# Republicans' war on transgender people: Omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 3, 2022, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609 "2022-06-03T02:20:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 66
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1301 "2023-08-11T15:29:57Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Does it give you pause that in some countries, which are to be ahead of us in dealing with trans protocols, that they are taking a step back, rethinking the assumptions that were made about what constitutes best care? …and to be crystal clear here: this doesn’t give me pause. It scares the fuck out-of-me. The huge amount of casual prejudice at the highest levels in every country in the world is frightening. This thread is about the Republican party, so to see what is happening in the United States you just have to start reading it from the beginning. But it isn’t just happening in the US. In the UK transhobia is rife at every political party and every mainstream media outlet. It isn’t that bad where I live at the moment…but its growing. Its a moral panic, framed around “protecting the children” and protecting “women’s spaces”, but they don’t really care about the children, and they never ever speak up in defence of any other women’s rights. What you are seeing is a global movement towards trans genocide. Its being dressed up to look like its something completely different. But its propaganda. Its being used to ban trans healthcare in many states already. Its being used around the world to make trans people scared to be out in public, to access healthcare, to be out in schools, forcing trans people to hide, to move, to de-transition. _Genocide_. It’s not a term I use lightly. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1302 "2023-08-11T15:33:21Z")
> [@chela](#): > > The foundation is not so strong for safe reversible science based adolescent gender care. I am genuinely curious as to why, when you see dozens of experts saying something and a tiny handful saying something you already agree with, you seem incapable of weighing the evidence, instead doubling down on more and more fringe sources and inventing strange conspiracy theories as to why those who agree with you are being suppressed. When I was a sophomore in college, I took a philosophy class at a community college over the summer. This was seriously one of the most valuable experiences of my life. My professor challenged me to challenge my own beliefs. Before then, I had a number of pillars in my belief system - things I held sacred, that I refused to touch. Sometimes I’d have thoughts that made me question them, but I’d shove those down. The professor basically called this out as hypocrisy, and asserted that we must be able to justify our own beliefs to ourselves - otherwise, how do we know we aren’t only holding on to them through inertia? At the time I hated this class. It gave me doubts. I hated the way having doubts made me feel. But a couple years later, when I just couldn’t take it anymore, I finally gave in. I was intellectually honest with myself for probably the first time in my life. I sat down, and thought about what I believed in, and more importantly, I analyzed _why_. And I realized that there were some things I _knew to be true_ that simply weren’t. Before this point, I didn’t think of myself as biggoted against LGBT people. I was for gay marriage (a better way to put it is that I wasn’t against gay marriage, I think); I didn’t have anything against LGBT people. But the entire concept always made me deeply uncomfortable on some level. It wasn’t until I was honest with myself, accepted that I **was** uncomfortable with LGBT stuff, sat down and REALLY thought about why, found places where I’d subconsciously internalized bigotry, and consciously forced myself to go through the uncomfortable process of facing these feelings head on, understanding them and dismissing them by reasoning through how irrational the underlying fears were that I overcame these prejudices. For LGBT acceptance a key moment for me came about a year after I took the class. I was reading a book, _2312_, about some people going on a scifi adventure throughout the solar system, which had been colonized. One of the characters is this lady who’s very heavily genetically and cybernetically modified. She is a few hundred years old, she can do all sorts of stuff with a computer, etc, and the novel in part deals with how the human mind copes with living that long. And of course not everyone has access to this sort of tech, and the societal ramifications of that are also dealt with. All of that is relatively standard SciFi fare and none of it made me think particularly hard. But then there were the sex scenes. They weren’t gratuitous or overly frequent or descriptive or anything like that; stylistically they were pretty typical for a novel of this sort. But they challenged my worldview. See, this older lady was getting into a relationship with a much younger guy (like, he’s not super young or anything, but he’s still in his natural life - he hasn’t needed life extension yet). When she was younger, in her wild party days, she went through a procedure that takes your undeveloped opposite gender sex parts and lets them develop just enough to use for pleasure in sex. And she’s nervous that this guy is gonna judge her for it; but it turns out that he has had a similar procedure, and that while in her generation it was a weird thing to do it’s fairly common in his. This whole concept made me deeply, deeply uncomfortable (to the point where it distracted me from the actual plotline) until I made myself stop and think. What about the society described in the book is actually bad? If I feel negatively about the situation, something must be wrong with it - what? And yet, everything I could come up with was very obviously homophobic and irrational. “A straight man engaging in casual hookups might see a penis when he didn’t expect to!”. And that’s bad why? “Well… because then he’d be gay I guess? But no, that’s a horrible and homophobic reason. No one should be forced to have sex with someone they aren’tattracted to, but men shouldn’t get to control women’s bodies just to avoid accidentally seeing dicks.” Or “Well, this would erode the concept of masculinity!” Would it? What are some positive aspects of masculinity - IE, not aesthetic things, but things that make society better? Things like loyalty, supporting a family - are those actually necessarily “masculine”, and even if so, do they depend on aesthetic considerations? Don’t aesthetic considerations change through time and across societies anyway? I couldn’t come up with satisfactory answers to any of these questions, so I realized my discomfort with the society presented in the novel came entirely from internalized bigotry rather than anything I could rationally identify as a problem. And so, I had to overcome that discomfort by reminding myself of that fact every time I felt it creep up. Now, the situation presented in the novel isn’t actually analogous to transgender people at all. The characters in the novel are both clearly cis and straight; neither questions their gender identity and it seems like their society has no problem labeling them as such. But the **discomfort I was feeling** with the situation in the novel came from exactly the same place as my discomfort with trans people. And once I identified the source as transphobic, it rapidly lost its power over me. When someone says an operation with a risk of killing you is fine, but for gender affirming care we must be 99.999% certain - there’s a reason why they are holding these things to different standards. I encourage you to take a deep look inside and see for yourself where your fears come from. No one else can do this for you. It’s a deeply uncomfortable process, questioning your own beliefs. But to avoid doing so is the greatest and most destructive act of cowardice that most people will ever engage in. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1303 "2023-08-11T15:36:00Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I actually think the answer is a little broader than that. I think that bigots are upset by anything that helps people who don’t want to conform to social norms. All social norms, no matter how oppressive or harmful they are. This is true, but you’re not tracing the problem far enough back. Why this rigid adherence to social norms? Well, if we don’t make a big enough show of how crucial these norms are, our children might abandon them. If you don’t put the fear of God in your son, he might marry a man, and _wouldn’t that just be the worst thing imaginable_? It’s bigotry, removed by one degree. We must adhere to social norms because anything that deviates from them is evil and vile and… deviant. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1304 "2023-08-11T15:37:53Z")
Apparently the only person with no agenda is Billboard Chris, a total normal and not insane guy whose only credential is “concerned dad who walks around all day inside a sandwich board with anti-trans slogans”. Doctors, psychologists, pharmacists, teachers and school counselors all have agendas, every last one of them. The only trustworthy source of information is a random guy that calls himself Billboard Chris. And he’s totally sane. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1305 "2023-08-11T15:46:51Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Just to be clear, do you think that biology is a social construct? Are X and Y chromosomes a social construct? Biology is absolutely a social construct. You can’t go out in nature and pick up biology molecules off the ground, after all. X and Y chromosomes are also categories that humans invented and named, yes. Of course, these categories correspond quite closely to something pretty measurable and objective. So @magellan01, since you’re so confident, what is a woman? For example, is a person with XY chromosomes and SWYER syndrome a man or a woman? What about someone with Klinefelter syndrome? ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1306 "2023-08-11T15:48:53Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > what is a woman? …I don’t mean any disrespect here, but do we really need to do this? Trans rights aren’t up for debate here. When we start debating “what is a woman” everybody loses. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1307 "2023-08-11T15:51:31Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > > [@Babale](#): > > > > what is a woman? > > …I don’t mean any disrespect here, but do we really need to do this? My point is that the answer to “what is \_\_\_\_” is always going to be socially constructed. What is a dinosaur? What is a reptile? What is a human? What is a planet? What is a distinct object? ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1308 "2023-08-11T15:57:15Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > My point is that the answer to “what is \_\_\_\_” is always going to be socially constructed. …then just _say_ that. Don’t give them the opportunity to witness. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1309 "2023-08-11T15:58:55Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …then just _say_ that. Don’t give them the opportunity to witness No one is going to change their minds. They need to think for themselves. If they’re not willing to do that, let them demonstrate so. Anyways, I DID say so, as you’d know if you’d read my whole post instead of quoting one phrase out of context. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1310 "2023-08-11T16:04:44Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > If they’re not willing to do that, let them demonstrate so. …no. Fuck off with that bullshit. The Straight Dope doesn’t need another round of the “JK Rowling thread.” We don’t need to give these bigots a platform. We need to debunk. We need to tell them to fuck the fuck off. But we don’t need to debate “what is and isn’t a woman”. Its the single biggest transphobic talking point they’ve got. They _want_ this debate. Don’t invite it. > [@Babale](#): > > Anyways, I DID say so, And you should have left it at that. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1311 "2023-08-11T16:06:12Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > And you should have left it at that. You must have HATED this video then. I thought it made some pretty good points, many of which I echoed here. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/koud7hgGyQ8/maxresdefault.jpg "Social Constructs (or, 'What is A Woman, Really?')") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koud7hgGyQ8) ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1312 "2023-08-11T16:17:27Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > You must have HATED this video then. …there is a difference between an “explainer video” and inviting debate. Because the debate is what they want. It’s how they infiltrate forums and take over internet spaces. There isn’t much danger of that happening here, because this board moderates trans issues much better now and if it went too far the mods would step in. But there isn’t any reason why we should allow it to go that far. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1313 "2023-08-11T16:20:37Z")
Your feedback is noted. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1314 "2023-08-11T16:24:13Z")
> [@chela](#): > > This article is long but well worth the time to read, and specifically the concerns of some gender care physicians who feel their peers are fast tracking kids for medical interventions. TBF this has happened before with Ritalin and – to get it away from juveniles – GYNs over eager to do C-sections on their patients to name a couple. But I’m not budging from the opinion that the only people who need to be involved are the child, the parents, and their doctor(s). After all, if that’s the case a second opinion can be sought. Once removing that choice is enshrined into 🦅_The Law_ 🦅 as Pubs in general and a couple people in this thread want, that is no longer an option. Small government party my ass. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1315 "2023-08-11T17:09:54Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I am genuinely curious as to why, when you see dozens of experts saying something and a tiny handful saying something you already agree with, you seem incapable of weighing the evidence, instead doubling down on more and more fringe sources and inventing strange conspiracy theories as to why those who agree with you are being suppressed. Yeah, weird. Do you think transphobia could be involved somehow? 🤔 ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1316 "2023-08-11T17:10:43Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > There hasn’t been a change in expert consensus. We just have to look at the quality of the citations you’ve provided in this thread to see that many of these “so-called experts” aren’t experts in this field at all. For example, look at my deep-dive into the “chief psychiatrist at Tampere University” who turned out to _not_ be the chief psychiatrist at Tampere University. I don’t think that’s correct. There seems to be legitimate concern among experts that we got where we are too quickly and some of the is being rethought. You seem to want to take what is considered the consensus today, here in the U.S., and close your eyes to what is being added to the knowledge base. Also, as you know, science is not static, and it doesn’t care one whit what “consensus” says. Here is an interesting video that describes how we got to where we are: [History of trans care for children](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VHlkE40cFk&t=1568s) ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1317 "2023-08-11T17:14:16Z")
Really interesting article. Thanks for posting it. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1318 "2023-08-11T17:15:22Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > There seems to be legitimate concern among experts that we got where we are too quickly and some of the is being rethought So, do you think the proper arbiters of who should receive what care are state legislators? Do you think State Senator Bumfuck of Bullshit County should be the one to decide? > [@DesertDog](#): > > TBF this has happened before with Ritalin and – to get it away from juveniles – GYNs over eager to do C-sections on their patients to name a couple. Yeah, totally. I remember when my local legislature banned C-sections for woman and Ritalin for kids. No, wait a minute! I don’t remember that. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1319 "2023-08-11T17:16:38Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …there was a HUGE amount of pushback from professionals in the field to that article. Here are some of them: Pushback against points of view that go against the prevailing narrative? SHOCKING!! ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609/1320 "2023-08-11T17:21:10Z")
Have any of your cites actually held water? From reading this thread, they all seem to be bullshit cites from bullshit authors. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609.md?page=65) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-war-on-transgender-people-omnibus-thread/965609.md?page=67)