Republicans run ads on transgender children

That is interesting OP.

I watch a lot of right leaning US commentators and, over the last 2 years or so since Biden got in (I did the opposite when Trump got in, watching mainly the left wing coverage). The TRA influence on sex ed has gone from a topic talked about maybe once or twice every couple of months, to a daily conversation.

Like him or not, the Matt Walsh documentary opened this issue up to many who were ignorant or ignoring it as a fringe issue. The Jon Stewart/ John Oliver et al TRA flavoured push backs have backfired massively, I think. The left seems to lack any understanding of the small C conservatism of the working/middle class, even after everything that has happened in US politics over the last 10 years, since Obama lost control of both houses and the switch of many of his voters to Trump. The left's insulting and patronising attitudes towards non-rainbow parents, whom they need to portray as rabid transphobes in order to dismiss their legitimate and instinctive safeguarding concerns, has really concentrated the right to believe this issue to be a grass roots winner. They are after the huge swathes of working and lower middle class floating voters who are not registered to either party - the same ones that swung from Obama to Trump.

Having said that, the Dems are shooting themselves in the feet left right and centre. De Santis sending migrants to sanctuary states, who then sent them straight back, was a lesson in the left's rank hypocrisy. The Pensylvania senate race has seen a huge swing towards TV Dr Oz for the Republicans, since the poor bloke running for the Democrats doesn't seem to have recovered from his recent stroke, and is making Biden look like a cognitive genius. Their recent TV debate was a car crash for the Dems, who continue to play on attacks on personality rather than providing a substantive reason to vote for them, a tactic which can only be effective if the candidate is able to style it out, and theirs simply cannot. Oz on the other hand was measured, civilised and patient.

And that's the full circle. Measured, civilised and patient, basic concerns about safeguarding, etc etc needs to be reframed by the left as the total opposite, as violent and bigoted, in order for them to win. This worked for a long while, but we all know the insults just no longer wash.

I don’t know if this link will work. An interesting description of Republican tactics in capturing school boards. (Warning, it is very long and the NY’s habit of capitalising Black, but not white, is irritating.)

I really detest the left wingers on my Fb who were happy to post about how awful Trump was, but who made no effort to examine why people voted for him. Instead if was a facile: they are stupid, racist, deluded etc. I get the same now with ad hominem attacks on ‘evil Tory bigots’ with no attempt to examine policies. If Labour supporters cannot get beyond the facile ‘we are good they are bad’ and actually consider why their policies, or perhaps lack of policies, do not appeal to voters. And/or why people feel patronised when told what to think.

Rant over. I fear that politicising this issue is dangerous. If the right in the US seize the issue, the left here may double down. I can almost read Margarita Pie’s post claiming links between UK GC women and the American far right. The issue is about safeguarding…and should be based on common sense.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/07/the-right-wing-mothers-fuelling-the-school-board-wars?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker

That's exactly what I was going to say. The Democrats' position on transing children is both completely insane and morally reprehensible. Why wouldn't you take advantage of it? I would in their position.

There was a trailer this morning for BBC Radio 4's new series of The Coming Storm, starting on Sunday at 1.30pm. It's is all about how the issue of sex education has become the talking point for republicans for these midterms. I'll be bracing myself for the typical BBC biased, leftist and patronising to ordinary people slant on it, after reading this blurb on the programme off the BBC website:

As America goes out to vote for the first time since the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 election, Gabriel Gatehouse is back in the deep undergrowth of the US political scene, in a bid to understand where the dark energy underpinning the January 6 assault on the Capitol is going now.

One thing the QAnon conspiracy theory about a satanic cabal of paedophiles is morphing into is a grassroots political movement against ‘groomers’ – the idea that LGBTQI+ sex educators and trans healthcare advocates are indoctrinating young people into a sexualised culture.

The battleground is America’s school boards and the prize could be a galvanised Republican base with a new crusade. At a conference in Miami of thinkers shaping the future ideas of the right, Gabriel finds the issue top of the agenda, especially for Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis.

And across the country, a slate of candidates linked to QAnon is running for office – how will they fare?

That this issue (ie the let's-not-give-kids-cross-sex-hormones issue) has emerged as an election issue is significant. Let's all talk about it. The more sunlight on the reality of what they euphemistically call 'gender affirming care', the better.

Let's hope that the Democrats get a real trouncing, and due to this single issue. Then perhaps even the liberal media will have to mention it. Perhaps even the BBC will have to report it?

And then perhaps even Starmer will realise that it is not the progressive movement he thought it was?

US women really do seem stuck between a rock (access to abortion) and hard place (acknowledgement that female is a completely separate category to male and sometimes the difference matters)

The abortion issue is just more complex than in the UK—you don’t really have strong anti-abortion groups and in America, the anti-abortion crowd is very much driven by women, particularly Catholic women. The ‘patriarchy’ argument isn’t really relevant, and they also tend to want more benefits for mothers and babies, etc so many of the snarky comments about post-birth they don’t care, etc. just don’t fit.

I would really be classed as pro-choice Republican (first trimester anyway) if I was still in the US, it’s a legitimate position to hold within the party. The moral majority thing is long dead and some of the younger Republicans seem to be quite supportive of abortion (for kind of unsavory reasons I won’t go into)

The Democrats have shot themselves in the foot not only in the broad sense by signing up for this twaddle but also by promising to review title IX to include gender identity. The contradictions involved have made it a legal minefield and they are yet to produce a precise solution meaning they are going into these elections on the backdoor.

If voters are responding to Republican initiatives, the Democrats need to consider why, and be open to reappraising their own stance. Rather than write off republican supporters as self interested, racist, phobic, stupid or whatever.

But they are not going to.

Did you see the Biden and Dylan Mulveney interview (Dylan had been a woman for 222 days at the time of the interview and got an audience with the President for it)?

He (the President) is fully captured. Fully. He actively supports trans healthcare for kids.

Republican politicians have very divergent views on this, so until they are more unified, it’s really very unfounded fear imho

Righties will make anti abortion a priority in their area if it helps them win. They won’t if it doesn’t. If in their area anti abortion matters a lot, to the point of high numbers refusing to vote to make a point, outright anti abortion will be a key election promise.

If they are in an area where righties are mostly less anti abortion per se, but more horrified by all the “I wish I’d had an abortion” and “it’s fine to stab a foetus in the head as it crowns, cos women’s rights”, then they’ll focus less on outlawing it full stop, & focus more on getting clearer definitions of up to what point, in which circs. Cos to go all hell & brim-fire anti abortion in that area wld be an electoral risk.

It lefties really cared all that much about abortion being a settled matter and removed as a political football they wouldn’t have used it as a political football for fucking decades.

Having had an illegal, backstreet abortion in my 20s I fall hard on the side of safe & legal. But because I’m invested in keeping it safe & legal I don’t waggle the most confronting aspects of it, in the most provocative terms, like a red flag to a bull for street cred points. Because that (as we have seen) is pretty much guaranteed to cause a reaction among the fence sitters and the “only just” on the pro choice side.

Left & right doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’m “the issues that matter to me” focused, one by one, on their own merits and will agree/disagree with a political perspective based on what they say they will do, not by which political colours they wave.

The Dems left a vacuum and the republicans have stepped into the gap.

The same has happened here, Labour (and the smaller centre-centre left parties) have taken a broadly pro trans position and it’s allowed the conservatives to take up the GC cause.

It’s slightly less concerning for us as abortion isn’t a political issue in the UK (apart from in NI) - we have some restrictions that sound onerous on paper but aren’t really in practice and there is no real appetite to change them beyond occasionally reviewing the real-world data (earliest preterm viability age v gestational weeks where diagnosis of profound genetic or congenital diagnosis can be made). The most recent legal challenge (unsuccessful), iirc, came from disability rights activists.

left and right should really only be economic positions so it’s still bloody annoying for those of us who want left wing economics and childhood gender transition halted and women’s single sex services preserved.

US women really do seem stuck between a rock (access to abortion) and hard place (acknowledgement that female is a completely separate category to male and sometimes the difference matters).

I almost wonder if it would be better for the Dems to lose the midterms as a wake up call? In the vague hope that a big loss will trigger some sort of epiphany between now and the next presidential election (clearly Biden can’t run again, if only due to age? His failing health and mental decline will make him a laughing stock on the stump).

If the dems don’t jettison their Gender ideology position they are at risk of losing core parts of their traditional vote (women, black people, Latino people) as well as the ongoing loss of votes from former industrial communities in the rust belt (same phenomenon as Labour are grappling with here in the red wall and NE regions).

The only difference really is that we’ve had more than a decade of the conservatives in power so are due a change towards the left, whereas the US currently has the traditionally left leaning party in power. I have a strong feeling that the midterms are going to be great for the Reps.

"if you are lucky enough to have opponents who are spouting utterly deranged stuff about women having penises, anyone rational is going to draw voters' attention to that."

Absolutely. I quit the Labour party over this issue, and am now politically homeless. I cannot understand why Labour fell for this madness. There have been plenty of warnings about the true nature of the wagon it has hitched itself to, enough in the Challenor story and Green's TED talk alone to make anyone with a brain run a mile, surely, even before the latest revelations like Breslow et al? This is all in plain sight, alarms sounded at high levels, not hidden, unlike 1970s BBC safeguarding scandals. It's doing to the Labour party what Icke did to the Greens' reputation for years, only this is a million times worse: one man thinking he's the son of god vs almost an entire political party now supporting gender ideology with a very real lifelong physical impact on a generation of impressionable young people, or if they're not believers, cowardly keeping quiet while Rosie Duffield take all the flak for standing up for reality and sanity.

It's not about money, nor is it about the GOP caring about women and children. It is about winning elections and if you are lucky enough to have opponents who are spouting utterly deranged stuff about women having penises, anyone rational is going to draw voters' attention to that.

Roe is a done deal, there’s no going back so may as well forget about it—it’s in the hands of state legislatures, not national ones.

That's incredibly naive. Reps have been quite clear they'd like nothing better than to enact forced birth legislation on the federal level.

I just accidentally heard Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ recent speech (YouTube autoplay).

I find him a little bit cringey at times but listening to it I suddenly got a very strong feeling that Keir Starmer wants to see what happens in the upcoming US midterms.

I fully expect the Dems to get a trouncing.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zi2x5-VpMs

the bits re: Disney are fascinating - it’s interesting that big corps have taken on all the pride stuff on both sides of the Atlantic, I used to think it was mostly meaningless virtue signalling and a few flags look good but are cheaper than real equality and diversity provision (eg on site childcare or personalised ergonomic equipment for people with disabilities) but this speech made me rethink that - corps are now attempting to interfere with democracy, they are acting like old style gangsters. Same with the sports orgs.

If the Dems don’t sort their shit out fast, Ron DeSantis will be President in 2 years time (if he wants it).

it is incredibly naïve to assume that the Republican politicians actually share those concerns on a meaningful level

They share the concerns.

That's a whole lot more than can be said of the left.

This is a wholesale failure of left, liberal politics. A shocking betrayal of vulnerable children. Of course the right are going to use it as leverage.

Roe is a done deal, there’s no going back so may as well forget about it—it’s in the hands of state legislatures, not national ones.

plenty of reasons to vote Republican: not just to protect children from trans ideology but also on the school funding issue and (to my delight) punishing those responsible for unreasonable Covid measures. If there’s no punishment at the ballot box, they may decide to do it again ….

xalo, people posting about being politically homeless are going to be predominantly Labour supporters, as on this issue, let’s be honest, the Tories are more attuned to voter concerns. Ditto you won’t get Mail Telegraph or Times readers complaining about lack of coverage of GC issues, in the way that Guardian readers do.

My observation is that many on the left assume that because they consider themselves right, and liberal and kind, those with different views are wrong, illiberal and unkind. So you get statements like “it is incredibly naïve to assume that the Republican politicians actually share those concerns on a meaningful level.”.

There is a huge danger in looking at things as black or white, Republican or Democratic, Tory or Labour, in a tribal sort of way. Policies count. Some will resonate with voters, including policies around gender. If voters are responding to Republican initiatives, the Democrats need to consider why, and be open to reappraising their own stance. Rather than write off republican supporters as self interested, racist, phobic, stupid or whatever.

You don’t need to be a specific political flavour to think that reality matters and going all wild, wild, west on kids in terms of experimentation for the sake of ideology (despite evidence against, and fuck all evidence in favour) is horrific and needs to be stamped out of existence.

You just need to believe in reality and think kids, teenagers & young adults need protection from those who would turn them into guinea pigs for the sake of their New Age Religion.

So 2 things can be true at once. Righties, in the main (like a lot of lefties) think it’s fucking awful and are horrified. They also see it as a good tactic to beat the opposition in elections, like you are supposed to do if you want to win.

It’s not like the people running the left really believe people change sex and 3 year olds know what’s best for their tiny selves in the short, mid & long term. They just thought “ohhh our side seems to like this shit, let’s centre it, save ourselves the internal blow back from going WTF ? It’ll keep our base happy by letting they feel all virtuous. Plus let’s use this “fighting fascism” narrative the TRAs and the SJWs have. That should energise the base++ enough to get out and actually vote”

They wanted to win, they did what political parties do, pick the collateral damage they can live with in order to take power to try and implement the bits of their manifesto that do matter to them. They just miscalculated the timeline in which the tide would turn and it’s blown up in their faces.

@MolliciousIntent
It isn't a 'single issue' though.
It spreads it's tentacles into every aspect of women and children's lives.

Republican politicians also have children, no?

Your bias is obvious.

Its not about the parents - I completely agree with their concerns, I share them!

I'm saying is that it is incredibly naïve to assume that the Republican politicians actually share those concerns on a meaningful level. These policies are being put in place because they suit the Republican agenda, in terms of fanning the fear of the left, not because the Republicans actually care about the damage done by gender ideology.

The article - which is itself quite the spectacle in respect of how it presents the issues - talks about a "suppressed turnout". Which sounds like "please don't talk about these things because people will know about them and then they won't vote how we want". Defend the policies then. Tell us why these things are good things and why parents can trust you.

@MolliciousIntent
i don’t think you have the right to make sweeping statements about other people’s motivations. Have you ever watched the videos of parents attending school board meetings , raising their concerns about the harm they perceive gender ideology doing to their children? Not much frothing hatred and irrationality on display, except possibly from the advocates.