Kids are entitled to gender-fun

[ValuePartnership]

A Kansas bill to impose restrictions on access to public bathrooms and stop transgender people changing the name or gender on their driver’s licenses have passed the state legislature and will likely be passed over the governor’s expected veto. Rights advocates claimed the bills would legally erase transgender people and deny recognition to non-binary, gender fluid and gender non-conforming people.

“I am what they are scared of,” Ian Benalcazar, a 13-year-old NE Kansas transgender boy said during a recent LGBTQ rights rally outside the statehouse. “I am a human being and I deserve to be treated as such, and I deserve to be happy.” Carson Rapp, a Wichita-area 15-year-old who identifies as bigender or embracing “both more masculine and more feminine traits” said that expressing one’s gender identity does not harm others. “Why stop people from doing it if they’re just being themselves and having fun?” Carson said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/05/kansas-republicans-majority-governor-veto-trans-bathroom-bill

What's so clear is that these kids are totally unready to decide to have their bodies deranged by experimental puberty-blockers, mutilated by mercenary surgeons, and sterilised by lifelong drug treatment. Such fun!

It's best not to take the word of The Guardian because we've know for a long time that in this issue they indulge in using misinformation to promote their narratives.

Read the bill yourself and make up your own mind. It's short:

http://kslegislature.org/li/b2023_24/measures/documents/sb180_enrolled.pdf

Here's the second half of it which states what the bill is intended to achieve:

(b) Laws and rules and regulations that distinguish between the sexes are subject to intermediate constitutional scrutiny. Intermediate constitutional scrutiny forbids unfair discrimination against similarly situated male and female individuals but allows the law to distinguish between the sexes where such distinctions are substantially related to important governmental objectives. Notwithstanding any provision of state law to the contrary, distinctions between the sexes with respect to athletics, prisons or other detention facilities, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, locker rooms, restrooms and other areas where biology, safety or privacy are implicated that result in separate accommodations are substantially related to the important governmental objectives of protecting the health, safety and privacy of individuals in such circumstances.
(c) Any school district, or public school thereof, and any state agency, department or office or political subdivision that collects vital statistics for the purpose of complying with anti-discrimination laws or for the purpose of gathering accurate public health, crime, economic or other data shall identify each individual who is part of the collected data set as either male or female at birth.

What do you object to in this bill? @nauticant posted the link earlier. Here it is again for you:

http://kslegislature.org/li/b2023_24/measures/documents/sb180_enrolled.pdf

All it seems to be doing is saying that sexed nouns such as woman, man, mother, father should be used to refer to people of the appropriate sex, and that single sex spaces and sports should be allowed for reasons of safety and privacy.

It's only one page, so worth reading.

Thankyou nauticant, that looks completely reasonable to me. I don’t see any way that it prevents anyone being happy or expressing themselves, it just ensures that that expression doesn’t come at the expense of many other people (particularly regarding the safety etc of women and girls).

I am completely fed up with enbees wittering on about how their combination of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ traits makes them so much more special than anyone else. Newsflash, as pp’s have said, that describes pretty much everyone, even their boring parents. Experimenting with how you see yourself, how you present to the world, and pushing against some societal expectations is an entirely normal part of being a teenager. Adults enforcing the rules so teenagers (who are inclined to be quite self-centred) don’t impinge on other people is also entirely normal, and is done for everyone’s benefit

I can see why some medical practitioners have been backtracking recently having read that bill about medical care.

New Section 1. (a) An individual who had a childhood gender reassignment service performed on such individual as a child may bring a civil cause of action against the physician who performed the childhood gender reassignment service.

It goes on to clarify that "childhood gender reassignment service" includes the prescription or administration of puberty blockers as well as surgical procedures like mastectomy, which we know have been carried out on children.

d) (1) An individual who brings an action under this section may seek actual damages, exemplary or punitive damages, injunctive relief and other appropriate relief.
(2) In an action brought under this section, the court shall award a prevailing plaintiff the cost of the suit including reasonable attorney fees.

f) This section shall be known and may be cited as the Kansas child mutilation prevention act.

And at the end:

A physician's license shall be revoked upon a finding that the physician has performed a childhood gender reassignment service, as defined in section 1, and amendments thereto.

I wonder if we'll see a reduction in the number of doctors willing to carry out these procedures on children if this bill is passed. The risk of having to make a huge payout and also losing their licence to practise might be too much of a risk for many of them.

Since when is going to the loo or changing your name “fun”.

If you want to paint your nails and wear glitter, go for it. I don’t see having long hair if you’re a boy and short hair if you’re a girl being abolished.

No one deserves to ‘be happy’. People ‘deserve’ to be fed nutritiously, to sleep in comfort and safety, to access education, to be cared for and helped when they are sick or unable to care for themselves.

’Happy’ for everyone, all the time (:or even occasionally for the chronically discontented like my NDN but two) is unrealistic. We can all hope to be happy sometimes, we can aim more realistically for contentment, which it might be argued is partly to be found within ourselves. The’right to be happy’ is at the root of a great deal of discontent and unhappiness, IMHO; and all too often, one person’s happiness can only be achieved at the cost of another’s disadvantage.

From the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Founding Fathers didn't believe that happiness is a right, just the pursuit of it.

God I hope so 🙏

“I am what they are scared of,” Ian Benalcazar, a 13-year-old NE Kansas transgender boy

No sweetheart, you are the young people who we who we are afraid for. It's your own future you are throwing away.

“Why stop people from doing it if they’re just being themselves and having fun?” Carson said.

Because it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Or their fertility and their sexual function, not to mention their good health.

Carson Rapp, a Wichita-area 15-year-old who identifies as bigender or embracing “both more masculine and more feminine traits” said that expressing one’s gender identity does not harm others. “Why stop people from doing it if they’re just being themselves and having fun?” Carson said.

Do they really have no idea of what anyone was doing before they were born? We were all doing that in the 80s.

Ha ha, excellent. I also read it as big-ender and thought 'WTF, now skinny people are identifying as people with big butts?'

In the United States, the drivers license is an identity document. Especially now, we have instituted something called Real Id. The level of validation on a drivers license is supposed to be equivalent to a passport.

From the gender medicine legislation:

“Section 1. (a) An individual who had a childhood gender reassignment service performed on such individual as a child may bring a civil cause of action against the physician who performed the childhood gender reassignment service.
(1) An action against a physician pursuant to this section may be commenced not more than three years after the date the individual attains 18 years of age.”

^^
The last section is worryingly restrictive. I believe the average time to regret is ten years.

I was going to post that the biggest thing I've taken from this story is that, of all the names they could have chosen, they picked 'Ian' and just how fucked up that is.

I genuinely thought I'd be the only person lame enough/ shallow enough to have this take on the story.

Thank you for demonstrating that this is actually a perfectly normal response and that I am not alone in this insanity.

Yes I know

I still don’t care about people changing their gender on their driver’s licence.

I do care about them changing their sex on their driver’s licence

This is similar to the UK where there is a three year limit to suing, including medical negligence, that limits doesn’t start to count for children until they turn 18 so they can sue for something that happened when they were ten up to until they turn 21. Though it is three years from when you were aware of the negligence so that could potentially be a lot late (in the UK).

Just so it's clear, the three links relate to bills going through the Kansas legislature so none of them are yet laws. The "women's bill of rights to provide a meaning of biological sex for purposes of statutory construction", ie the subject of the article in The Guardian, appears to be close to becoming law, as does the gender reassignment medicine bill. The bill for "creating the fairness in women's sports act" has struggled more and was vetoed by the Governer of Kansas but that veto has been overridden by the two Houses.

Are you sure about that? Most of the transitioning of children has occured in the last 10 years or so, and many of those children are still not yet 18. I don't think we have any idea of how many will detransition or what the timescales are.

Chloe Cole is still only 18 or 19, and started her transition at 13. How many of these teenage girls who transition will change their minds before they are 21? I suspect quite a lot. And a doctor would only have to prescribe puberty blockers to one of these to end up losing their licence to practise and faced with paying out a huge sum in compensation and legal bills.

What is also worrying is that detransition is most likely not covered under health insurance in the US.

See this article

https://lisaselindavis.substack.com/p/the-urgency-of-detransition-care

Extract -

While many insurance companies, and states which support gender-affirming care, cover transition—that is, “gender-affirming care,” getting them to cover detransition-treatment has proved nearly impossible, per the detransitioners I’ve spoken with on and off the record over the past two years. This despite the fact that transition and detransition often involve the same procedures, like breast removal, hormones, or electrolysis.

This despite the fact that transition and detransition often involve the same procedures, like breast removal, hormones, or electrolysis.

Which may explain why some campaigners like to see detransition as all part of one long ever-changing transition "journey". Maybe if they say it's not detransition but another transition then it will be covered.

Ks license says “SEX:”
not gender

sex and gender aren't the same and mean different things

if people who identify as trans want to get gender added to driver's licences, or indeed star signs if they like, and then campaign to change them, that's fine

the OP stated that this bill would prevent people changing the gender on their drivers licence. my point is

1_) it won't
2) if it did, as far as I'm concerned they can knock themselves out as long as sex is correctly recorded

@BernardBlacksMolluscs Ok. That makes more sense. I thought you were arguing that the drivers license recorded gender and was very confused.

I’m borrowing that!!

I thought being trans was a serious matter. So serious that they need safe spaces and that they are so delicate they suffer literal violence at being told no. Stonewall, Mermaids etc all say its not a laughing matter and we should all validate every single one otherwise we are horrible genocidal meanies. So what is "fun" about that?

Or have they changed the meanings of serious and fun?