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 the fault of a lot of the left that you would need this kind of sensible legislation.

Of course you shouldn't be changing things like "male", "female" on official documents. That's clearly for your sex not how you fucking feel about yourself! You aren't being oppressed because your ID is accurate and you aren't allowed to falsify it.

I don't understand why anyone would reject a bill just because it was from Republicans? Surely it's the content that matters?

While the US tends to be further right overall than the UK, half the country votes Republican, they aren't all "far-right".

My concern is the number of 'feminists' who are cheering on a political party that is actively seeking to remove women's rights and freedoms.

Something has gone really wrong with some parts of the UK feminist movement IMO that they are aligning themselves with these groups.

Knowing your (political) enemy is important.

Extreme right?

Do you just mean mainstream American conservatives and agreement with them in one area of policy?

But they are against things like abortion? Yeah, and they are going to be against abortion whether you agree with them on single sex spaces or not.

Unless feminists actually start donating to American conservative organisations, they aren't really responsible for what conservatives think about abortion.

Yes you should support sensible legislation, even if it comes from Kansas Republicans!

Pretending Republicanism is 'mainstream' just illustrates my point really. The fact many in America vote for it does not make it middle of the road. The Republican movement is extreme, yes.

They are happy that they have, in this matter, produced a bill that protects women's rights.

Would you prefer they align with the Democrats who are seeking to remove women's rights in these same areas?

Or maybe - just support what you think is good legislation, and not what you think is bad, whichever party produces it.

You are aware that historically there is a lot of good and bad legislation from both of these parties.

But what do you think of the actual bill? You have read it, yes?

Yes.

so what do YoU think of it?

Without any definition or justification that's meaningless.

It's certainly mainstream in that it's half the country.

So you want women to align themselves with the other party fighting to remove womens rights and freedoms? The one that’s also in favour of giving children surgeries and drugs? That one?

In terms of ‘middle of the road’ from a UK perspective the Democrats sit very much to the right. They are right of our Conservative Party. But to paint Republicans as not mainstream is so ridiculous as to undermine your credibility. It doesn’t matter what you think of their position, if they are able to have presidents elected and win state elections elections then they are mainstream.

I don't post things here to create arguments, but just for people to see and comment if they so wish. Having looked at the responses to the OP I thought a bit more from me would be worthwhile.

The OP was intended to focus on the quotations from the children (hence the posting's title) - which I thought showed they had been encouraged to think of themselves as entitled, and legally entitled at that, to have fun and enjoy themselves with things that are deadly serious. They had been given no awareness of the likely progression for many children to experimental and then lifelong medication, bodily mutilation and reproductive sterililty; or why many people, especially women, view the things they want to play with as vital to their wellbeing. As people here commented as well, the kind of things the kids mentioned were more like what we always called "gender roles" rather than bodily sex - which is the issue in question. One might ask how the kids got these ideas (which parents then accepted) other than at school, and that is a big issue in this country at the moment.

I can't say I thought the story was really an example of American "culture wars" (which the Dylan M. and Budweiser beer "boycott" certainly is, for example). The issues involved here are the same kind of thing people are discussing in the Uke at the moment, and are looking to national government (and the Secretary of State for Education) to deal with, as we lack the equivalent of state legislative authority.

Kansas is certainly not a rabid right-wing state, like Alabama or Tennessee, or a wildly populist one like Florida or Texas. It has been overwhelmingly Republican since the Civil War, like most of the Prairie States (such as Nebraska and Iowa), and returns all or nearly all Republicans to Congress. But Kansans are very decent and moderate for the most part, many of them farmers. Bob Dole, one of the most reasonable Republican presidential candidates, was a Senator from Kansas. Government care and people's attitudes would put many people to shame in this country, although it is right to say that the organised Republican Party across the USA is at war internally at the moment, and some of the contestants are extreme. But the part-time legislatue of Kansas is dependent on decent people and overall the proposed laws would not be unreasonable objectives here.

I was absolutely not intending (and do not intend) that anyone should cheer on or give support to the Republican Party as such, or do more than recognise some of the parallels and warnings of the way things are working out in the USA. Kansas has a Democrat governor at the moment, who is expected to (unsuccessfully) veto the Republican bills, and thereby state a position on the issues which it would surely be good if it was possible to persuade the party to change - however that might be done.

There have been more Republican presidents than Democrat presidents and of current State Governors it’s 26 -24 to the Republicans.

So while they might well be ‘extreme’ in their political views (and I don’t personally believe that to be true, the GOP is a broad church) they are utterly, utterly mainstream in terms of vote share.

And I’m STILL hoping to get an opinion on the actual bill from @carriedout!

It seems very sensible to me, so I’m wondering what changes could be made to it to make it more palatable to Democrats?

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.

You aren't, that makes three of us was exactly what I focused on too.

Just putting this down, Tulsi Gabbard’s 2020 bill to protect Women’s Sports

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8932

Hoping @carriedout can explain why the Democrat bill is acceptable and the Republican one isn’t?

Rejecting a bill simply because of the party that introduced it is about as mature and reasonable as throwing out all your shoes because you don't want to be aligned with Trump.

Agreeing with Republicans that water is wet and fire is hot is not aligning with, cheering for, or supporting the party.

Well the Democrats can get away with a LOT can't they if ever voter in the USA is urged to see Democrat = Good / Republican = Bad on every single issue?

Where are the feminists in the USA? There is only really Riley Gaines I can think of, she is clearly a Republican so are feminists dismissing her as WRONG on the sport issue because of her political views?

It’s all a bit “That’s an excellent suggestion, Miss Republican. Perhaps one of the Democrats here would like to make it.”

Well said 👏

Heavens to murgatroyd

why don’t you read all the posts on this thread that explain why this was anything but ‘well said’

So if the republicans raised a bill stating everyone got 1million dollars would you be against that @carriedout ? If so, why?

If Democrats and liberals generally don't step up, women will either stop voting or go right. I will spoil my ballot until they do.

I hate the way that this is being dismissed as a culture war.

When Group A propose something preposterous (transitioning children for example) and Group B objects, how is Group B causing a culture war and not the ones who suggested it in the first place?

@ItsFunToBeAVampire I couldn't agree more. If the Democrats support a policy that is breathtakingly stupid and destructive, how is that the Republicans' fault? Sometimes there is cross-party support for a really sensible idea, or against a really stupid idea. Sadly not in this case.