s, Zucker led a clinic and conducted research on "desistance" from being transgender, giving rise to the '80% of transgender youth desist' narrative.
A later review revealed that approximately half of the patients at his clinic did not meet the criteria for gender identity disorder then in place. Moreover, even those who did meet these criteria were often subjected to practices now widely considered unethical, akin to conversion or reparative therapy. Such practices included withholding toys and clothing associated with the gender the child identified with, forcing children to play in ways that aligned with their sex assigned at birth, among others. Treatment approaches were reportedly influenced by parental wishes regarding their child's gender identity."
In April 2024,
"the Daily Mail reported that a new 'landmark study' from the Netherlands concluded that being transgender was 'just a phase' and that most children 'grow out of it.' News of the study was widely reported on Twitter by conservative accounts, with tweets about the Daily Mail’s reporting of the study garnering tens of millions of views. Unfortunately, the headline fails a fact check: the study was not about transgender individuals, but rather on people who sometimes express dissatisfaction with their sex for a variety of reasons entirely unrelated to being transgender."
2,772 children in the Netherlands were asked if they "never," "sometimes," or "often" feel that "I wish I were the opposite sex." The study found that 12% of 11-year-olds answered either "sometimes" or "often" (with "sometimes" being the far more popular answer) but they were less likely to answer this way when they grew up, at which point only 2-3% answered "sometimes" or "often."
The Daily Mail's reporting labeled these 12% of children as "gender-confused," which was equivalent to "being trans" (as in the Daily Mail's headline), and likely to "grow out of" this "phase." (The Daily Mail often got a couple important data backwards: it said that "often" was the more popular answer, and it reversed the boys and girls.)
The point is that these children weren't trans, as saying "I sometimes wish I were the opposite sex" is not the definition of being trans nor of wanting to transition.
