Republicans run ads on transgender children

[Girlsontour]

Gender Ideology is becoming an issue close to the Midterm elections that Republicans are willing to run on, as the dangers to children of experimental treatments filters into the American mainstream.

www.politico.com/news/2022/11/01/ads-targeting-transgender-kids-swing-states-00064505

There is a long article in the New Yorker this week about the way Republicans are using school curriculum issues: mainly Critical Race Theory, but also gender ideology, to activate younger female voters. School boards seem to be becoming a major political battleground.

There appears to be a lot of funding floating around, and new "mom" groups popping up. As always US politics is very different from the UK. There are a few red flags flying that UK activists need to be aware of.

It’s interesting that the right are effectively taking a stance that doesn’t seem to immediately financially benefit them, as a reactionary standpoint.
I always think it’s worth following the money and in this case I can’t see where it is going.
It does fit with their voter profile, however. I don’t think I like the American reactionary politics of opposing something just because your opponent is in favour of it, but the tactic seems very effective.

Just like over in the UK, surely this is a failure of the left - in this case the Democrats.

If the Democrats hadn't been captured by TRA lobby groups, they may have taken a more nuanced approach, closer to the electorate.

Ofcourse the republicans are going to use this stick to beat the Democrats. It's an open goal that even a complete moron can recognise.
The only thing that surprises me is that the left seems shocked by it

On mumsnet left wing women seem to be in the majority on this issue.

Safeguarding should not be a party political issue. Neither the “left” nor the “right” own the moral high ground.

Politicising sex and gender is dangerous. All women, actually all humans, should be concerned about giving children irreversible medical treatments without proper scrutiny. All humans should be concerned about forcing vulnerable women to share intimate spaces with men (albeit men who identify as women). All humans should immediately recognise that male bodies almost always have an advantage in sport.

xalo, where do you get your data from. I doubt you are correct.

Maybe 'the left' could try not to leave open goals.

It's interesting though in terms of positioning and reminds me of the anti abortion campaigning. There's a good podcast on how that changed from a niche religious view to a mainstream political position in Things Fell Apart, 1000 Dolls

@Needmoresleep
No data obviously as that isn't available.
Just the regular appearance on this board of huge numbers of angry women who have left the Labour Party and are now politically homeless.

It's worth remembering, above all, that the Republican party are not taking this stance to protect women and children. They are taking this stance to more closely align with their voter base, who are likely to be inherently anti-trans, in order to inflame a fear of "woke liberals".

A republican government might enact this policy, and it would possibly have a small positive impact on some people. But it would sit alongside hundreds of other policies that would be incredibly damaging for women, children and minorities. Single issue voters must not lose sight of the big picture. If you care about women, you cannot vote republican.

@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.

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.

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.

Republican politicians also have children, no?

Your bias is obvious.

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

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.

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.

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 ….

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.

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).

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.