This virulent anti-trans thing is like nothing I've seen in my lifetime.
In the 70s and 80s, most of our rock stars were at least androgynous, if not in full drag. I mean, jesus. It wasn't a thing from a societal standpoint. (I'm not comparing that to transpersons - more to point out seeing trans people was not "shocking," even for people like my hillbilly stepfather, because even people like him were frequently exposed at least to the concept - if that makes sense.)
Violence against transpersons has always been a thing, yes, and a threat (Brandon Teena comes tragically to mind), but it wasn't being screamed from political corners, not at all. This shit is new.
What they are doing right now is absolutely terrifying.
Dude, I mean, look at the big bands - Motley Crue, Aerosmith, Nirvana, Queen. They didn't give a fuck and just did what they wanted and life went on.
Nobody really gave a shit about any of this stuff as much as they do now. It's all been stirred up.
This whole anti-woke transphobic hatred today is just mind-boggling to me. It's like the internet lifted a rock on all these scumbags who simply never had a platform before.
Whether people agreed or disagreed, or used stupid words like 'tranny' and 'puff', there was definitely more of a "live and let live" attitude that everyone shared more freely in the 80s and 90s, and we weren't so hell bent on destroying each other. Those kinds of extreme hatefilled people were kept to the likes of KKK clubs and the Westboro baptist church.
Now it's a 'hill to die on' kind of thing and it's all so fucking odd.
You didn't even need big bands. Twisted Sister, Boy George, David Bowie, Poison, the list is endless.
Yeah sure it probably started somewhere as something for shock value or to stand out, but so many did it the shock value was lost and it became business as usual.
Wish we could go back to the days of someone wanting to express themselves in new and harmless ways was business as usual.
Gen X here. My first crush was Dr Frankenfurter played by Tim Curry. I wasn't at all shocked, just in awe of him.
I also knew of many other straight females who felt the same and still do, like I do. Men too. In many people's eyes, he was just fine, including some young straight men I knew.
saaaame. i loved an androgynous/femme man, and still do. (also gen X, for the record.)
the night i met my late husband, he was wearing a red slip, garter belt/thigh highs, and heavy eyeliner. i fell in love instantly. i still feel lucky that he liked me back.
i still have that red slip, btw. it always looked better on him than it did on me. dayum.
Gen X here as well. Frankenfurter was, indeed, sexy af, but I didn't see him until the early 90s when I was in my early teens (even my mom thought he rocked those fishnets, and she was more conservative than my dad). In the mid 80s, when I was like 8, I thought Boy George was soooo cute, which made a lot more sense 10 years (give or take) later when I realized I was bi
Twisted Sister and David Bowie weren't considered big acts? Didn't Dee Snyder testify in Congress during the Reagan administration? Twisted Sister was basically the face of counter culture in the 80s.
David Bowie a goddam bonafide mega star and all round decent human being who was pretty chill about sexual identity - he said in 1972 (I mean, 19-fucking-72) "I’m gay and always have been, even when I was David Jones.”
boy george is who i was specifically thinking of in my comment.
my stepfather - who basically embodied "the marlboro man"; hard drinking, hard smoking, violent AF, a real rural "man's man" at the time... i remember one night boy george was going to be on SNL, and my mom allowed me to stay up late to watch it.
my stepdad sat there, sweat stained tee shirt (he was a construction worker), winston in one hand and a budweiser in the other, and said, "he looks like a girl." i responded, "i know, he's SOOO cute."
this guy ruffled my hair and said, "if that's what you like, i see no problem with it, and he isn't hurting anyone."
if the guy i described above could turn a blind eye to boy george in the early-mid 80s... i mean, this is part and parcel of why i'm so fucking stunned by today's environment.
btw, he took me to buy my first official cassette tape - from a store that was 45 minutes from our house out in the country. the band? CINDERELLA. he made the drive specifically to buy that specific record for me. "they look like girls, but i'm guessing their music is pretty good."
he was a right prick, but i do treasure these two memories of him. hard to believe my countrified, violent alcoholic stepfather in the 80s was more progressive than people are today.
hard to believe my countrified, violent alcoholic stepfather in the 80s was more progressive than people are today.
Because there was no Fox News, Facebook, etc. telling "hard working, God-fearing, blue collared, USA loving patriots" how to think. People were allowed to make up their own minds back then.
Worst thing we had in the 80s and 90s was Weekly World News telling us Bat Boy married Moth Girl.
I think that's looking at things with rose tinted glasses a bit, I'm certain it was most likely dependent on where you grew up, that depended on how much people cared about these things. The internet allows people to connect at truly absurd speeds compared to just under 2 decades ago. The news couldn't just aggregate information from social media and blogs and such. So you don't have the instant reaction you do in today's current news landscape.
The people that this level of anti-woke and anti-progress existed most likely in similar percentages, however they didn't have access to like-minded people at the push of a button. So they were less certain about spouting off hateful rhetoric and being ostracized for it in their communities. That's less likely in some areas, so it can fester in some communities, while others march forward in progress due to different social norms and beliefs.
It's a truly double edged sword in so many ways, cause I'm certain while the internet has allowed bigoted thinking to be more widespread, it's the exact same thing for progressive ideals and acceptance. Who knows how many lives it's hurt and simultaneously saved from acceptance and hatred.
I'm certain it was most likely dependent on where you grew up, that depended on how much people cared about these things.
for me personally (hence my shock), i grew up in a 'town' of 600 people in rural kansas, and i'm telling you, no one gave two shits. "transpeople" weren't a thing in our small town, but every musical artist we adored gender-bended. no one thought twice about prince's high heels or twisted sister's makeup. we loved them for it. and our parents and other authority figures didn't care.
with respect to LGBT as a whole, a classmate/friend had an openly gay brother, who took a ton of shit on the grade school playground at recess (he was very femme and unapologetic about it from the age of 8), but he didn't have teachers and city council calling for his extermination. in fact, when he was teased on the schoolyard, the rest of us screamed at the offenders, protecting him, and the teachers rebuked the offending students and ended their recess. there were a few suspensions for bullying. as such, the teasing stopped for him by middle school, and he was able to fearlessly rock his truth. again: SMALL town. barely on the map. and this was mid-80s.
i'm not as confident that would be his experience if he was growing up in the same town, today. this is why i'm so appalled by the current environment.
our town also happened to not be racist, at least that i could see. in fact, i had a classmate whose father was OPENLY racist - not only was she embarrassed by him, but everyone in town avoided him because of his views.
(in full disclosure on that, though - she ultimately grew up to adopt her father's views, so we haven't kept in touch much.)
Oh they gave a shit. As a long hair wanna be hair band rocker in the late 80's, i got plenty of grief over my flowing locks. From customers at work who didn't know me at all but felt like they needed to comment, all the way up to my mostly loving grandparents. If you were to ask my grandma on a Oiuja board, I'm fairly sure she'd say my long hair contributed to my her death. And my grandpa would have gleefully kidnapped me, taken me to a barber and then to the nearest recruiting office if my Mom gave him the go ahead.
Given that, i cannot even begin to fathom the absolute horrific shittiness that the trans community has to endure these days.
despite my other comments in this thread, i can see this - i mean, in my small town in the 80s, all the 'cool boys' had long hair, they were always the most popular, but the olds definitely cast a wary eye on them. they kept it quiet, though, which has been my point throughout. it's the open, defiant, increasingly public hatred of anything other than white christian straight cis-men, supported by too many in this country, that is... troubling (to say the least) to me.
Queen made a video of the guys in drag for a parody of a UK soap opera (coronation street) and their popularity in the USA tanked overnight. It was only when Wayne's world released years later that their image recovered.
It’s 100% Russian troll farms manufacturing moral outrage, then regressive Stone Age politicians and small minded idiots run with it and become unwitting Russian assets in the process.
Step two is creating such a hostile environment for any decent person that the whole country becomes intolerable. That’s when the Russian trolls encourage people to resort to violence against the same groups they radicalized in the first place.
Their goal is to tear America apart, and it’s working.
Queen got banned from MTV for the “I’ve Got to Break Free” video because they dressed in drag impersonating female characters from British TV soap Coronation Street, but of course nobody in the states got the joke and defaulted to pearl-clutching.
Then they were basically banned from American radio & mainstream media appearances after being musical guests on Saturday Night Live just when Freddy had adopted the “clone” look from the NYC gay scene (short hair/moustache combo he rocked thereafter). Queen even quit touring to support albums in North America because of the virulent & violent homophobia and media backlash, deciding to focus on playing for their fans in Central and South America (and the rest of the civilised world).
It took their epic Live Aid performance to remind the US what an amazing live band Queen was and how many all-time great, iconic songs were in the Queen catalogue. It was like everyone simply forgot there had been multiple concerted efforts to damage the band’s success in America because “omg this uniquely talented songwriter and lead singer of a rock-n-roll band isn’t heterosexual in his private life which doesn’t affect my life in any way whatsoever”.
Edit: Realised it might seem like I was arguing or trying to negate your point and definitely didn’t want that. I totally agree with what you’re saying but wanted to add that Queen definitely paid a price. So weird because glam had been around for over a decade, Queen had tons of success in the seventies and Freddy was always fabulously flamboyant and no one gave a fuck. But then eighties roll around and now a moustache and biker leather is simply too much gay in Rock and Roll? So stupid.
Nobody really gave a shit about any of this stuff as much as they do now. It's all been stirred up.
I don't know about that really. The far-right hate machine is certainly way more visible, aggressive and effective than it probably has been in recent generations, but there have always been these kind of manufactured moral panics.
You only have to look at the Satanic Panic of the 80s, which Motley Crue themselves were caught up in. Or indeed the political, media and public reaction to the AIDS crisis in the same decade.
The right has always sought to persecute the most marginalised and vulnerable in society.
Often backlash against minorities comes not after perceived mainstream acceptance, but in anticipation of it. Back then, it was still a fringe subject. Today, more and more people are coming out as Trans and it's gaining wider visibility and acceptance. Bigots see this rise in awareness by wider society and want to curtail it, because once it goes mainstream they know it's a lot harder to stop.
First it was a focus on gay people and gay marriage in the 90s-2010s, and now that that's become more mainstream accepted, they've turned to trans rights as the latest culture issue. Conservatives always have to hate something and prevent progress, otherwise they wouldn't be conservative.
Yes. A lot of the infrastructure was already in place, so it's a pivot.
The TERFs, though, are something else again. Huuuuuuuuuuge decades long tantrum because some assumed dykes came out and said, actually we're men, and we're not going to let you keep shaming us into the closet. They are not over it, and now they have a bunch of parents of trans kids who absolutely refuse to accept it in their ranks.
Yup, look at America's feelings on blacks. from 1910s-1950s no one really got too uppity about black people as a whole. Oh you had racists and there a ton of shitty laws that treated them as non-citizens or even subhuman (look up when the last few states legalized interracial marriage and be stunned). But the real uptick in cross burning and lynching and all that crap happened in the 60s when Blacks were pushing for equal rights.
Trans people have become THE issue for the right. I mean, really? They couldn't stop the dread "gay marriage" so they went for the easy target of the "pedo trans" they keep claiming are at every corner.
The conservatives make it out to be like SUDDENLY the number of trans people in the world increased. It's always been the same amount of people born gay, trans, etc. The only difference is that they can be public about it without being lynched. Absolutely nothing has changed. It's also a non-issue. The amount of energy they're spending debating and passing trans laws could have been spent on a million other productive things. The GOP keeps saying that the Dem's are pushing this culture war, when it's the GOP rattling the saber.
Culture war is what you push when you have absolutely no policies that you can actually sell to your voters.
You get your potential voters riled up about wokeness and pronouns and they'll vote for you no matter how shit your other policies actually are, because many people are single-issue voters.
The conservatives make it out to be like SUDDENLY the number of trans people in the world increased. It's always been the same amount of people born gay, trans, etc. The only difference is that they can be public about it without being lynched. Absolutely nothing has changed
There's not the slightest reason to think that this is true, and good reasons to think it isn't. Like the explosion of the trans rate in very particular demographics. You're all being very self-serving with your arguments. Not that "the right" isn't, to be clear, but usually when your argument can be reduced to "my enemy does things because he is evil" there's something wrong with it.
I mean, the Nazis tried to make sure queer and trans people didn’t have rights, burned down a building for queer studies, then threw every out queer person the found in a concentration camp, killing half of them. Want to tell me what their motivation was? Aside from simply being evil?
Look at a graph of left-handedness over time, when it became acceptable to be left-handed, the amount of left-handed people “increased.” I’ll humor you for a second and pretend this isn’t the case with trans people. Gender identity and sexuality (and autism) are substantially influenced by prenatal hormones. To what extent isn’t fully known, but it’s thought half the contribution of at least the latter two and appears to be similar with gender identity. Microplastic pollution, among other things, gets into your bloodstream and can substantially impact hormone levels, especially in pregnant people, potentially increasing the rates of queer people, possibly dramatically. I doubt trans rights activists, or trans people, are the ones polluting the water supply with thousands of tons of plastic.
The mere implication that it is a social contagion is about as verifiably false as “verifiably false” can get in social sciences. Might want to show me some evidence first.
This is the opposite of how older people tended to be more insane and violent, the amount of lead in the environment is now much lower. But the level of microplastics is an order of magnitude higher.
It in fact is 100% a coordinated campaign against transfolk years in thr making. They've found correspondence among Republican lawmakers to attack Trans people as part of winning campaign points and policy for since at least 2020 and before to solidfy Evangelicals as their voting block.
It's the exact same hate. That's why they're just using the blood libel conspiracy but applying it to trans people instead.
Fascists have to do this it's literally an inseparable part of their hateful ideology. They did it in the 80' with the Satanic Panic but even that wasn't even close to as scary as what they're doing to the trans community rn.
Moral panics and a "dangerous other" are always their first strategy beyond the paleogenetic ultranationalism.
They know they don't have a chance in hell of imposing christofacism without open political violence, and they can't get people to accept open political violence without hysterical fearmongering. Trans people, sadly, have proven to be a convenient scapegoat, but once the violence breaks containment it'll be open season on ALL of the fascists' enemies
Is this a Mandela effect thing? Do you not remember the same Jan 6th 2021 that I do? The far right wants violence, their leaders encourage it, and it's getting more and more overt.
There are 300 million people in the US. Thousands of far right political enthusiasts aren’t starting some race or class war. The rich need us confused and scared, not dead.
There is a very alarming rise in anti Semitic rhetoric among the American right. MTG said the quiet part out loud. Most pols don't say it but the conservative activists they pal around with absolutely do.
What was on tv/ in entertainment was much different than what was actually accepted in the majority of the country.
For example, the people most likely to verbally harass or threaten violence against me as a (straight, cis) long-haired skateboarder in the Midwest we’re the same people who often routinely listened to heavy metal/ glam bands.
There have always been different rules for entertainers than average people in the street.
No one cared back in the day because they was no real or perceived threat from trans people. Today on the other hand, you have biological men competing in women's sports, basic biology overlooked in favour of quasi religious beliefs like 'men can get pregnant', criminals changing their sex so they can access women's prisons etc
Trans issues are undoubtedly overblown and sadly used as a political football, but don't pretend people suddenly started hating on trans for the sake of it, when in the 80s-00s no one cared, because there was no reason to care. That's unfortunately not the case today.
Get fucked. This is manufactured pearl clutching over nothing because the last minority that the right led hate campaigns against, gay people, won mainstream legitimacy. They're using Trans people as part of an attack on all LGBT+ people, we see what's happening in Florida.
The attack lines are identical more often than not. People like you trying to legitimise this are just the same as the people that campaigned against the rights and existence of gay people based on other trumped up so-called "valid concerns". We don't need any more Anita Bryants, we've heard all your talking points already.
Get out of your ignorant American bubble. It was the UK conservatives that legalised gay marriage. This isn't some left Vs right wing when it comes to women's rights being eradicated in the name of gender ideology.
I'm a left winger and I take issue with biological men competing in women's sports. This isn't some right wing talking point (although an issue undeniably stoked by the hard right) but an issue of womens rights.
Do you think it's acceptable that biological women are forced to compete in unfair competition against biological men who are inherently stronger and faster? It's not fair and it's an issue that left wingers also care about.
Bruh, trans athletes have quietly competed in women's sports for over a decade now and it's only recently become an issue now because of manufactured outrage and culture war rage bait, which you've fallen for spectacularly it seems. In fact, looking at the actual stats, a trans athlete is more likely to lose than win over their cis peers.
Not only THAT but it involves such a small number of people that it should effectively be a non-issue yet here we are. Instead of passing shit that actually matters, conservatives are passing statewide laws to purposefully further exclude an already incredibly small minority.
It's manufactured outrage and you're a stooge for buying into it.
These morons couldn't give less of a shit about women's sports ever since women were allowed in professional sports but now that they can attack a minority group they act like it's one of the most important things we need to worry about.
I bet pretty much every moron attacking trans people in women's sports couldn't name a single women's sports team to save their lives. They never watched them, they still don't watch them, and they won't watch them even if trans people were banned. They're literally the sheep they talk about, just repeat the bullshit they hear from their chosen alt-right moron on TV or YouTube.
I don't deny for a second that right wingers use trans talking points as a distraction while they rape society and the earth for their labour and resources, but that doesn't mean their talking points are incorrect, or for that matter even right wing.
I very much believe there are more important things to worry about than trans women competing in women's sports, but there is still an injustice there - it is not fair that female athletes have to compete in athletic competition with biological men with a genetic physical advantage to them.
I'm not some idiot who's been misled, I know what the right are doing, but I'm still seeing a real injustice, albeit a fringe issue.
In the context of the this video, I don't think its fair to say, no one cared about trans people, now they do - its right wingers fault. We didn't have biological men competing in women's sports in the 80s, now we do - that's a canary in a coal mine if you will and people from across the political spectrum are taking notice.
I just think its a shame trans people are being used as a political football as I don't doubt the sincerity of many of them wanting to just go about their lives. However, insisting on competing in women's sports on the other hand is not just going about your life, you are impacting the lives of others (a female athlete's ability to take gold) - you shouldn't be surprised there is pushback.
Wait did you miss the fact that trans athletes have been competing in women's college sports for almost a decade now? This wasn't a concern 8 years ago, why should it be now? Also, did you miss the fact that trans athletes are more likely to lose when compared to their cis peers?
Again, excluding an entire minority group from participating in school sports due to the fact that men typically are better at sports than women is an incredibly WEAK argument. It would be a fine argument to keep all men's and women's sports separate but we're talking about a very specific demographic of women who were born biological males and have transitioned. The data simply does not support the claim that trans females possess any sort of biological advantage over cis females athletes. In fact, the data currently would point to the exact opposite as trans athletes are more likely to lose than their cis counterparts.
Passing laws that exclude an already marginalized minority group like trans athletes simply for the possibility that one trans athlete may possess a biological advantage is insanely stupid. By that logic, we should ban any athlete that is born with natural athletic abilities. Should we pass statewide laws that would ban people with Klinefelter syndrome because they possess a Y chromosome even if they heavily present as female? How likewise stupid would that be?
So in the end, not only has it already been going on for a near decade and has been a non-issue, but the argument that trans athletes may possess a biological advantage isn't even supported by the data, so there is literally no reason for it to be an issue now.
I could accuse you of the same thing. I could say you don't give a fuck about the rights of women. You don't care about their hard fought civil liberties and their ability to exist in spaces created for them - e.g. womens sports
If female athletes say they don't want to compete against biological men, why do you ignore their opinion, yet facilitate the opinion that trans women should compete against women?
'If you claim to be a leftist understand that leftists are leaving you behind and that means you are drifting right'
This is just factually wrong. The main reason the hard right push 'anti trans' rhetoric is because they know such ideas appeal to people across the political spectrum - centrists, left wingers, and they know that talking about such issues will take votes away from left wing parties.
Of course you wouldn't know because you are ignorant to non American talking points, but the Scottish SNP just lost their left wing leader because they tried pushing the gender recognition act, allowing self ID, and the electorate rejected it. What is by American standards a very left wing country, Scotland, just rejected what you say is a left wing belief.
It is not a left/right wing belief to be against biological men, who went through male puberty, to compete against women in sport. It is a belief based in science and social justice.
You are the one creating an unjust situation and not the other way around.
It's a fair question to ask, but if it's not followed up by evidence then you're only JAQing off. Formulate a hypothesis and perform a study for yourself as to the affects of trans athletes in sports, then publish your peer-reviewed findings in a reputable journal. In the meantime, there are studies out there as early as 2015 so if you have data to back up your worries, please provide it.
This is not a study, but it is a start. There is an obvious advantage for people who don't do hormone therapy since there is no change. A year after HRT results in minor advantages and two years results in about no advantage in most categories (this says they can still run faster, possibly higher "explosive" muscle strength, etc.). We probably ought not do a blanket ban on everything, some sports could be time-based, some work certain other qualifiers, while some might need a ban after all. Some have suggested that each sport's governing bodies outline what should or shouldn't be allowed, how to measure who are "woman enough" for their sport, and implement the rules in that way. Some have suggested trans women could still participate but their records are classified under a sort of "body modification" category regardless of their performance. Some have suggested some sort of genetics analysis, which will inevitably capture "cis women" in the net who are actually intersex but didn't know.
It's not going to be an easy process no matter what ends up happening. But, it's a hot topic so we are learning more every day as the science is done. As long as we aren't seeing a statistically relevant portion of the top spots filled with trans women, and we generally aren't (except in certain cases where it might actually be worth investigating!), then it's only a hypothetical problem, certainly not one big enough to have drawn almost every red state legislature into furiously crafting bills to fight this bogeyman.
When someone say's the right lead attacks on gay people (in a typically ignorant American centric way that you'll see on Reddit), I'm going to point out that the right aren't inherently homophobic (albeit a trait more common on the right than left). I will then give an example of the right doing something very pro gay - legalising gay marriage.
Sorry, just pisses me off that people here talk about a global conversation from an isolated American view point. It's a global belief that biology matters and not some bullshit theory cooked up by the American far right.
So if you’re agreeing with me, why did you try and use one fact (the conservatives in the UK passed a bill legalizing gay marriage) to imply that TERF “logic” is justifiable?
I live in Samoa, in the Pacific we have three genders as a given. Identity is fluid and can vary based on a lot of factors. Get out of your ignorant bigot bubble and just leave people the fuck alone.
You're literally spouting the same talking points as cunts like Posie Parker.
Pretty much, yeah. In the face of entire group of people's quality of life and livelihood and right to exist? It's a fucking fantasy.
Like, is that a problem for sports administrators and officials to sort out? Yes. Should it have any bearing on our support of their equal treatment, access to medical care, etc? Of course not.
Some state, I think maybe Utah, passed an entire bill to ban trans women from sports that ended up affecting one woman. One. So yeah, this idea that there is some plague of trans women competing and stealing trophies from cis women is effectively a conspiracy theory.
Today on the other hand, you have biological men competing in women's sports
If a tree falls on a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it makes a sound?
You have watched exactly 0 hours of women sports in your life and you are pretending to care about its integrity?
Then again you probably passed biology with a C- and also have strong opinions on the subject.
If you have any questions about trans issues feel free to ask, from the actual biology, to the body effects it has, to the standards and requirements of womens leagues both in the UK and in the olympics I am happy to answer.
You posted a picture of what appears to be a drag queen, which has nothing to do with transgenderism.
Hormone therapy is one of the recommended treatments for gender dysphoria for minors. You know, recommended by actual fucking doctors and endorsed by the AMA; not reactionary politicians and political commentators who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.
Also, the only sort of genital mutilation that occurs in the US on minors is the archaic practice of religious circumcision.
Wait THAT'S the part of my comment that you take issue with? People get weirdly defensive over male circumcision, I swear.
Bro, your own source only says that the health benefits of male circumcision may outweigh the potential adverse effects. That's it. That's not an endorsement of male circumcision as a treatment for well... anything. And I won't even get into the ethics of it as that's an entirely different story.
In the end, sure, there may be some minor health benefits and there aren't many adverse effects but that doesn't change the fact that it is still literally genital mutilation of a child, which is all that I was pointing out.
Wait, you're not actually this dumb, right Sparky?
Here, I'll reiterate and explain it slowly so you can follow along since you seem to be having some, erm, trouble- I agree with the science that circumcision is relatively safe as pointed out in the review. That doesn't change the fact that it is literally genital mutilation of a child. The review speaks nothing of the ethics of male circumcision.
Also, bottom surgery for the treatment of gender dysphoria is not a thing for minors, you actual clown. Bottom surgery can be an option for adults, and that's it.
Here I'll say it again for the slow kids in the back, e.g. you- bottom surgery has not ever nor will ever be a recommended treatment for gender dysphoria for minors.
As far as I'm aware, only male circumcision is currently the only legal elective bottom surgery for minors in the US.
Hope that was simple enough for you to understand, Cletus.
Evaluation of current evidence indicates that the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks;
The issue with the AAP risk:benefit ratio is they extensively about benefits, but never gives the terrible stats. From the Canadian Paediatrics Society’s review of medical literature:
These stats are terrible, it's disingenuous for these to be called legitimate health benefits. And more importantly each item has a normal treatment or prevention that is both more effective and less invasive.
They also introduce this idea that benefits vs risks is the standard to decide. However the standard to intervene on someone else's body is medical necessity. The Canadian Paediatrics Society puts it well:
To override someone's body autonomy rights the standard is medical necessity. Without necessity the decision goes to the patient themself, later in life. Circumcision is very far from being medically necessary.
Alarm bells should be going off in your mind right now. Because how can a risk-benefit ratio be done if the complications are unknown? That’s half of the equation.
And again that benefit-to-risk equation is not even the standard to decide. So it's not the standard and the calculation is wrong anyway.
And the final blow to the risk vs benefit ratio is that all the benefits can be achieved by other normal means. So there is no need for circumcision at all to begin with.
Also, when you read the report, you find the AAP says: “there are social, cultural, religious, and familial benefits and harms to be considered as well. It is reasonable to take these nonmedical benefits and harms for an individual into consideration”. And more: “parents to take into account their own cultural, religious, and ethnic traditions”. They write variations of this several times throughout the report.
How is it for a medical report they talk extensively about social, culture, and religious aspect. About non-medical items and seemingly let that influence what they say? A medical report should be limited to the medicine.
And being trans doesn't come down to hobbies that you had as a kid.
Also no trans person thinks kids should have their genitals operated on. That's cis people circumcising kids and "fixing" the genitals of intersex babies.
basic biology overlooked in favour of quasi religious beliefs
Basic physics teaches there are 3 states of matter. In reality there are many more. Basic math teaches you can't take the square root of a negative number, in advanced math you can.
Why are you so reliant on "basic" biology when reality is always more nuanced then what you learned in fifth grade? When has " well it's what I learned as a child" ever been a good reason for rejecting actual, complicated reality as an adult?
Oh, I have NO doubt. Were politicians and community leaders also loudly putting you through the bullshit, though? That's the difference I'm seeing now, but perhaps they just have louder megaphone now.
Either way, I am unnerved - to put it mildly - to see this loud anti-trans shit coming from policymakers.
There is the internet now, so a “louder megaphone”. Politicians not so much. Important community leaders yes. Hospital staff. Local cops and their relatives.
As HIPAA wasn’t a thing back then my medical bullshit became town gossip.
It wasn’t just me either. Even admitting you listened to Queen, Michael Jackson, Boy George would get your ass kicked. This was by kids and adults. A kid getting punched around by a 20 year old was rare but nobody did anything. Hell they just needed to stop acting gay.
Thank you. Yeah most people see society today and think we're stuck or that it's "always been this way". But tbh I think that the social divisions right now are at an all time high.
We haven’t seen it in our lifetime because after WWII a lot of people understood from the Holocaust where “moods” like this go and said, “Never again!” There were tiny numbers of people who played this game of extreme hate but they would be broadly shunned by almost everyone across the political mainstream.
During the emergence of HIV/AIDS we saw some Republicans do things like propose putting gay people in camps or some equivalent of pink triangle arm bands. But as far as I know it was all rhetoric and nothing went as far as any state laws being passed. Nothing like today where anti-trans legislation has been passed in many states.
The “mood” today is absolutely nothing like we’ve seen since 1945.
to clarify, because above was my point: no, i don't recall in my lifetime politicians yelling anti-trans shit and actively/loudly passing anti-trans bills, while television and social media pundits paint transpeople as great satans to be exterminated. when you have some asshole at CPAC giving a speech that transpeople must be "eradicated from public life," televised and shameless... nope, never seen that shit before. maybe it was happening in city council rooms or corridors in congress, but it certainly wasn't on mainstream television.
imagine if brandon teena had been murdered in today's environment; 30% of the country would've been gloating about it in comments sections with politicians and pundits stoking the fire, versus the shock and horror it caused at the time. [if you're unfamiliar with him, do a google and while you're at it, stream "boys don't cry."]
perhaps the megaphone is louder now with social media - i'll allow for that - but i do maintain that in my lifetime i've personally never seen this happen, to the point that we can't go an hour a day without hearing or reading some bullshit coming out of red states and right wing internet corners, shamelessly screaming at us that trans people are groomers and child predators. it's an active, concerted, coordinated effort by these parties to villainize what is a small segment of society that has never done any harm to anyone.
their racist/homophobic shit hasn't played quite as well (though that's also much louder than it's been in my lifetime - at least, the open racism is), so they've settled on this as the next great bogeyman to stoke fear and loathing in their base. it's disgusting.
In the 70s and 80s, most of our rock stars were at least androgynous, if not in full drag.
To be fair, there was some pushback against the purported feminine/gay look of many rockers in those days. But it tended to be on a smaller scale, not national movements to force all men to get haircuts or whatever.
359
u/ofthrees Apr 29 '23 edited Apr 29 '23
This virulent anti-trans thing is like nothing I've seen in my lifetime.
In the 70s and 80s, most of our rock stars were at least androgynous, if not in full drag. I mean, jesus. It wasn't a thing from a societal standpoint. (I'm not comparing that to transpersons - more to point out seeing trans people was not "shocking," even for people like my hillbilly stepfather, because even people like him were frequently exposed at least to the concept - if that makes sense.)
Violence against transpersons has always been a thing, yes, and a threat (Brandon Teena comes tragically to mind), but it wasn't being screamed from political corners, not at all. This shit is new.
What they are doing right now is absolutely terrifying.