Hilary and Chelsea Clinton discuss trans issues

[zanahoria]

"The one thing she and her mother don’t appear to agree on entirely is the question of transgender self-identification. Their book features Danica Roem, the first trans woman elected to a US state legislature, and when I ask if someone with a beard and a penis can ever be a woman, Chelsea peers at me as if I’ve just asked if the sun rises in the east. “Ye-esss. Yes.” Hillary is looking uneasy. “

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hillary-clinton-chelsea-interview-8j33c8vt5?&wgu=270525_54264_15710328024183_776
741b996&wgexpiry=1578808802

I was genuinely shocked by the "Ye-es. Yes." response. Has she honestly NEVER heard the points made to her before? Actually considered the feminist case? Really thought through her comments on wards and kids playing sport?

It's quite distressing to see someone so intelligent so completely drink the Kool-Aid.

The blindness to how this inclusion will be abused is commonplace amongst so many otherwise intelligent people at the moment.

Chelsea is friends with Charlotte Clymer. Says it all.

Doesn’t it just?

I think she's capable of thinking 'what if my child were trans' but not 'what if my daughter were in prison or a refuge' because it's highly unlikely a daughter of hers ever would be.

Anyone who is capable of thinking 'what if my child were trans' needs to think about what is actually meant by that phrase. What is a 'trans child'?

I read that Chelsea is thinking of running for Congress next year in a soon-to-be-vacant NY seat. She must find it expedient to appear all aboard current party orthodoxy. But she also comes across as a true believer. If only we had AWS here so she could cheer for the likes of Clymer taking her spot on one...

‘What is a 'trans child'?’ I take that as modern speak for ‘my boy likes pink/my girl likes blue/my kid looks like they will be gay when the get older’.

Remember a few years back when every other kid seemed to have ADHD?

Why would anyone be "thrilled" that the health service in a country they don't live in has done something that many people in that country are vehemently objecting to? What a bizarrely entitled statement.

Chelsea comes from a life of extreme privilege. She had never had to face hardship or know what it is like in the actual real world. She lives in fairy land.

Chelsea Clinton has more privilege than most wealthy americans. She will never share a hospital room with anyone - still less a man. No surprise that she lacks the imagination to consider the other poorer people live.

I have to say though that my own daughters would say the same as her (I suspect). they are younger than her but their generation has utterly swallowed the TWAW line. I would go so far as to say that they would regard it as shocking to say trans woman are not women as saying women are not the equal of men. After a couple of blazing arguments about it, I no longer engage directly with them on the issue but talk around the edges of the topic - sports teams/women's experience with their bodies etc. I hope it will have some effect.

When my dd2 was in 8th grade, her class was matched with pre-k buddies (very sweet it was too). One of those pre-k kids was a boy who identified as a girl and was now living as a girl (wearing long hair and dresses and going by a different name) - I'm all for the kid doing whatever they wanted but they all semed to believe that this made him a girl.

On an unrelated topic I wish to god (and for the sake of the Democratic party) that Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Bill Clinton would just shut up and sit down where we can't see them.

The Democrats seem determined to lose the next election at the moment. Which would be bad enough at any time, but is particularly unwise when facing down a potential second term for an orange wrecking ball in a bad wig.

Seriously. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I wish Nancy Pelosi would take out a gag order on the clintons. And I wish Joe Biden would just simply go away.

Interesting comment from Hillary though. It displays she's aware of the issues and choosing her words carefully.
It's also making me wonder if she ever visits FWR and which one of you she is.

But I think also Democrats such as AOC, who doesn’t come from privilege I don’t think, parrot the TWAW line.

I'd love someone to do a kind of Frost/Nixon disingenuous interview technique on Chelsea. "Okay, so this is a generational thing, but here is your chance to reach out to those older voters, many of whom are probably well meaning, nice people who're just a bit behind the times. Explain to them how come someone with a beard and penis can be a woman..."

Then keep asking questions. "So it's because they feel like a woman inside... I'm sure a lot of people who're maybe new to this stuff won't have thought much about this, so what does it mean to feel like a woman inside?"

And so on and so on, until everyone (presumably barring the interviewee) can see the Emperor has no clothes on.

But I think also Democrats such as AOC, who doesn’t come from privilege I don’t think, parrot the TWAW line.

it is utterly generational - nothing to do with privilege. Also in the US anti TWAW is strongly associated with the christian right and conservatism which makes it tricky to navigate.

boy who identified as a girl and was now living as a girl (wearing long hair and dresses and going by a different name) is that it? Is that all there is?

No one asks “what does ‘living like’ mean”? No one says ‘but all you have ever known is the skin you were born in - how can you possible ‘know’ what the other sex feels like?’ ‘Is your AEC your body or your mind?’ Or the million dollar statement ‘women and girls just don’t know how it feels to have a penis’.

AEC? Doh ‘sex’’

AOC is the daughter of an architect who went to school in a nice suburban area outside of New York City.

She isn't uber privileged like Chelsea Clinton but from a comfortable background even by the standards of the wealthiest nation going.

I haven't found this to be a generational issue, though maybe it is in the US. My own children and their friends all think 'TWAW' is a steaming pile of manure and hold opinions on the matter that they'd be banned from expressing on this site. Nobody I've spoken to on the matter in my working class home town, regardless of age or sex, agrees with this ideology. The only people I know in real life who even pretend they think 'TWAW' are politicians.

To be fair to Chelsea Clinton, hasn’t Clymer always been very good at taking people in? My understanding is that before transition, he had a large following as a self-proclaimed “male feminist”.

I know people IRL who claim to believe that TWAW but a. strong motivation to lie based on social pressure and relatedly b. involved in super woke uber queer social group in which saying anything else would mean losing your entire support network and very likely them then going after you like you'd decided to leave Scientology.

Outside of that group there's a lot of uncomfortable fidgeting and avoidance of eye contact whenever the subject comes up.

I know one (right on) man who believes it. He’s had an awful lot for girlfriends - but never dated a trans woman.

Good opinion piece in USA Today:

Ex-Republican: Do we still agree on beating Trump? After your LGBTQ forum, I'm not sure.

When we watched CNN's LGBTQ town hall for the Democratic candidates Thursday, we had very different reactions. This is the event, you remember, where former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas said he’d punish religious institutions for refusing gay marriage, and where Sen. Kamala Harris of California started by informing us of her pronouns, and then host Chris Cuomo, after a mild and dopey joke, had to go on Twitter the next day and apologize for making light of it. This is where Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts fielded a question about traditional marriage with a sneering, smug insinuation that the only people who would ask her about that are men who can’t find a woman.

You thought it was great. You saw a ringing defense of LGBTQ rights and a reaffirmation of what Democrats stand for.

I saw it and thought: Are these people insane? Are they trying to lose the election?

amp.usatoday.com/amp/3947332002?__twitter_impression=true

boy who identified as a girl and was now living as a girl (wearing long hair and dresses and going by a different name) is that it? Is that all there is?

well he was 6 so there really wasn't any other way for him to present as a girl other than this stuff which of course means nothing. In reality this child clearly had gender dysmorphia, was under the care of a psychologist and his parents were trying to ease his mh issues by agreeing he could "be a girl" - the school went along with it. It was no skin off anyone's nose to call him Mary or whatever and no one cares what he wore etc but I do wonder what happened in the end (the kid would be 11 now).

My ds was in class with a girl who really struggled with feminine gender presentation. I loved/love her - she was such a positive role model for ds's younger sisters (in the school lift), really strong. In high school she became he and changed name. 7 years later they are now "they" and in a relationship with another transman. In other words she is in a lesbian relationship with another woman who also bucks gender stereotypes - as I could have told them was their destiny back in the 8th grade. I spoke to her dad at a dinner recently. Her parents were outwardly very supportive of the trans thing, used the pronouns, used the new name etc etc. but he said to me that they were utterly clear in their own heads that she was never a boy trapped in a boy's body from day 1. She was a girl - not the kind of girl that stereotypes are made of but a girl nonetheless. The whole thing is so so odd.

I'm not sure about the "trying to lose the election" thing after the LGBTQ townhall. The reality is the people who are anti-gay marriage which is most of what this guy is complaining about will never vote democrat no matter what.

It's hard to think of a woman who has lived a life freer from fear of assault than Chelsea Clinton.

When all you have to worry about is the bathrooms at the most elite institutions and workplaces, I'm sure the issue must seem very silly.

She won't have to go to a prison and deal with the pigs in wigs there. She doesn't have to worry about homeless shelters. Or public bathrooms that haven't been pre-cleared by security.

If I had her security detail, I probably wouldn't be afraid of very much. Intersectionality as practiced by many intersectionalists involves examining every single oppression...except social class.