The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity Part 2

Are you OK with people referring to each other based on how they perceive each other?

The question here is not why right leaning people support the primacy of sex as the key differentiator. The question is why left leaning people have (very recently) rejected such an obvious truth.

In a nutshell.

Don't be so sure about that. The more laughter there is about this the less people feel unable to speak.

Exactly. Laughter is great. It's absurd that so much attention is devoted to this ideology.

Don't be so sure about that. The more laughter there is about this the less people feel unable to speak.

Lol it was not in the way you would have liked.

Texas briefly outlawed "being trans in public" and made it criminal to do so.

I would be find with third spaces. I am not ok with throwing people in jail for how they dress or wish to be addressed.

People laughing at this stuff is an excellent development.

This argument lacks logical rigour.

Im sure you agree with white supremacists that water is wet and the sky is blue. Are you 'discomforted' by that?

The question here is not why right leaning people support the primacy of sex as the key differentiator. The question is why left leaning people have (very recently) rejected such an obvious truth.

I dunno, I was at a party last month when that ad came on the TV and everyone laughed at how ridiculous it was, and most of them were Republicans. They know it's not the main issue or even one of the big minor ones.

Well trans ideology (not trans people) is a threat to gay people, hence how many are now speaking up. You can't have same sex attraction / love if sex isn't a thing and transing away the gay is a concern for many.

We know the forced teaming that's gone on but gay men and lesbians are increasingly speaking up against this.

Trans people don't have any fewer rights than anyone else. No-one should have a right to take away others rights or use unconsenting women by deception. On sky news Australia it was said gender issues was the biggest issue (above the economy) for swing voters in the US.

I see this election as more of an incumbent issue that is happening everywhere with elections (France, Britain, New Zealand, likely Canada next year) right now, and less of a rejection of gender politics.

I think it's not just a rejection of gender politics when it comes to social issues, but the message did land, that "Kamala Harris is for they/them, President Trump is for you." And that campaign has been proved to have resonated with swing state voters, as discussed (with evidence) earlier in the thread, or the previous one).

People mostly see this issue as irrelevant nonsense, right, but that doesn't mean that the Democrats pushing it hard didn't have a negative impact.

The Wi Spa incident wasn't someone playing make believe - it was a sex offender. That shouldn't be forgotten.

@LesbianNana:

"Actually the 14 million who didn’t show up for democrats this year will likely never show up again, as they were an anomaly in 2020.

2016 Hilary Clinton received 65,853,514 votes
2012 Barack Obama received 65,915,795 votes
2008 Barack Obama received 69,498,516 votes

This year votes increased for both parties but are closer to average turnout for democrats.

Also, Trump won with 76,430,999 votes this year and he lost with 74,223,975 in 2020. So he received 2,207,024 more votes this year."

Perhaps asking why so many democrat voters didn't turn out to vote in 2024 is the wrong question?

Maybe the right question is how the hell Biden got 81,283,501 votes in 2020, and where did they all come from?

How could Biden possibly have got 17% more votes than Obama did in 2008, and 23% more than Obama did in 2012?

Maybe Trump was right...

Everyone I know who voted for Trump did so for economic reasons. All of them have a gay or trans family member or friend and support general rights and protections for those people. I live in a very red state, as well.

I see this election as more of an incumbent issue that is happening everywhere with elections (France, Britain, New Zealand, likely Canada next year) right now, and less of a rejection of gender politics.

The threats are very real. This is why we don't want these men in our and our daughters spaces.

Not even the most blasé righteous hashtag bekind Democrat women would want to be in the same toilet/hostel dorm room/changing room or anywhere they felt vulnerable with a "woman" like that.

The threats are very real. This is why we don't want these men in our and our daughters spaces.

You only have to dip a toe into social media to find selfies of this type of man in women's spaces. Shame on those whose dismiss this assault on the rights of half the population as trivial.

The supremacists are those who think it's ok for men to use unconsenting women via lies and deception, excluding them from public life and colonizing their spaces. Why no third spaces? We know why.

I am under no illusion what the far right has in store for women, a much bigger threat to me than someone playing "make believe" in a dressing room or at the korean baths.

The point here is that the Democrats have indulged this stuff, and people don't like it. Very few people here would have voted for Trump, and for those who did it was because they saw him as the lesser of two evils personally, for a range of reasons. That's quite a shocking state of affairs.

Someone posted one of the responses to Nancy Mace on the FWR thread about the toilet proposal.

x.com/repnancymace/status/1858917861797904700

As they said, this is Let Them Speak, US version. And although shocking, not remotely untypical.

I will always be discomfitted by the friendship between white supremacists in the U.S. and this new group of women's rights activists.

I am under no illusion what the far right has in store for women, a much bigger threat to me than someone playing "make believe" in a dressing room or at the korean baths.

I'm living in America until mid next year in a deeply "red state" and the main driver of this election is the economy and a lack of financial literacy in the population, not gender identity politics.

I think when people stop talking about gender identity in hushed tones, and feel free to criticise it, and especially see the absurdity in it, the house of cards starts to tumble.

I'm just recognising that some people believe that everyone has a gender identity. They're as welcome to that as the people who believe that Jesus is the son of god. Both beliefs are as valid as each other. Both beliefs are as nonsensical as each other.

I'm also recognising that some people find it offensive when others deny their belief.

Yes, that doesn't mean it's wrong to do so, when the belief is fundamentally illogical and threatens the rights of other groups. You spend an awful lot of time saying how everyone's approach is needed, but also criticising people's bluntness, which rather suggests you think the mild approach is the correct one. On that, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I have never seen any evidence of belief in a gendered soul in any culture. I'd be interested in references, preferably from before 1980.

Obviously, in Christianity the possibility of any such concept has been categorically rejected for nearly two thousand years.

Apologies OP, I realise I've accidentally done a derail.

My point remains the same though about waiting to see how that statement about "playing make-believe" lands.

The Megyn Kelly video was great. Some people might be offended by the language, others won't.

The key point being that the message needs to resonate with enough people. If more people find it offensive in and of itself than don't, then it's not spreading the message.

Perhaps lots of people will like the phrase "playing make-believe" and will stand by the Bill because of it. Or, perhaps it'll get upheld as "too much" and transphobic, so not enough people will listen to her Bill.

The concept of an inner gendered essence/soul has been around for a very long time too and is in many different cultures.

It's only recently that people have been changing their bodies to match their perceived essence/soul and demanding that others validate it as true.