Biden's State of the Union address and his disregard for women's rights

[Cailleach1]

Joe Biden has doubled down on the 'rights' of anyone, and everyone who wishes to do so, to encroach on the safety, dignity and fairness of women.

Only recently hard won opportunities, places and spaces for women will now be open to males who simply wish to access or take them. Thus depriving a woman of her right to something which was created for her in order to address inequalities and challenges specific to women.

And for our LGBTQ+ Americans, let’s finally get the bipartisan Equality Act to my desk. The onslaught of state laws targeting transgender Americans and their families is wrong.

As I said last year, especially to our younger transgender Americans, I will always have your back as your President, so you can be yourself and reach your God-given potential.

Is it a male's god given potential to destroy women's sports, and force them to have to undress in their presence (as the Penn women's swimming team reportedly are coerced to do, in fear of censure or removal from the team). Whose potential is being enhanced in medication and surgical removal of body parts in healthy young people?

The phrase 'open your mouth and remove all doubt' springs to mind. Kamala apparently busy clapping him on. Just wondering out loud if some backer is demanding their misogynistic wishes be implemented before they'll open their purses for the next election. Is that democracy in action?

www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/01/remarks-of-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-as-delivered/

If God gave them all that potential, why did God also give them 'wrong bodies' that require all that very lucrative surgery to 'fix'? A very peculiar God, that American God.

I saw this earlier. I don’t think he has given a seconds thought to what he’s actually doing and the wider impacts - he definitely doesn’t give a shit about women.

The comments get it.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10567561/Biden-tells-transgender-Americans-back.html#article-10567561

Removing their 'God-given potential' to ever become parents themselves isn't something that seems to worry him.

@IvyTwines

Removing their 'God-given potential' to ever become parents themselves isn't something that seems to worry him.

Well said! He'll be long gone when the lawsuits are clogging up the courts of the USA

I'm so angry at this. Lies aimed by the USA"s elderly president specifically at naive young people whose 'potential' - to have their own children, to have a full sex life, to have lifelong physical health, is what this lucrative medicalisation and surgery will actually be stripping away.

When are the midterm elections?

Slightly off topic, but isn't the US supposed to be secular now? How do the atheists in the country feel about their president still using phrasing like "God given potential"?

Hmm, what a vote winner.

Wonder where all the future votes will come from though. after many of those voters are made infertile and unable to pass their values on to offspring?

@Lovelyricepudding

When are the midterm elections?

To answer my own question - November.

@Lovelyricepudding

When are the midterm elections?

November this year. The Democrats are forecast to get a hammering and there's a good chance they will lose control of the House of Reps. There's been a bit of wild conjecture that, if the Republicans get the House, they will instal Trump as Speaker (this does not have to be an elected congress person), thus making him the 3rd most powerful person in the country after Biden and Harris, and in a position to create all kinds mischief. It is possible in practice, but probably improbable, not least because Trump's popularity has really taken a nosedive. Nevertheless, whoever the Republicans instal as Speaker, they will be blocking Biden every step of the way.

I think the Democratic Progressive wing were going to issue a rebuttal of the State of the Union criticising Biden, so he's appealing to his own party rather than the electorate.

www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/25/fact-sheet-the-equality-act-will-provide-long-overdue-civil-rights-protections-for-millions-of-americans/

It is much more nuanced than OP has suggested. The proposed legislation will stop US states passing laws discriminating against LGBT people in a whole range of circumstances, similar to the UK Equality Act.
Eg it will become illegal to say I am not renting an apartment to you because you are a lesbian couple, or I will not employ you because you are homosexual. Surely we should all be supporting these aspects of the legislation.

As is the case with UK laws, there will be issues around clashes of rights - particularly between women and trans women. But these will be addressed during the legislative process. The first drafts of laws are rarely the laws which are actually passed.

@MoltenLasagne

Slightly off topic, but isn't the US supposed to be secular now? How do the atheists in the country feel about their president still using phrasing like "God given potential"?

It's very much not secular. Joe Biden has made much of his Catholic faith during his decades in office. A lot of Democrats do downplay it some of the time compared to Republican counterparts but God and religion does still work it's way into speeches on that side of the aisle in both the House and Senate. I recall a couple of years ago listening to a Nancy Pelosi speech about something and God/religion was invoked as part of the speech.

Ovahere thanks for correcting me - I really thought it was like France and all about separation of church and state. I find it jarring to hear religious language in political speeches.

@MoltenLasagne

Ovahere thanks for correcting me - I really thought it was like France and all about separation of church and state. I find it jarring to hear religious language in political speeches.

I think a lot of Democrats try to straddle a fine line. Many may not be religious themselves but the electorate who vote Dem is very broad. The atheists or agnostics of the US are very likely to vote Democrat but so are many immigrants from SA countries and the Black community, both those groups can be deeply religious.

I think the US is a long way from being able to separate church and state, if ever.

@Kilimanjaro97

www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/25/fact-sheet-the-equality-act-will-provide-long-overdue-civil-rights-protections-for-millions-of-americans/

It is much more nuanced than OP has suggested. The proposed legislation will stop US states passing laws discriminating against LGBT people in a whole range of circumstances, similar to the UK Equality Act.
Eg it will become illegal to say I am not renting an apartment to you because you are a lesbian couple, or I will not employ you because you are homosexual. Surely we should all be supporting these aspects of the legislation.

As is the case with UK laws, there will be issues around clashes of rights - particularly between women and trans women. But these will be addressed during the legislative process. The first drafts of laws are rarely the laws which are actually passed.

And yet 'op' just quoted straight from Joe Biden's speech! How very misleading, indeed.

Transgender 'rights' was the only part of the Equality Act Joe Biden was focused on in his speech. Are you saying the transcript from the Whitehouse was misleading? Are we not to believe politicians when they tell us who they are? Are we to twist his speech to pretend that he didn't just focus on those two paragraphs dedicated to this ideological movement, without any care to the associated inherent decimation of women's opportunities, dignity or fairness? Please link to the missing part of the speech that the Whitehouse must have forgotten to write up. Again one would simply wonder if his vocal and singular focus on transgender 'rights', seemingly without any care to ramifications and implications for the wellbeing and rights of others is to appease (or at the behest of) backers with large purses.

So, maybe women might just be lucky, and there is a chance (outside?) the legislation will not decimate women's rights to equality and fairness as it proceeds. Or, maybe they won't be so fortunate. However, whatever happens, women should be thankful as others always come first. Should we leave the opportunities, dignity and fairness for our daughters and granddaughters to the vicarious goodwill of others? No, thank you.

I think it would be better for women's rights not to be reliant on a wing and a prayer. To hold women's rights (not even advance) the misogynistic and anti-equality (to women) elements should be rooted out now. Before it proceeds. How wonderful it would be to start out with a proposal to advance rights that doesn't contain elements which are inherently damaging to women's rights.

The young women at Penn State University swimming team have to race against a certain L. Thomas. Young women whose achievements, scholarships and future is being destroyed.

Women are forced to share prison cells and have no refuge from males even when deeply vulnerable to abuse. Whose 'rights' are paramount to Joe Biden there do you think? From his focus in his 'State of the Union' address.

Screwing women over is not a 'right'. It is misogyny and has no place in even the starting point of any legislation.

The pledge of allegiance has 'one nation under God' in it.

@Cailleach1

I am saying that the issue is MUCH more nuanced than your posts suggest.

And you would have more impact if you were less aggressive.

We are all happy to see the back of the orange toupe wearer, but Biden is an actual moron non? Like a reanimated corpse reading from an autocue

And you would have more impact if you were less aggressive.

If the point of your post was to remind us that the USA is not the UK then that's fair. However I lost track after this absurd accusation. Being passionate and direct is not the same as being aggressive and, if you can't tell the difference well then maybe that says more about you than it does the op.

[quote Kilimanjaro97]@Cailleach1

I am saying that the issue is MUCH more nuanced than your posts suggest.

And you would have more impact if you were less aggressive.[/quote]
There's fuck all nuance over whether men are women because they say so. They are not.

Stop tone policing the OP. She is rightfully angry as we all are.

@MoltenLasagne

Slightly off topic, but isn't the US supposed to be secular now? How do the atheists in the country feel about their president still using phrasing like "God given potential"?

Oh no. The US still has a very, very strong religious bent. It's why gender identity is so tough to counter because Americans are primed to respect subjective internal feelings and those little in the know nod their heads and say Amen to the gender god.

[quote Kilimanjaro97]@Cailleach1

I am saying that the issue is MUCH more nuanced than your posts suggest.

And you would have more impact if you were less aggressive.[/quote]
And when is Biden going to discuss that nuance then?

There isn’t an ounce of aggression in Cailleach1’s posts. Assertiveness and engagement yes. Aggression no.

It would very much suit some people to have women get back in our box, stop being assertive and not question the details, but false accusations of aggressiveness won’t work here.

And yet 'op' just quoted straight from Joe Biden's speech! How very misleading, indeed.
Transgender 'rights' was the only part of the Equality Act Joe Biden was focused on in his speech. Are you saying the transcript from the Whitehouse was misleading?

Did you actually read the whole of Biden’s speech? Are you deliberately quoting only a very small section? Because that is indeed misleading.

Did you miss the bit that said “Advancing liberty and justice also requires protecting the rights of women”? Did you spot the section on on Roe v Wade? Preserving a woman’s right to choose and advancing maternal care? Did you see the bit about srengthening the Violence against women act? I do not see these as Biden demonstrating “a disregard for women’s rights”. Quite the opposite.

The Equality Act, with which you take issue, will stop certain US states (29) keeping laws which allow them to discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in a range of areas. eg banning lesbian couples from renting homes. It will also expand protections for people of colour. There is a lot of really positive stuff in the bill.

I happen to agree that the definitions of “sex” in the bill are too broad and that they could endanger sex based rights of women and girls.
But would it not be more productive to focus on getting those definitions changed rather than opposing the bill in its entirety?

And be in no doubt that the majority of people who are opposing the bill in its entirety are doing so because they think it is right to allow discrimination against women, people of colour, and all LGBT people in all situations.

I think you might be making some fair points kilimajaro but has it been suggested that you might have more impact if you were less aggressive?