The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity

[Ingenieur]

An interesting article in The Atlantic today, and a sign the tide might be turning in the USA.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/democrats-dishonest-gender-conversation-2024-election/680604/

Most voters think that biological sex is real, and that it matters in law and policy. Instructing them to believe otherwise, and not to ask any questions, is a doomed strategy. By shedding their most extreme positions, the Democrats will be better placed to defend transgender Americans who want to live their lives in peace.

Baby steps

Thank you @RapidOnsetGenderCritic

https://x.com/jonathancohn/status/1858197984648794296?s=46

Protests outside Seth Moulton’s office - all be use he said boys shouldn’t be in girls’ sport.

They've gone completely insane...

Its Salem.

The town is well known for loving women.

Latest article from the Telegraph on Seth Moulton

https://archive.ph/gdIhX

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/11/17/democrats-round-on-seth-moulton-who-criticised-trans-policy/

Still in denial. Perhaps AOC is waking up tor the costs of being 'woke' or perhaps hope for the Demoncrats lies in the truly batshit being ousted by more moderate candidates. I think it might take some time.

Actually the 14 million who didn’t show up for democrats this year will likely never show up again, as they were an anomaly in 2020.

2016 Hilary Clinton received 65,853,514 votes
2012 Barack Obama received 65,915,795 votes
2008 Barack Obama received 69,498,516 votes

This year votes increased for both parties but are closer to average turnout for democrats.

Also, Trump won with 76,430,999 votes this year and he lost with 74,223,975 in 2020. So he received 2,207,024 more votes this year.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-States-Presidential-Election-Results-1788863

I don't own a mobile phone/smart phone and i don't use social media ( just a special interest forum).......which is the prerequisite, I imagine, for being targeted by bots?

That’s just what a bot would say!

😁

Argh I forgot to add Biden’s votes in 2020 to my above thread.

2020 Joe Biden received 81,000,000 votes
2016 Hilary Clinton received 65,853,514 votes
2012 Barack Obama received 65,915,795 votes
2008 Barack Obama received 69,498,516 votes

New thread needs to be made?

That Biden anomaly is fascinating.

Based on PPs' comments, I assume enough people who sit in the middle (who feel unrepresented by the US choices in politics) felt sufficiently mobilised to vote against the direction in which Trump had gone during his presidency i.e. they voted for change rather than for Biden.

If I lived in the US, I certainly wouldn't feel represented by the available choices. I'd be someone perpetually stuck in the middle. Each choice is an "all in" bucket, each encompassing values at its respective core with which I wholly disagree. For example I am strongly anti-guns + strongly pro-choice on abortion and I am strongly against the authoritarian enforcement of gender identity as fact in education, healthcare, sports etc.

I believe that the economy and most other things that impact daily life benefit from a swing between left and right values every few terms of government. But in the UK, our choices are normally sufficiently all in the middle. Normally, I can stick with my Lib Dems/left vote every time I vote (because they encompass my values best) and be confident that we'll have mostly sensible political decisions no matter who gets in. Although this year, after about a year of planning to spoil my ballot (because we had the same authoritarian issues in all the parties on the left) I finally voted for my Tory candidate, despite how pissed off I was at the Tories at a national level. My dislike of the gender identity authoritarianism combined with my candidate's strong record on local issues was enough to balance out my anger at the Tories for partygate and Boris' gaslighting over Brexit. It certainly helped that Boris had gone.

So if I lived with the US options as they stand right now, I'm guessing that every now and again, I'd have to vote for the opposite of now (vote for a change) but I'm still not convinced that I could do that with Trump as the Republican leader. If spoiling my ballot wasn't an option because of the voting system, I think I'd have stayed home this time to voice my dissatisfaction at the options.

If the Democrats remain wedded to identity politics as a core value in addition to pro-choice on abortion (plus other traditional left values), I'm guessing it'll take another couple of terms of Trump before the missing middle-ground protest voters get sufficiently mobilised again to bump him out.

Seth Morton is reported as saying that cute little quote about his daughters a few times. Same short sweet quote again and again. I am not in the US but looked. There is a bit more to him it seems. He has in the past co-sponsored bills that allow trans women into sports based on gender ID and received support from LHBTQ advocacy groups. Is this all standard Democrat level of activity or is this someone who was all-in-one and now becoming more critical of their allyship?

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4983818-moulton-doubles-down-on-transgender-athletes-comments-backlash-proves-my-point/

"Moulton was first elected to Congress in 2015 and is a member of the Congressional Equality Caucus. The caucus promotes LGBTQ equality in the House and has strongly opposed efforts to bar trans athletes from sports teams that best align with their gender identity. His 2024 reelection campaign was endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group.

Twice in the past, Moulton cosponsored House Democrats’ Transgender Bill of Rights, which included protections for transgender athletes to participate on sports teams that match their gender identity. Even last spring, Moulton voted against passing a Republican-backed bill to bar transgender student-athletes from sports.

“I stand firmly in my belief for the need for competitive women’s sports to put limits on the participation of those with the unfair physical advantages that come with being born male,” Moulton said in a statement to NBC10 Boston late last week. “I am also a strong supporter of the civil rights of all Americans, including transgender rights. I will fight, as I always have, for the rights and safety of all citizens. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, and we can even disagree on them.”

“Yet there are many who, shouting from the extreme left corners of social media, believe I have failed the unspoken Democratic Party purity test,” he added. “We did not lose the 2024 election because of any trans

Interesting.

He's calling them 'the extreme left' and taking about purity tests.

That's exactly how I think it should be framed as it's the only place to actually make any sensible progress from.

That's a firm placing of a centrist claim.

@Retiredfromthere

That is interesting. Normally I'd be pleased that politicians are more free to voice sensible opinions, and thay people should be free to change their minds as the facts are better understood.

But to have co-sponsored bills? That's quite the about-face...

@Ingenieur well he seems to think it's not necessarily inconsistent. See this bit. My bold:

"“I stand firmly in my belief for the need for competitive women’s sports to put limits on the participation of those with the unfair physical advantages that come with being born male,” Moulton said in a statement to NBC10 Boston late last week. “I am also a strong supporter of the civil rights of all Americans, including transgender rights. I will fight, as I always have, for the rights and safety of all citizens. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, and we can even disagree on them.”

But to have co-sponsored bills? That's quite the about-face...

I'm not sure that it is. I think it's likely that he went along with the mainstream view amongst Democrats that TWAW and all trans people are the most marginalised etc. without really thinking about any of it.

Then he realised what these "be kind" laws would actually mean for his daughters and finally woke up.

I'm not sure if you ae joking or not?

Frankly, I'm glad I've never had one......they seem, on balance, to be very negative devices which are not good for mental health or well being.

Agreed.

It's also possible that he saw something in the Bills that he disagreed with, so had to make a binary choice when voting.

He's calling them 'the extreme left' and taking about purity tests.
That's exactly how I think it should be framed as it's the only place to actually make any sensible progress from.
That's a firm placing of a centrist claim.

Well said @RedToothBrush I hope that the Lib Dems and Labour have this kind of epiphany in the UK. The left needs to figure out where the line is between social progress and authoritarianism. The sensible parties will do so.

I think co sponsoring proposed legislation doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with every detail, just the general intent. I suspect that it’s rarely read with close attention or given very much consideration.

If anyone in the USA wants to do 'a Wes Streeting' and then actually follows through (Wes you need to lead the way on this) then I'm all for it.

We HAVE to step back from the edge.

I agree, and Moulton is a start. I suspect this experience might further enlighten him as to the nature of this movement.

But from what I've seen a lot of them are doubling down.

Definitely agree that this is hard for them to back down from because they will have to admit wrongdoing including harm to children.

Yes, that's a key part of it.

"Twice in the past, Moulton cosponsored House Democrats’ Transgender Bill of Rights, which included protections for transgender athletes to participate on sports teams that match their gender identity."

and

“I stand firmly in my belief for the need for competitive women’s sports to put limits on the participation of those with the unfair physical advantages that come with being born male,” Moulton said in a statement to NBC10 Boston late last week. “I am also a strong supporter of the civil rights of all Americans, including transgender rights. I will fight, as I always have, for the rights and safety of all citizens. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, and we can even disagree on them.”

I am not sure how he squares the hole if he co-sponsored inclusion of males into female sports? I shall have to look at the timing. I wonder if he has seen the evidence since. Or whether he genuinely believes that interventions with puberty blockers etc will permanently remove advantage or some other intervention is how he thinks the two are not mutually exclusive regarding sports?

And surely it would be a foolish member of congress / parliament to co-sponsor a bill that you were not fully aware of the implications of and fully supportive of when it first was tabled?

Yes, and I expect like many well-meaning left-wing men he thought this was all about a few sad men, and didn't even consider how it affects women and girls.

Until something happened that made him realise how this would affect his daughters... perhaps one of them saying that she was having to compete in sports against boys.

I've set up a new thread in case this one fills up, it's getting quite long!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5212214-the-democrats-need-an-honest-conversation-on-gender-identity-part-2

Yes yes I am joking, sorry.