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

But @MissScarletInTheBallroom didn't say that she said that's what the party were happy to do, which is correct. The democratic party chose to push the most extreme version of identity politics willfully alienating most voters to the point that they either didn't vote or voted for the opposition.
It wasn't just about this issue look at pensillvania and the ahmish. The Democrats managed to piss them off so much that they actually registered to vote and voted Trump 😱. Have you any idea how hard it is to piss off the ahmish

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-story/id1501716010?i=1000676413230

That isn’t what I meant by ‘soundbite’. I meant a phrase that has leapt into the lexicon, quite suddenly, and is then repeated so frequently over many forms of media that it has incredible reach. The reach isn’t necessarily due to the topic itself, but the mediums used in transmission - and agenda behind that transmission, of course.

WTF? She's blaming the democrats for ignoring people's concerns, not the people who have voted against their own interests.

It is probably fair to say the Democrats are victim blaming rather than considering their own culpability for losing these votes, but not the poster herself.

However, your post that she replied to was (bold mine)

You are correct. The public really only say soundbites like ‘No men in women’s sport’ (although the occurrence of such is minuscule) because they’ve read them endlessly in media, and then repeat them mindlessly.

Then they vote for someone like Trump on the basis of that tiny issue, and then find their healthcare - a much bigger issue - is wiped out.

Now that actually is victim blaming, no?

BTW, you have now had a few posters provide examples of rights being affected and of children being removed from parents that prove this is more than just "soundbites" . You asked for examples and you got them - do you have any comments on them?

I'm not blaming the voters, I'm blaming the Democrats.

People who voted for the Democrats clearly aren't to blame for the fact that the Republicans won and Trump will now be in the White House. The Democrats are to blame for the fact that they failed to win and Trump will now be in the White House.

No it’s not. They’re not victims. They had agency, and they voted. That vote has consequences.

Ah so if we're talking about "people mindlessly repeating soundbites" about men in women's sports, am I supposed to understand that the victims I am actually blaming are people who voted Republican?

Because I think it's really infantilising to refer to them as victims. If they thought they'd be better off under a Democrat administration they'd have voted for the Democrats. Just because you think they'd be better off under the Democrats doesn't mean they agree with that. Maybe they have different priorities.

Your post:

“..they're at risk of losing the election and having to sit back and watch whilst their supporters lose access to lifesaving healthcare.”

Perhaps it’s just semantics.

What part are you not getting?

The Democrats lost.

That means they now have to take responsibility for the fact that women who voted Democrat because they were afraid about their abortion rights will now see their fears come to pass.

Yes - I think the Dems felt they had the women’s vote because they were ‘pro- abortion’. In itself this is misguided as most women are not ‘pro abortion’ but ‘pro-choice’. And whilst abortion/reproductive rights are crucial as they are specifically women’s issues, in reality they affect less than 2% of the female population during their entire lifetimes … abortion is in the ‘it’ll never happen to me’ mental compartment for many, many women and their position is theoretical and nuanced (I am politically ardently pro-choice, for instance, but could never personally have ever considered an abortion for myself, so perhaps I am a hypocrite?)

However, the visceral fear that I personally feel when out shopping and see an open-plan changing room (CSA survivor, raised in muslim household, recently lost 6st so VERY self-conscious etc), the anger I feel at seeing women’s sporting (and professional) opportunities eroded and awards/funds going to male born pretenders, the impact of GI (amongst other ideologies) being force-fed to my children (both autistic and one now recovering slowly from ROGD/Self-Harming/suicidal ideation) means that the ‘trans issue’ impacts pretty much every part of my daily life. Of my friends, they see it impacting the care their elderly mothers receive (do they have the right to ask for a bio female nurse?), they see (because of my DD) how pernicious and harmful the GI thing is/has been in schools. For them it IS now a huge issue.

The Dems have only themselves to blame for not reading the room, for dismissing people’s concerns as transphobic bigotry without any effort to listen and understand, but I hope now they will re-evaluate.

I’m not American, but I cried with relief when the Dems unseated Trump in 2020 and have felt appalled and horrified at what they have allowed to happen in the US since. Just as the Tories are responsible for whatever a Labour government does now, the Dems should look themselves in the mirror and accept that whatever Trump/Reps do when they take office is a response to what the Dems did/didn't do, as well. I am hoping, though, that US children will be safer now and that the global influence of WPATH et al will be decimated so that our children, this side of the channel, will be too.

Yes. That is the power of social media.

However. It is very dismissive to declare that people gaining knowledge and understanding through direct experience in any form is because ‘bots’. It is very dismissive to also make a declaration that people do not direct experience of the many aspects of gender identity. I don’t know of any family with late teen and under children or grandchildren, for instance, who hasn’t had a discussion about lessons, children in class, children in sport, school toilets or any aspect.

It doesn’t matter if very few people actually believe it, it’s that the institutions around them - schools, the NHS, the Olympic Committee etc… - are telling them they have to go along with nonsense like chestfeeders and drag queens in their schools that reinforces the sense that the people who are running things are lying to them and demonising people who call out their BS.

I know my Orwell very well so back off with your condescension. I too have a doctorate and more than 30 years research experience and what it’s taught me above all is that there are idiots in every sphere in life. Higher education does not confer common sense.

I don’t have an issue with that as Trump had made it quite clear what he would do with the ACA. The issue I have with Scarlet’s post is attempting to pass that blame onto Democrats.

I appreciate posters providing examples. I agree with some and not others. They are not soundbites, no, but that isn’t what I mean. These are examples at a micro level. We are experiencing manipulation at a macro level - on a far larger scale. So I am not denying these thing are occurring at all.

i don’t think this discussion is getting us anywhere so I’ll leave it there.

Never said I had a doctorate, but congratulations. You don’t write like you have one, TBH.

So let's get this straight, IF a political party fails to understand the electorate's concerns wrt to an issue that is of such importance to some of it's voting base, it is NOT that parties fault if it loses those voters votes?

Sorry that is just nonsensical.

Who else is to blame for the fact that the Democrats lost, in your opinion?

It's pretty poor that they can't even win when their opponent is someone who wants to restrict women's reproductive rights, is famously racist about Hispanic people and has been convicted of multiple felonies.

Of course no one thinks this. Which is why they're getting so pissed off about being forced to pretend they do.

It couldn't be more Orwellian if it tried.

Perhaps instead of trying to speak for Orwell, you should go back and re-read his work.

No, I mean the ACA - Obamacare. All care. Men, women and children. Not just women’s healthcare, including abortions.

Ah, I see your analytical skills at work again. Love the idea of not writing like a typical holder of a doctorate. It’s precisely that attitude that has worked against women, ethnic minorities and people from non traditional university backgrounds in the academy. I’m a senior Prof by the way, but I don’t think that makes me special.

No amount of facts are going to convince the TRAs that this was an issue in this election and it was one of the Democrats making.

I think it's time they also read the room.

Boo hoo, the poor Democrats, can’t be mean to them, after they spent over 1 billion dollars on nothing worthwhile and didn’t understand their electorate. Give them a break everyone, won’t you? They deserve kindness, not blame for the consequences of one of the worst campaigns in US election history🙄

Can we please not have another thread fill up with “bot” nonsense. Evidence was asked for on the previous thread, none was forthcoming, it was clear there was a bot-like agenda to dismiss the impacts of gender ideology and concerns of normal people.

Of course we are being manipulated. On both sides. There are just as many thought-preventing soundbites on the supposedly Liberal side as there are on the supposedly Right side - calling anyone who questions genderism a Nazi and a bigot who should not be heard or engaged with being an obvious one.

Nevertheless, female people do exist, have suffered and continue to suffer personally from their relative lack of phsyical strength and sexual agression vs men and politically and socially from the structural and cultural baises that disempower them relative to men. And for this reason, they continue to need political, social and legal recognition and support. This is not a soundbite, and this is what the Democrats refused to engage with.

According to some, this “minuscule” issue, is only an issue because of bots and sound bites.

How much louder and longer do women (and some men) need to scream NO to men in women’s sports and women’s spaces before some people appreciate that yes, this issue is real and important

During the TRIP Live Broadcast on Tuesday night, Mooch kept telling them that it was a major factor whether they liked it or not.

AC is firmly captured, mainly due to his TRA daughter and close friendship with the Kinnock’s (who have a trans/non-binary young adult child).

Rory is a tad more sympathetic - said he’d listened to The Witch Trials of JKR and has friends who are GC - but still doesn’t quite grasp it.

What's your point?

I was using abortion rights as an example. The same could be said about any other policy.

The Democrats lost, which means that people who voted Democrat because they were concerned about [...] happening will now have to deal with [...] actually happening.