Evidence that tides are turning in US

[ThatZanyFatball]

This piece was recently published in The Atlantic, a very liberal US publication. Could the tides really be turning in the US?

The Liberal Misinformation Bubble About Youth Gender Medicine

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https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5364310-helen-lewis-in-the-atlantic-gender-medecine-and-the-suicide-lie

The tide is turning, there have been some superb articles in the NYC written by Americans, the problem is the Democratic Party that is still captured

The tide is turning. But the Democrats are buckling down afaics. Also, the bien pensants of the UK are doubling down too. Met one the other day who was worried by Trumpism. The suggestion that the Democrats give DEI the push was met with horror and the suggestion that keeping men out of women's sports was a good idea met with silence.
There are miles to go before we get rid of this junk, if ever we do.

Yes, the whole business is so deeply embedded in the U.S, and in ways that would be inconceivable here.

Most normal people are done with this nonsense. Unfortunately the Democrats won’t drop this because of ideological capture. So while it’s obvious they should move with the times (it only ever hurts them electorally), they literally just cannot. It would undermine their ‘progressive’ values.

As a Republican, it’s good for me politically lol, but it’s not good for my country overall

Americans only really have 2 political parties and they are far more divided than our parties. It looks, although I dont know if it's true, as if they get their news from very biased sources and live in their little bubbles. So it's a big thing to change your vote. The Democrats are wedded to the ideology, I hope they can dial back before the next elections or the Republicans can find a better candidate.

The problem is they're not really political parties anymore. They're identities. If you live among Republicans and aren't a natural hermit, you vote Repub because doing otherwise brands you as next door to used bubble gum. Similar on the other side. Being a Democrat means you cannot, may not, will not ever limit what trans people can do in any way because that's what Repubs do, which brands you as used bubble gum.

Repeat ad infinitum.

It's no way to run a country as the emergence of the current crop of monsters proves.

Call me terribly pessimistic, but when I look across the pond at the US, I don't see an end to gender woo any time soon. People keep hoping some tipping point will arrive, that the tide's about to turn, but I really wouldn't hold my breath. It reads like cope to me. As some PP have already pointed out, America's politically trapped; locked into their two-party death match where everything becomes a team sport. Democrats versus Republicans. Pick a side and stick with it, even if it means swallowing absurdities wholesale.

Democrats seem to be completely, unequivocally captured by the ideology. The whole trans belief system is baked into their platform, not because they're intellectual enlightened on the issues, but because it's opposite of whatever the Republicans are saying. That's really all it takes. They see themselves as the noble defenders of the marginalised, the enlightened foil to the villainy of the Right. Their politics thrive on a steady supply of victims and oppressors. And in the current script, the trans community has been cast as the sacred victims of the age. To question any of it is heresy and bigotry. It disrupts the morality play. The Right says something stupid about gender, and the Left responds by doubling down on something even madder just to spite them. And round it goes.

It's entirely worth pointing out as well that US politics runs on a pendulum. The parties take turns wrecking the place. Republicans swing in and start rolling back whatever's fashionable on the Left, and then the Democrats return to power and 'fix' it. If people think a change in administration means a 'return to sanity' on trans issues... they're dreaming. The moment the Democrats are back in power (and I anticipate that they will be likely come their next general election), they will race to undo anything the previous lot did that even hinted at putting brakes on the trans juggernaut.

So no, I don't see the tide turning in a long-term, sustainable way when it comes to the US. Gender politics over there is a Left versus Right thing. And that's the trap. Criticising gender ideology is associated with conservatives over there, and the Left must always defend the ideology as a tribal reflex. They've made themselves so ideologically rigid they can' even consider they might be wrong about this.

Democrats don't have to change course on this issue, because in their main two-party system, people will inevitably vote them back into power regardless as a repudiation of Trump and his ilk.

I can’t comment on any tidal changes, but I am pleased that Strangio is the one who has holed the canoe, as it were.

I am very against holding what is going on in the US as some sort of aspiration. I am GC, and I believe that same sex spaces and sports are important and need to be protected. BUT I also very very strongly believe that Trans people should be able to live free of discrimination and should not be denied employment, access to services, or appropriate healthcare. All of those are at threat in the US at the moment, so please let’s not go down that route and remember that everyone deserves to live as they wish provided it does not hurt others.

What would you class as "appropriate healthcare" when it comes to people with trans identities? Have they been denied access to the same health services as everyone else?

In the US, yes. To be clear, I am not talking about puberty blockers or hormones or sex change surgery, particularly not for minors. I’m talking about mental health care, and the ability to access healthcare for non-trans-specific issues.

In what respect have people with trans identities been denied access. Can you give some examples?

I do think the big pharmaceuticals have an overwhelming influence and power in the U.S and it is they that are driving the very concept of 'trans specific healthcare'; The phenomenal rise in gender clinics and child gender clinics, and the whole counselling industry that has been set up to accompany that, is very big business. And of course,the U.S is exporting these concepts around the world too; and encouraging other countries to participate and buy into the notion of 'trans healthcare'.

Does Robert Kennedy look to be of any use in countering any of that?

The health care system in the US is structured so that anybody without much money in a state where Medicaid is being slashed and was pretty limited in the first place is going to have difficulty accessing any kind of health care. Somebody who has been on cross-sex hormones or had surgeries is likely to have higher medical needs than somebody who hasn't mucked about with their body, so in that sense it is likely to impact somebody with a trans identity more.

Trans 'healthcare' is a huge and profitable industry. Doctors catering to it have clients for life possibly. That's another reason why it isn't going away in the US.

The harder thing is going to be getting the left of the Democratic party away from the TWAW, TMAM mantra. Right now, to say that actually Trump's executive orders of January about women meaning biological women make sense to you is to put yourself beyond the pale, even if you're a lifelong Democrat and you can't stand anything else about Trump.

I like the look of Jonah Wheeler.......hopeful signs from an up and coming new generation of Democrats, maybe?

What part of DEI don't you agree with?

The left of the Democratic Party has conflated the trans activists’ wish list with the civil rights movements for black people and gay people. However neither of those groups were asking for anything beyond having the same civil rights as everyone else. They were making no claims that required other people to pretend biological impossibilities were factual, and they were making no demands that required women to roll over and consent to their own erasure as a sex class with specific needs and vulnerabilities related to their sex.

I don’t think race, religion or sex should be a factor in hiring. Do you?

@Bobbymoore123 Not American - but the parts that are used to exclude and foster inequality. Do you accept that males have an unfair advantage in womens sports and should be excluded in the name of equality and fairness?

Inclusion of men in the sex category 'women'.

In some quarters of the UK there is doubling down. And not just among the vociferous TRAs, either. Hatred of Trump also trumps everything (sorry).

Yes, but we simply do not see the numbers of males competing and winning in female events as in the U.S, plus the prison situation there is out of control with dangerous males routinely being locked up in the same cell, even, as women. 'Gender medicine' is also far more established in the U.S and the whole infrastructure that goes along with that.

I can't think of an equivalent in the U.K to Rachel Levine, certainly not in such a prominent role....actively and publicly working to remove age limits to gender -reassignment.

It also transpires that much of the funding for Stonewall, apart from institutional funding from U.k organisations, was coming from U.S aid budgets.

Of course there has been a concerted push-back going on in the UK since the Supreme court Ruling...but it doesn't really have the teeth it thinks it does, and gradually organisations are falling into line. It seems to be more a case of denial and wanting to maintain 'confusion' for as a long as possible for most TRAS here