Anyone else think Trump will ultimately do more damage to the gender critical cause?

[savehannah]

I hear lots of gender critical Americans (especially despairing parents of trans-identified children) cheering Trump's changes on the gender front, and on the face of it, things like not prosecuting parents for non-affirmation of transgender status and not allowing schools to secretly socially transition pupils seem like progress.

However, since Trump is also anti-homosexual, anti-abortion and anti-reproductive (and other) rights for women, I feel this will just lead to even more of a backlash.

Gender critical people have been trying for a long time to show themselves to be on 'the right side of history' and it felt like this was starting to become realised by more and more people (at least in the UK), that it's not just right-wing nutters that believe in the importance of biological reality.

But now gender critical beliefs are being pushed hard as part of hard right-wing policy alongside lots of unacceptable things, doesn't this lend more credence to the idea of the tolerant left being correct, and mean that people who believe tolerance means stamping on women's rights and allowing lifelong medicalisation of troubled teens feel vindicated in pushing hard back the other way?

And again conflating LGB with T, something which UK gender critical groups have tried to separate. Trump hates them all and wants to take away their rights so they are all a marginalised minority and need to fight together against the fascism. Rather than people realising in many ways the trans righrs movement is homophobic, 'trans away the gay' etc.

Trump is patently not anti-homosexuals. Ridiculous statement. I'm sure there are those in his cabinet who are.

Scott Bessent the Secretary of the Treasury which is a hugely important appointment is gay.
Trump just told to the Governor of Maine, who is a woman! Maine will get no Federal funds by defying the EO and including men in women's sports.
Can anyone explain why the Democrats want to die on the crazy unpopular hill of gender ideology?

Congress can challenge EOs but not sure this will happen as Republican majority.

But court cases are coming from ad hoc groups of people and some states.

Up thread I posted that WoLF is monitoring these.

Tracking the Legal Showdown Over Trump’s Executive Orders
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/tracking-the-legal-challenges-to-trumps-executive-orders

First of all, most of the Musk/DOGE claims about fraud and waste are overinflated or lies. There's howlers. Musk thought that there were 150yos drawing Social Security because he didn't understand how COBOL stores dates. He claimed to have cancelled an $8bn contract that was worth $8M. Every actual budget analyst says the targets for DOGE are impossible. Admittedly I live near DC so budget analysts are a dime a dozen here.

There were interviews with Trump supporters. A lot of the appeal of the anti-trans ads wasn't because they felt strongly about trans people per se. The ads hit on a feeling, which was that the Democrats simply didn't care about them. Far fewer voters cared about trans issues than inflation, and trans issues also got smushed into the general war against DEI (which, by the way, wasn't well defined).

A judge just put a temporary halt on his anti-DEI orders because the plaintiffs argued that the orders were unconstitutionally broad and vague, and they quite probably are; the goal is to see how far they are allowed to go. Maine is making a point on the gender EOs because they want every EO to go through court challenge. A lot of these orders are outright or flirting with unconstitutionality. The point isn't that Trump cares so much about trans people as he sees them as a means to expand executive power.

By the way, "but he appointed a Black man!" isn't proof he's not a racist. Jared and Ivanka just refused to sign something saying he's not an antisemite (see The Guardian) and for his first term it was constant "He can't be an antisemite because Ivanka is Jewish!" He's said things that are antisemitic, racist, and sexist. But Trump isn't the kind of KKK racist who would die rather than have a Black surgeon. His prejudices are less important to him than his own success. If a Black or Latino or Jewish person is useful to him then he'll hire them. Look at his cabinet picks, though: the women don't get the good jobs. One got Education, both traditionally more female and a department he wants to abolish. Elise Stefanik got UN ambassador, which is an insult when you consider what he thinks of the UN, and a job that blocks her from going anywhere. (See: Nikki Haley.) Or in his last administration, putting Ben Carson in charge of HUD. Black people are all urban, I suppose.

Yes, I agree

I just think it's self-defeating to insist that we wait for the Democrats to become sane.

Quite, its never going to happen, at least in the next 12 to 15 years. Even Martina (Navratilova - huge Democrat supporter and 'terf') said the Democrats have learned nothing from their defeat. And here's the PROOF they've learned absolutely butt fuck all NOTHING: I just read (on Martina's twitter) that Democrat Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has introduced a bill that will change state law to replace the word "mother" with "inseminated person."

I betcha anything father will still be father.

Inseminated person. That is what we're (If Evers gets his way) reducing women to now. And some of you still can't see how malicious, malignant and misogynistic this Mens Rights Movement is.

Inseminated person? FUCK OFF! The more this goes on, the more I really am starting to hate trans people. For real.

As in my post above, if Wisconsin's Democratic Governor is any indication, I think we might possibly all be dead before it happens.

I totally agree. I’m GC because I believe in biological reality and I care about women and children (and vulnerable men) that are sold a crock and are damaged as a result of this ideology, have their spaces invaded and their families / bodies destroyed.

Trump gives not a single shit about anyone other than himself. He’s already responsible for setting women and children’s rights back decades. Associating GC with the hard right does nothing to educate on the valid concerns and provide mental health care and support to those impacted by it. It just creates division and hate and makes us look like bigots.

Don't worry. Republican senators are quietly pushing back against cuts. Katie Britt (Alabama) was saying it last week when she realized how much money NASA and the NIH bring to her state. senate republicans always like cutting other people's funding. It will not just be Democrats. The difference is Republicans won't say it under their own names for the most part.

by the way, they're also going after the disabled. Those of you who are solely focused on trans issues have tunnel vision. This will never be good for women. They're trying to distract with a useless order on IVF. But they're also ordering that the FDA study the safety of mifepristone again, among other things. And their orders have meant that some women's groups have had to shut because they're "DEI," like the society of women's engineers.

He’s already responsible for setting women and children’s rights back decades.

Where is your evidence for this claim?

Associating GC with the hard right

We're not associating with the hard right. The hard right have picked up the issue because the Democrats dropped it. Its the Dems fault. Its basically saying if you drink water, so do the hard right so therefore you are hard right. There is crossovers between the two parties on a range of issues. Being in a politically tribalist purity spiral helps no one.

Its not tunnel vision. Just because we care about the trans issue doesn't mean we agree with everything else he's doing. Its just that trans is our specialty concern. Its ok to prioritise something. What you're doing is like saying abortion supporters are tunnel-visioned for not focussing on the disabled or on defence. This is our special interest. Your whataboutery isn't helpful.

Where is your evidence for this claim?

Honestly, just read the fucking news. Just not the Daily Mail or Fox.

In the state where I used to live, women have died because of lack of access to reproductive healthcare. Young girls have been raped, become pregnant, and been unable to get an abortion. Immigrant children have been locked in cages and separated from their parents, and never reunited in some cases. Honestly, I could go on and on and on, but I doubt we’re going to meet anywhere in the middle. Consider, that this is coming from somebody who is actually gender critical as well.

And, I clearly didn’t say you were associating with the hard right. I said that Trump taking on this cause is giving that impression. Which doesn’t help at all.

There's prioritising an issue and then there's throwing people under the bus. I may not think boys should be competing against girls in track but I am not willing to see anyone die to achieve it.

Look at what's happened to maternal and infant mortality in states that banned abortion. The bans are literally killing women and children. Doctors are leaving those states because the laws make it impossible to practise obstetrics properly.

Trump is one person. He's trying to make himself a dictator, but for now he isn't. His party is behind him, and his party (including his own vice-president) contains a lot of people who are openly against women's rights. You cannot ignore that.

In the state where I used to live, women have died because of lack of access to reproductive healthcare. Young girls have been raped, become pregnant, and been unable to get an abortion. Immigrant children have been locked in cages and separated from their parents, and never reunited in some cases.

Trump has done all of this since last month has he?

No. He's been doing it for years. He campaigned on ending Roe v. Wade and he did it. His judges were handpicked by the Federalist Society. And when they overturned Roe, he bragged that hE'd made it happen.

The data is extremely clear: abortion being illegal kills women. It's so clear that states are trying to bury the data.

then when he ran for reelection, he kept very quiet about it, because it turned out that a lot fewer people liked the consequences than had liked the idea.

Well some women DO only care about the trans issue. Numerous posters on here over the years have said that this is the ONLY thing that matters to them.

then when he ran for reelection, he kept very quiet about it, because it turned out that a lot fewer people liked the consequences than had liked the idea.

Trump has left decisions on abortion law at state level.

Simultaneously with the Presidential election, ballots were held on abortion rights in 10 states - and the measures passed in 7 of them.

Including Arizona, Missouri, Nevada and Montana, which Trump won.

In Arizona and Montana the measures which passed even allow abortion up to foetal viability.

Again, yes. Because it wasn't as popular as they thought it would be. It turned out that when they get a chance to vote, people don't like the reality of abortion bans.

Right now, Trump says he won't push through a federal ban. But he isn't in sole charge of everything, and there are people in his party who do want it. Trump doesn't have the best record on truthfulness, to say the least. His whole campaign was how he never heard of Project 2025, wouldn't implement it. Once he took office he started implementing it exactly as written. So I hardly have faith that he meant what he said. (I don't think Trump particularly cares about abortion. I think other people in his party do, and that's their price.)

None of that saves the women who are dying. Go read abortion articles on ProPublica, or the New Yorker articles that have covered this.

Tbh, I found the OP fairly incoherent, but it seems to boil down to nasty old GCs being Trump- adjacent.
Luckily another poster has given the best response
It does mean that we keep having to bat away posters - or more often 'ploppers' who plop down an accusation, and then scarper - saying we must love Trump and all he stands for if we agree with one or two of his EOs.

Oh for goodness sake. Did you forget his first term? Can you not use a little common sense to also understand that he’s the front man for a long term plan the republicans have been diligently putting in place.

If their cunning plan includes banning abortion everywhere, it's not working.

Certainly not in Trump-voting Arizona, Missouri, Nevada and Montana.

Which, to labour a point, passed measures giving rights to abortion on the same day as they voted for Trump as President.

Do you understand that the legislators who want bans don't care what their voters think?

Wow, you're quite aggressive!