I voted for Biden, although not enthusiastically. Still, I am horrified at what this administration had turned out to be. Anti-science, anti-woman, ignorant and apparently unreachable, immune to introspection and adjusting based on changing evidence. Ideological. I feel like a complete and total sucker. “Follow the science” turned out to be an empty slogan. Abortion rights and gun control are starting to look like empty vehicles for fundraising and riling up the base. Women have become pawns. Don’t get me wrong, I still see the absurdities and ugliness on the Right, but harming children is a pretty clear line in the sand for me. I thought the Bernie Bros who wanted to tear everything down for change were petulant and foolish. I guess I just hadn’t found my issue yet.
IMO, we (Western Civilization) are as torn down as can be right now. So, at this point, the best we can hope for is for the phoenix to rise from the ashes of what we currently got.
It all comes down from Critical Race Theory of the 80s. The farthest flung of the inanities and insanities is this trans crap. The Left owns this. The Conservatives need to step out, speak up, and clean up the mess, right?
I think part of the Right over-reach is because the psychiatric and counseling sectors have been so corrupted by trans ideology the chances of finding help that truly looks out for the kid, rather than imposing its ideology, is very small.
This is so tiresome - the idea that the "right" is so bad regarding this issue. What's bad is letting a CHILD who cannot yet smoke, go to war, vote, marry, or have legal sex, choose on his or her own to get lifelong damaging surgery and take lifelong damaging hormones. To use CHILDREN to advance such an evil agenda is truly EVIL. It is the LEFT doing this.
Part of the problem is that the "both sides are bad" people have trouble acknowledging that -- Yes, it's obvious that some people *need* authority figures to tell them what's good and what's bad.
Individuals (especially children) are not equipped to defend themselves against a transnational political & social ideology and an overtly evil medicalization industry profiting to the tune of billions of dollars (and growing fast). The idea that we must accept any "choice" that's made with "consent" is stupid and wrong. It is correct and Good to protect people from evil, and this is a truly and unquestionably evil ideology. Ban it, arrest the people promoting it, and never let this happen again.
Their argument would go something like “an outright ban would leave truly dysphoric kids without the needed treatment and thus more likely to prolonged suffering and potential suicide attempts” I think they would like the door left open for those kids for whom this kind of treatment could help. Now how you sort ROGD and those who will go on to be trans adults seems to be impossible to distinguish at this point especially if any attempt to do so will now be labeled as conversion therapy
The suicide claim is something I think has been overblown and if there were a true objective study done (which wouldn't ever happen under our corrupt medical research complex), if anything, suicide AFTER transitioning would be found.
What little I've seen on this issue indicates there is no statistically significant reduction in suicidal behavior or ideation associated with "transition". Like so many other aspects of this topic, the few studies all seem based on extremely small numbers of patients, serious questions about selection of study subjects, and obvious incidence of motivated analysis. The absence of a fact-based logically argued case from the radical trans ideologues coupled with the bullying of any dissent with accusations of "bigotry" is all it takes to convince me we had better take a long thorough look before mutilating a child even with parental consent, much less on the say-so of a preschooler.
Agreed I haven’t seen any convincing evidence that you either have to affirm or else suicide. Seems like emotional blackmail (particularly to parents) or a way to circumvent a need to provide evidence
I get why you think you need to do it, but portraying the right as equally bad in this one instance is just wrong. Children cannot consent to these horrific interventions and it should not be legal. Normalizing these horrific interventions for adults, as though there is any difference with giving someone suffering from anorexia liposuction, is a cultural catastrophe.
Why is the right wing over reaching? What possible reason would there be to mutilate kids under 18 or interrupt their natural hormones or puberty process with no evidence of a health risk? That should be banned
"Why is the right wing over reaching?" Simple. The radical trans ideologues and their allies on the Left are taking advantage of the widespread confusion of "trans" and "gay". I doubt more than one in ten adults could give even an approximately accurate description of the difference, and extreme trans advocates are encouraging the confusion for an obvious reason: they have fastened themselves as parasites on the successes of the movement for gay equality. What really chaps me though is how the professional gays - those making a handsome living off the movement - have collaborated with the parasitism. My gravest fear is that the trans overreach will provoke right wing overreach, and the hard won victories of gay equality will be destroyed along with the defeat of the trans extremism. I've marched in too many demonstrations and invested too much emotional resolve speaking to less than friendly audiences to watch it happen without protest.
If my daughter thought she was a cat, I wouldn’t affirm her decision. I’d say she had a mental condition and needed to be treated. If I was Asian but insisted I was Black, likewise. So why do we insist on affirming anyone who thinks they are the wrong gender?
As Bill Maher said, what if a child truly believed he was really a pirate and wanted to “transition” by having his leg amputated and eye removed? Would “affirmative care” of his belief be tolerated by anyone? (“Would you rather have a disabled pirate or a dead child?”) How is this in any way different from believing one is of the opposite gender?
From the article: "Biden’s order describes conversion as “a discredited and dangerous practice that seeks to suppress or change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQI+ people,” "
I am gay and came out in 1974. The literature on coverting homosexuals to heterosexuals fascinated me....I never saw with it, always through it. And I can tell you that that literature overwhelmingly concentrated on making gay men straight. Very little about lesbians.
And nothing about what is now called "gender identity", an acronym "LGBTQ!+ people" did not exist almost 50 years ago.
I agree wholeheartedly with the bulk of this essay. I do urge you to consider that the school lunch thing is a right wing spin, though. Federal money that goes to state and local agencies always has rules and laws around it. States must be equal opportunity employers, etc etc., and for years had to have 55 mph speed limits, and so forth, in order to receive funds coming from the feds. In the case of the USDA grants for free and reduced lunch, it likely was not Biden thinking that he would just intentionally starve kids if schools didn’t include gender identity as a protected class, but it was an outcome that was noticed and exploited by the RW spin machine.
Thank you for that information. Will you point me toward more where I can read up about it? I couldn't find much in MSM but there was plenty in right wind media! Would love more balance. Thank you.
I am prepared to wait what, exactly falls under the label "Conversion Therapy" before condemning the bill. There's a big difference between "Watchful Waiting" and "Conversion Therapy" and we should not assume what something means until we know for sure.
It seems like the author on the one hand believes that the manner in which the left views concersion therapy to be wrong and misguided, but they do not rule out giving hormones and puberty blockers to kids. Both sidism is fine, but I think giving anyone under 18 puberty blockers and hormones to be in itself a radical proposition that should be re-considered.
Wesley, thanks for another contribution to opposing radicalism and advocating for reason. I believe the eventual damage that will be wrought by the Culture War launched by the far left (yes, they fired the first shot) will be nearly incalculable. First, every single solution they propose to solving problems is wrong, unworkable and greatly damaging. Since this religious ideology has taken over all of the power centers, great damage to our institutions has already happened and will be hard to undo. Once calling censorship “content moderation” becomes a reasonable position, there is no putting that genie back in the bottle.
In addition, we are now going to get an extreme reaction from the far right, who were never going to hide in their basements forever. The hatred of Trump by moderate suburban dwellers gave the far left a distorted sense of how popular and acceptable their ideas really were, as these fragile suburbanites were for anything that seemed to oppose Trump. But, as Trump has faded from the scene and the carnage from the far left religious ideology has become apparent (culturally and economically) these weak, malleable suburbanites are now going to slowly abandon ship - and they can do so anonymously in the voting booth.
But, because the far left launched this culture war and has demonized every Republican for nearly a decade, the reaction will not be to pull us back to the center, but to the other end of the ideological spectrum. Further, the Republican politicians who have capitulated out of fear, will now be punished in the primaries, as they have pissed off their base. While these gutless pussy politicians should be voted out, they will be replaced by strident ideologues not moderates with courage.
As the great philosopher Chris Rock once said about the choice between being married and being single - “ain’t no happiness nowhere”.
The national dialogue about "trans" reflects the totalitarian manipulation of the American national dialogue around all issues of importance to lived American reality: The prevention of rational discussion. The forced implementation of airball non-solutions to further inflame emotional hysteria and confusion. The creation of busy work for the D.C. bureaucracy. To make sure the politically connected exploiting the problem for personal financial gain make a profit. Create a political agenda in step with the latest avaricious psyop of big tech surveillance state totalitarian finance.
Is there any surprise that the horror machine persecuting journalist J.Assange would be indifferent to the butchering of adolescent American youth? Any concepts about human dignity, worth and freedom still alive in America reside where they always have. In everyday Americans.
It's here. Not there.
"...Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try and love one another right now.... RIGHT NOW..."
I voted for Biden, although not enthusiastically. Still, I am horrified at what this administration had turned out to be. Anti-science, anti-woman, ignorant and apparently unreachable, immune to introspection and adjusting based on changing evidence. Ideological. I feel like a complete and total sucker. “Follow the science” turned out to be an empty slogan. Abortion rights and gun control are starting to look like empty vehicles for fundraising and riling up the base. Women have become pawns. Don’t get me wrong, I still see the absurdities and ugliness on the Right, but harming children is a pretty clear line in the sand for me. I thought the Bernie Bros who wanted to tear everything down for change were petulant and foolish. I guess I just hadn’t found my issue yet.
Same here, of course.
IMO, we (Western Civilization) are as torn down as can be right now. So, at this point, the best we can hope for is for the phoenix to rise from the ashes of what we currently got.
It all comes down from Critical Race Theory of the 80s. The farthest flung of the inanities and insanities is this trans crap. The Left owns this. The Conservatives need to step out, speak up, and clean up the mess, right?
I think part of the Right over-reach is because the psychiatric and counseling sectors have been so corrupted by trans ideology the chances of finding help that truly looks out for the kid, rather than imposing its ideology, is very small.
This is so tiresome - the idea that the "right" is so bad regarding this issue. What's bad is letting a CHILD who cannot yet smoke, go to war, vote, marry, or have legal sex, choose on his or her own to get lifelong damaging surgery and take lifelong damaging hormones. To use CHILDREN to advance such an evil agenda is truly EVIL. It is the LEFT doing this.
Part of the problem is that the "both sides are bad" people have trouble acknowledging that -- Yes, it's obvious that some people *need* authority figures to tell them what's good and what's bad.
Individuals (especially children) are not equipped to defend themselves against a transnational political & social ideology and an overtly evil medicalization industry profiting to the tune of billions of dollars (and growing fast). The idea that we must accept any "choice" that's made with "consent" is stupid and wrong. It is correct and Good to protect people from evil, and this is a truly and unquestionably evil ideology. Ban it, arrest the people promoting it, and never let this happen again.
Their argument would go something like “an outright ban would leave truly dysphoric kids without the needed treatment and thus more likely to prolonged suffering and potential suicide attempts” I think they would like the door left open for those kids for whom this kind of treatment could help. Now how you sort ROGD and those who will go on to be trans adults seems to be impossible to distinguish at this point especially if any attempt to do so will now be labeled as conversion therapy
The suicide claim is something I think has been overblown and if there were a true objective study done (which wouldn't ever happen under our corrupt medical research complex), if anything, suicide AFTER transitioning would be found.
What little I've seen on this issue indicates there is no statistically significant reduction in suicidal behavior or ideation associated with "transition". Like so many other aspects of this topic, the few studies all seem based on extremely small numbers of patients, serious questions about selection of study subjects, and obvious incidence of motivated analysis. The absence of a fact-based logically argued case from the radical trans ideologues coupled with the bullying of any dissent with accusations of "bigotry" is all it takes to convince me we had better take a long thorough look before mutilating a child even with parental consent, much less on the say-so of a preschooler.
You have expressed this so much more clearly than I have. Totally agree with your assessment.
Agreed I haven’t seen any convincing evidence that you either have to affirm or else suicide. Seems like emotional blackmail (particularly to parents) or a way to circumvent a need to provide evidence
I get why you think you need to do it, but portraying the right as equally bad in this one instance is just wrong. Children cannot consent to these horrific interventions and it should not be legal. Normalizing these horrific interventions for adults, as though there is any difference with giving someone suffering from anorexia liposuction, is a cultural catastrophe.
Why is the right wing over reaching? What possible reason would there be to mutilate kids under 18 or interrupt their natural hormones or puberty process with no evidence of a health risk? That should be banned
"Why is the right wing over reaching?" Simple. The radical trans ideologues and their allies on the Left are taking advantage of the widespread confusion of "trans" and "gay". I doubt more than one in ten adults could give even an approximately accurate description of the difference, and extreme trans advocates are encouraging the confusion for an obvious reason: they have fastened themselves as parasites on the successes of the movement for gay equality. What really chaps me though is how the professional gays - those making a handsome living off the movement - have collaborated with the parasitism. My gravest fear is that the trans overreach will provoke right wing overreach, and the hard won victories of gay equality will be destroyed along with the defeat of the trans extremism. I've marched in too many demonstrations and invested too much emotional resolve speaking to less than friendly audiences to watch it happen without protest.
Fantastic essay! Again!
There's not enough evidence yet to know what to look for in an assessment.
Biden should be demanding follow up studies, and disclosures to those being medicalized or considering it.
If my daughter thought she was a cat, I wouldn’t affirm her decision. I’d say she had a mental condition and needed to be treated. If I was Asian but insisted I was Black, likewise. So why do we insist on affirming anyone who thinks they are the wrong gender?
As Bill Maher said, what if a child truly believed he was really a pirate and wanted to “transition” by having his leg amputated and eye removed? Would “affirmative care” of his belief be tolerated by anyone? (“Would you rather have a disabled pirate or a dead child?”) How is this in any way different from believing one is of the opposite gender?
Wonderful analogy, and accurate too.
From the article: "Biden’s order describes conversion as “a discredited and dangerous practice that seeks to suppress or change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQI+ people,” "
I am gay and came out in 1974. The literature on coverting homosexuals to heterosexuals fascinated me....I never saw with it, always through it. And I can tell you that that literature overwhelmingly concentrated on making gay men straight. Very little about lesbians.
And nothing about what is now called "gender identity", an acronym "LGBTQ!+ people" did not exist almost 50 years ago.
I agree wholeheartedly with the bulk of this essay. I do urge you to consider that the school lunch thing is a right wing spin, though. Federal money that goes to state and local agencies always has rules and laws around it. States must be equal opportunity employers, etc etc., and for years had to have 55 mph speed limits, and so forth, in order to receive funds coming from the feds. In the case of the USDA grants for free and reduced lunch, it likely was not Biden thinking that he would just intentionally starve kids if schools didn’t include gender identity as a protected class, but it was an outcome that was noticed and exploited by the RW spin machine.
Thank you for that information. Will you point me toward more where I can read up about it? I couldn't find much in MSM but there was plenty in right wind media! Would love more balance. Thank you.
Biden admin threatening to withhold funding for free school lunches = “starving kids”
Texas retroactively charging parents with child abuse (!) for gender affirming care administered years ago = “just making them wait a few years”
bOTh SiDeS
Come on. The cruelty is not equivalent. That part of the essay was ridiculous.
I see your point and yet...I have written several times about parents being investigated for child abuse when they *didn't* affirm their children, and I think it's much more common. It has even happened in Texas. The family abolition aspect of this ideology is what scares me the most. Both sides are acting against the actual needs of children. https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/05/15/texas-parents-investigated-for-not-embracing-gender-affirming-care/
Gimme a break.
I am prepared to wait what, exactly falls under the label "Conversion Therapy" before condemning the bill. There's a big difference between "Watchful Waiting" and "Conversion Therapy" and we should not assume what something means until we know for sure.
It seems like the author on the one hand believes that the manner in which the left views concersion therapy to be wrong and misguided, but they do not rule out giving hormones and puberty blockers to kids. Both sidism is fine, but I think giving anyone under 18 puberty blockers and hormones to be in itself a radical proposition that should be re-considered.
Wesley, thanks for another contribution to opposing radicalism and advocating for reason. I believe the eventual damage that will be wrought by the Culture War launched by the far left (yes, they fired the first shot) will be nearly incalculable. First, every single solution they propose to solving problems is wrong, unworkable and greatly damaging. Since this religious ideology has taken over all of the power centers, great damage to our institutions has already happened and will be hard to undo. Once calling censorship “content moderation” becomes a reasonable position, there is no putting that genie back in the bottle.
In addition, we are now going to get an extreme reaction from the far right, who were never going to hide in their basements forever. The hatred of Trump by moderate suburban dwellers gave the far left a distorted sense of how popular and acceptable their ideas really were, as these fragile suburbanites were for anything that seemed to oppose Trump. But, as Trump has faded from the scene and the carnage from the far left religious ideology has become apparent (culturally and economically) these weak, malleable suburbanites are now going to slowly abandon ship - and they can do so anonymously in the voting booth.
But, because the far left launched this culture war and has demonized every Republican for nearly a decade, the reaction will not be to pull us back to the center, but to the other end of the ideological spectrum. Further, the Republican politicians who have capitulated out of fear, will now be punished in the primaries, as they have pissed off their base. While these gutless pussy politicians should be voted out, they will be replaced by strident ideologues not moderates with courage.
As the great philosopher Chris Rock once said about the choice between being married and being single - “ain’t no happiness nowhere”.
This is as clear and reasonable as any statement about this I've read.
The national dialogue about "trans" reflects the totalitarian manipulation of the American national dialogue around all issues of importance to lived American reality: The prevention of rational discussion. The forced implementation of airball non-solutions to further inflame emotional hysteria and confusion. The creation of busy work for the D.C. bureaucracy. To make sure the politically connected exploiting the problem for personal financial gain make a profit. Create a political agenda in step with the latest avaricious psyop of big tech surveillance state totalitarian finance.
Is there any surprise that the horror machine persecuting journalist J.Assange would be indifferent to the butchering of adolescent American youth? Any concepts about human dignity, worth and freedom still alive in America reside where they always have. In everyday Americans.
It's here. Not there.
"...Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try and love one another right now.... RIGHT NOW..."
Another great article, Ma'am. The links were almost as good as the wordings. TYTY.