So, where did the Democrats go wrong?

Politics & Elections
221

I was speaking more to quality of life outcomes statistics for trans people in general. I’m sure professional advocates like Una Persson would be more equipped to answer this question specific to the use of public bathrooms. But to give you a general idea of how very much it sucks to be transgender in this country:

“One in two transgender individuals are sexually abused or assaulted at some point in their lives. Some reports estimate that transgender survivors may experience rates of sexual assault up to 66 percent, often coupled with physical assaults or abuse. This indicates that the majority of transgender individuals are living with the aftermath of trauma and the fear of possible repeat victimization.”

72 percent of victims of anti-LGBT homicide were transgender women.
67 percent of anti-LGBT homicide victims were trans women of color.

This report indicates that the homicide rate for transgender people doubled in 2015. And this year’s transgender murder rate is even higher.

41 percent of transgender people have tried to take their own lives. 41 percent. (Compare to the general population rate of 1.6%)

"Transgender people are “four times as likely to have a household income under $10,000 and twice as likely to be unemployed” as most people in the U.S. Nearly a fifth of transgender people experience homelessness in their lifetimes, and 90 percent report having been discriminated against or harassed while on the job.

Sufficed to say, transgender people have very good reasons to be afraid in this country. They lack even basic protections like being fired or even thrown out of their apartments for being trans.

Transgender women have been using the ladies’ restroom for just about ever, for their own safety, but for some reason, conservatives just now started freaking out about it as if they haven’t already been peeing next to transgender people for decades. I guess it’s because those uppity minorities are starting to ask that they be treated more like human beings and less like punching bags.

So I was responding to a statement that liberals need to lay off transgender bathroom laws to gain more appeal. Given how terribly at risk transgender people are, this is non-negotiable. It’s like saying, ‘‘Lay off the ‘racism is bad’ message.’’ We must stand for something, and one of the things I stand for is protecting the most vulnerable of our citizens regardless of whether or not it’s popular. (Frankly, I don’t think nearly as many Republicans care about bathroom laws as the poster suggested.)

222

Shodan has made his feelings clear over the years towards me and mine, in several threads on here. There is no possible amount of fact, evidence, opinion, anecdote, or anything else which I believe will alter his low opinion and disgust towards people like me, so I’m not going to try.

223

That’s disappointing to hear. I suspected it might be a “gotcha” question, but I answered as comprehensively as possible because I thought maybe someone else might learn something new.

224

This is much of what Una Persson appears to object to in my posts with and to her. Una Persson wants very much to believe in things for which there is very little hard evidence.

Your assertion that transgender bathroom laws were intended to prevent transwomen from being beaten is a good example. There is no evidence that this was the purpose, nor that it has achieved.

If you look at the footnotes for this stat, you will note that it is based on unpublished data and is not therefore likely to have peer-reviewed.

This is also something that Una Persson have gone round and round on - I am not aware of any hard evidence that the suicide rates for post-op transgender people, or post-hormone treatment transgender people, is any different from the pre-. If you have any such studies, they would be welcomed, I am sure.

Again, I will ask for a cite for this, unless you meant something other than what you said.

Regards,
Shodan

225

Well I’d like to ask even the transperson, what good is the protection from getting fired from a job if you cant find a job in the first place? What good is protection from being kicked out of your apartment if you dont have money for rent?

Consider the following:

Boss: “Hey transperson, your fired.”.
Trans: “For what, because I’m a trans?”
Boss: “No, because this person from India will work for half what I’m paying you”.

The democrats needed to focus on the economy and creating good paying jobs.

226

Shodan, with all due respect, I have no intent to engage in this subject with someone who has such open contempt for the experiences of transgender people. If Una can’t convince you, I doubt anyone will.

227

Asking for real evidence is “open contempt”? :shrugs:

Regards,
Shodan

228

I have no doubt there is anecdotal evidence, but I’d like to see if there are any solid, significant numbers.
Mind you, I like the idea of unisex bathrooms anyway, maybe stop the crazy long lines for the ladies room at some events. So, whether or not the evidence is forthcoming I have no issues with people using whatever restroom they feel safer in.

229

Oh, heavens no. I was referring to your apparent lack of empathy or understanding. I wouldn’t expect surgery to fix the way society treats trans people, so I wouldn’t expect suicide attempts to decrease after surgery. I don’t understand how you are not stricken with horror that any subset of any population could have a suicide attempt rate that obscenely high, for whatever reason, regardless of the status of their genitalia. At any rate, I’m no expert on this subject, and not the one who could best fight your ignorance.

230

…and that deceptively ignores the simple fact that you have never proven that suicide rate changes alone are the sole valid metric for success. I don’t know how many times I’ve posted it: quality of life changes have been measured by clinicians and therapists, and they overwhelmingly show improvements in quality of life. And studies on changes in EITHER direction in terms of suicide rates simply are very rare.

You cannot base the effectiveness of treatment solely on one metric you are cherry-picking, which is suicide rates. This tactic has been used on right-wing message boards since the mid-2000’s, and it’s the reason I did this meta-study on the effectiveness of transition on quality of life improvements.

I’ve asked you repeatedly to prove that quality of life declines in treated transgender persons by doing your own meta-study, and posting the results. You have typically cited one study, or two, and then repeatedly fallen back on your single, arbitrary metric: suicide rates. You’ve taken the fact that there is a dearth of studies on suicide rates to make the conclusion that by lack of the studies, transition is therefore bad.

You can try to cast the question to your sample size of one metric all you want, but we in the transgender care field know that it’s quality of life that matters.

231

Bingo. Transition is a balance of good and bad, something Shodan has shown no visible empathy towards. On one hand there is the good: you can now live and present as your true self, be treated as your true self, and try to go on with life. On the other hand, there’s an enormous conservative apparatus and attitude in society which tries its best to deny us employment or get us fired, deny us access to health care, deny us the same basic human dignity and rights as everyone else. In addition to that are the stressors of spouses who cannot live with the transgender person and the subsequent separation or divorce, being disowned and ostracized by your family (even your own children and parents), losing all your friends, being mocked and taunted in public, being subjected to physical abuse, etc, etc.

We nonetheless do it because we must. Because overall, on average, our quality of life is still better after transition. It still sucks, but it sucks a lot less to be, well, real.

His response may be that he is deeply, deeply concerned, and that’s why he believes transition is for losers or whatever - he’s protecting us, see.

I’m trying to predict if the next post will have the discredited Johns Hopkins asshole McHugh, or the conservative hate group that masquerades as the “American College of Pediatricians.”

232

I think you make a great deal of assumption by inferring that knowing one’s “true self” is possible.

Anyway, Ezra Klein made a great point in Vox today: Democrats should look at the causes of their loss, but they also did win more votes, which should limit the amount of soul searching they have to do. This election wasn’t a historic repudiation of anything. Democrats won more votes for the Presidency and Senate, and Republicans won more votes for House and increased their lead in governors and state legislatures.

90% of the Democrats’ problem is poor candidate selection, not just at the Presidency, but at all levels. An ACLU activist for North Carolina? A retread who had long since abandoned his state for Indiana? The one thing Democrats need to stop doing is assuming their base will be ignorant and unmotivated and just pick the biggest names they can find and hope their fame motivates people somehow.

233

well put, but Democrats have convinced themselves that the trans issue is somehow equivalent to the Civil Rights movement; moral zeal will never let them drop it and they’ll never let reality show them that trans-ism is NOT equivalent to being another skin color (visual and unconcealable) nor are the consequences.

Sorry, but if one choses to change his gender, there are consequences. When it comes to being male or female, some people need to really learn the whole “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference” thing. Now this country gets to pay a high price because of the .001% (yes, one thousandth percent) of people who get sex-changes.

234

There are consequences to not transitioning for trans people – suicide, no possibility for happiness, substance abuse, etc. Better to deal with bigots (such as folks who insist on calling them “repulsive” and “disgusting”) then the possibility of never being content or happy with one’s self.

235

Assume that I am stricken with horror. Do you have any evidence that SRS or hormone treatments reduce the high suicide rate?

You are confusing “deceptive” with “objective”. Suicide rates are objective. I assume you agree that people who have a good quality of life commit suicide less than those who don’t. Therefore it follows that, if SRS or hormones improve quality of life, they should reduce suicide rates. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that it does. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that SRS or hormones have a measurable impact.

If you have another objective measurement, by all means, let’s see the evidence.

Do you have any evidence that transitioning reduces the consequences you mention?

Regards,
Shodan

236

Just the reports of trans people whom I trust, and articles by mental health professionals who have studied the issue.

It’s kind of like gay marriage and adopted kids for me – sure, studies that show kids are just as well off with gay parents as with straight parents help support the issue, but I think one just needs to talk to gay people and observe gay-couple-headed families to understand and come to the humane and decent position on the issue.

237

Um…did you see any of the Trump campaign? “Bashing the other guy” was a keystone of it, whether it was “Lyin’ Ted” or “Crooked Hillary”. And he was awfully vague on what things he was going to change or improve beyond the remarkably unspecific “making America great again”.

And yet he seems to have won.

238

Trump is a counter-puncher. The candidates who attacked Trump were attacked in return. How dare Trump defend himself. :rolleyes:

The election was Hillary’s to lose. She ran her campaign, and according to the long established rules, she lost. Where did the Democrats go wrong? They allowed the Clintons to hijack their candidate selection process, AND they assumed that Hillary was unbeatable. Oops. Sucks to be them.

239

more like Hillary tried to hard to please the parts of the left that didn’t like her from as far back as 2008 instead of going for the centrist voter who had misgivings about Trump but also didn’t like some aspects of Obama. What happened to Hillary’s 2008 primary voters? Obama also moving the party far left of where it was in 2008 didn’t help her either.

240

Skipping over the transgendered hijack.

The Hillary campaign was fundamentally flawed in several ways that had little to do with the personalities involved. Not recognizing that every 8 years voters yearn for change against the status quo. You have to get that hope and change message out in front of people and keep it there. Worked for Obama, but Hillary’s message was just a continuation of Obama, that doesn’t play well to the masses. Oh, and she’s a woman, that was the campaign message. What was the rest of her message?

Bernie and Trump were both gathering very large crowds at every speaking event to listen to their change message, while Hillary was not drawing the same interest. Maybe there was voter apathy involved in the lower turnout for her events, maybe the inevitability of her nomination and presumed election contributed to that, but what exactly was her “change” message?" I don’t remember and it has only been a few weeks.

Not aggressively campaigning to the end was a mistake. Trump was saying so many outrageous things each week that her campaign was just waiting for that nail in the coffin that never came, voters didn’t care, they wanted change, as they always do after 2 terms of a party in office. The big mistake never came, and probably wouldn’t have mattered if it did. And this lack of aggressive campaigning, hitting the rust belt with a message that they wanted to hear, never mind if you can deliver, you have to get your change message out. Very difficult if you are just going to be a 3rd term of the incumbent.

The campaign strategy was to run out the game clock and Trump will fumble, blow it, falter in ways that only he can. And it either didn’t happen or wouldn’t have mattered if he did.

Her campaign could not be sold as a catalyst for change. And that is what voters pretend to want after each 8 year cycle. In 4 years if Trump is even marginally successful in some areas, voters are going to give him another 4 years. Then after 8 years of his shit they will vote for change again.

Democratic party strategy should be to focus on the midterm elections. Strategy for 2020, depends upon events between now and then. Best strategy, a message of change and a fresh currently unknown candidate for in 2024.