What Lititia James did today made me come back to this article. She thinks NYC is her congregation. She is acting like some gender prophet high priest. What a battle with the crazy!
Excellent piece. Clear and precise. She’s a ‘charitable’ preacher who hasn’t bothered to find out the real cruelty involved in the notion of ‘trans’ children, or the brutality of surgically altering a healthy child’s body. Sometimes I feel depressed about how women have been socialised so as to appear charitable and kind. I’m aware of it in myself and have to fight it, although both sexes virtue signal, probably for different reasons. It must have taken some courage to say all that in front of Trump’s top team on a big day. But she doesn’t have the courage to investigate and speak the real truth. And maybe her religion requires her to appear virtuous. So there’s a double dose of it. I wish someone more demanding could interview her. Perhaps invite her to a discussion on your podcast? Her religion requires her to love her perceived enemies.
Openly gay pastor who agrees with you on many issues - but not this one. First, and most fundamentally: a plea for mercy, during a Christian service and sermon is never political. It is a virtue Christians should aspire to. Now, you may not agree with the preacher wether mercy in this or that case is good/justified/or the right thing to do, but a plea for mercy is always a plea to touch the heart and mind and action. A plea for mercy, a recognition of the stranger in our midst, is core to the Christian faith. Second, I agree with you that many parents are rushing to transition their children for a variety of reasons. But having said that, there are also trans people who are genuinely scared. Now, I cant go into details of any pastoral conversations (and neither can the bishop) and you may disagree - but there are trans sisters and brothers, and parents of trans kids who are scared right now. (And gays and lesbians too - she also did mention gay and lesbian children too). She pled with the POTUS to show mercy - if not in action than in words, and stop using rhetoric that makes people scared. Again, it is core of Christianity to plead for those who have no voiced. Finally, the Gospel is political meaning it touches the life of our POLIS but should not be partisan. The bishop did not say, that the Gospel=The Democratic party. She said that what is said, and what is being done is hurting the polis, the commonweal. It was her duty and job as a Christian minister to do that. She was much better than all those allegedly straight clerics who worshipped him like a calf. It is in the long tradition of ministers to ask the heavy handed ruler to think about the Gospel. look up emperor Theodosius and bishop Ambrose). So - while I agree with many things you bring up, the bishop did all right.
She reinforced the dangerous lie that there are ‘trans’ kids, whereas there are transhausen parents, or parents of teenagers who are very worried at the cult-like grip the anti-reality religion of gender ideology, is having on their children. They must have felt scared for years - fearing their daughter’s double mastectomy, or their son being harmed with dangerous hormones. Trans activists are scaring them with lies about suicide. She is reinforcing a harmful concept that affects tomboys and feminine boys, and robbing them of their future health. There’s no excuse left for ignorance. Evidence is available out there.
I strongly disagree with your assessment. Budde's ego is nearly as big as Trump's, and she didn't give a general 'mercy' message. She fed into false hysteria, invoked the false spectre of 'trans kids,' and wanted to boost her own image.
Bishop Budde had the courage to follow her heart and the bible and ask POTUS to show mercy. She stood up to Trump knowing full well MAGA would come down on her like a ton of bricks (She has received death threats) . She pleaded for gays, lesbians, immigrants and yes trans kids.
Had she not mentioned trans would she still be guilty of sanctimony, hypocrisy and the wrath Ben and others have laid at her feet? I think not. The hypocrisy lies elsewhere when unfounded accusations are made about a persons beliefs and motives.
The Bishop and many others have a different view on trans issues but articles like this Ben, go nowhere to changing hearts and minds.
A million times, YES. And I would like to mention the 24-year-old woman from Rhode Island who also died after botched surgery, this time a phalloplasty that caused so much infection that it ultimately killed her. I don't use her name out of respect for her family, who may not want her name used to argue against these medical interventions and the lies being told to young, vulnerable and often, but not always, gay/lesbian/bisexual or proto-gay/lesbian/bisexual young people. If this Bishop wants to be caring and protective of the vulnerable, she should be joining the fight to end gender ideology.
Bishop Budde does not speak for the gay kid I was. It’s also sad that she seems to think of gay people as powerless and in need of her protection. We’re not that powerless, and the things we need are not a woke Bishop. Sometimes a little pushback helps the gay community keep growing.
Toxic empathy--that's what that sermon was. Way too many women wield this like a sword and shield--some of them are personality disordered, to be sure, but it's become a style for women to try to bully or shame other women (usually) out of their reality-based opinions and ideas. She was the living embodiment of that astonishingly aggressive and ugly T-shirt that says "Protect Trans Kids" interspersed by a thorny rose an a KNIFE!
Ben, thanks for your thoughts on this. Love your work & am looking forward to your book. It's time for more gay men to join you in speaking out against this attack on kids who will mostly turn out to be gays and lesbians.
Transgenderism is clearly a religion. Jesus rose from the dead. A man can become a woman. Both are examples of a kind of magical thinking protected in the US by the First Amendment as is my belief as an atheist that they are religious nonsense.
"We’re the ones who’ve alerted them to the well-documented history of these medical practices, which reveals that, out of the 70 kids who participated in the original Dutch experiment in pediatric transition, only one was heterosexual—and that one of those kids died."
The ending number was 55.....15 people quit and the study lost track of them or didn't want to know why they quit. The person who died had a "micropenis" and consequently insufficient flesh to use in the creation of the neovagina.
As most of you know, in the creation of a neovagina, the penis isn't cut-off. Rather, it's sorta deconstructed and inverted, best way I can put it.
Well argued Ben, although I remain very concerned that Trump’s decrees are not realistically going to be impactful on most Democrats who have the conviction that they are fighting the good fight on this and other social issues against a corrupt and tyrannical leader who makes no pretense about his intention to expand Presidential powers to suit his whim and to cater to his base for political advantage. You’re right that he doesn’t come across as if he gives a crap about saving proto-LGB kids from medical harm, that wouldn’t play well with his base and also his whole brand is about disruption of norms that can be equally destructive to the ones that should matter in our society and in our government as the post modernist left has been, in mirror image fashion
The real battle is far from over to win hearts and minds and I still think stories like yours have the most potential to be persuasive if you can continue getting your message out to people who are already more inclined to care about sexual diversity and gender non-conformity as a positive thing for society, if they were exposed to more personal testimonies from gay and lesbian people like you who can be trusted more not to be preaching from a right wing pulpit but from a first person perspective
Lisa Selin Davis observed in your most recent Genspect panel discussion that all you have to do is look at NYT readers’ comments to know that left leaning media coverage when it does tell the truth about gender ideology and gender medicine is actually well received—I think this means that more legacy media that swings left could still be more helpful in reaching Dems than any Fox News reporting or alternative media could ever be
I agree with Braver Angels idea that you can’t change people’s minds through coercion, that doesn’t work whether that coercion is coming from the right or the left, it’s too loaded to even get people to listen to the first sentences out of others’ mouths if it sounds like “we’re on the moral high ground with this and you’re all idiots/ignoramuses and just need to STFU”
That’s why I like what you tried to do at the school meeting in NYC and are doing with LGB courage coalition campaigns and telling your personal stories, don’t give up on that approach of speaking passionately and vulnerably without too much irritation/condescension even though it must be very frustrating for you at times:(
I work in a super-woke sector (academia, humanities but still evidence-based), and most everyone I talk to is 100% skeptical of and/or hostile to transing kids. I just had a very lively conversation with a friend (also an academic) about how queer theory has ruined humanities scholarship.
The only academics who argue with me are in it for the status games. One, a former friend, is now a big DEI dean on her campus (or was--who knows how much longer that job will be fun, if it ever was?), and the other is an old lefty in his 70s who just can't be arsed to see what this movement has done to women and girls. He truly believes that transing kids and "being kind" is the path to liberation.
When I hear liberals/Dems whining about the media or even denying that they have the MSM locked in as their PR wing—how often are you blasted by CNN's Dem talking points when at the airport or in a doc's office waiting room?—I'm reminded of one of the Left's Maoist maxims that they've used to get their way: "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
Having to hear and accept opposing viewpoints makes them squirm and get very angry.
Much like how I've been telling my gay friends for about a decade now that the Trans agenda meant gay erasure, to which they could only respond by sputtering out some lame bigotry accusation.
All of Crit Theory is an overheated undercooked neo-Marxist conspiracy theory light on sense or logic but very heavy on moral bullying and emotional blackmail (Do as we say or a Trans kid dies!), which is why it will be so hard to dislodge. Every true believer will have to be deprogrammed one by one, mostly because it will be so painful for them to admit complicity in so much social poisoning and child mutilation.
You're right on the money noting the Maoist and neo-Marxist roots of all this crapola which I'm afraid a lot of moderates are having trouble discerning. Calling out the current wave of socialist revolutionaries is hampered by past Cold War, McCarthy overreach. Yet all the George Floyd and pro-Hamas protests have been awash with placards made by socialist orgs and violent anarchist graffiti, where black bloc armies recruit for their revolution "by any means necessary" and take over sections of campuses and whole city blocks. There is a method to this madness. Orwell warned us.
Bishop Budde asked Donald Trump to show mercy on people who are scared right now. She just asked for mercy. It was a brave thing to do, to challenge a notoriously vindictive president to his face. She did what Jesus would do. Her sermon was consistent with the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Sermon on the Mount. The way the administration is behaving right now is not merciful. It is brutal and hamfisted and designed to create fear and trauma. Even if you agree with the administration's goals regarding illegal immigration, there are more humane ways of going about it than having ICE agents show up at schools at churches. I haven't heard Trump say a thing about the businesses who hire illegal immigrants. It's always the "other" who is targeted. Rather than focus on some of the excesses of gender ideology involving girls and women's sports or medicalizing minors, the administration issued a sweeping executive order that will instantly and needlessly upend peoples' lives and make them feel unwelcome and unwanted. It was Bishop Budde's duty as a Christian and a pastor to confront the president, and she is now facing backlash. Unfortunately, she is one of the only people willing to check him. It would be far better if Republicans in Congress had such courage.
Well an entire chunk of trans activists have being very actively condemning people for believing in material reality in ways that have been cruel and harsh. She is knowingly or not, endorsing a dangerous belief in the ‘trans child’, and claiming virtue. She’s colluding.
The Executive Order, written by a woman MM(sorry forgotten her full name) is beautifully clear, as it states that sex is different from gender. Trump hasn’t quite got it - keeps saying ‘gender’. But she who wrote it completely understands the need for that distinction and the need to protect women’s single-sex spaces, such as rape crisis shelters, changing rooms, specific medical implications of sex and fair sex categories in sports. And women of course, should not be raped in prisons. These are all minimal requirements for women’s safety and dignity. Most men would understand that too. It was very unkind to condemn women (and men) for wanting the least of our rights to be protected.
"Rather than focus on some of the excesses of gender ideology involving girls and women's sports or medicalizing minors, the administration issued a sweeping executive order that will instantly and needlessly upend peoples' lives and make them feel unwelcome and unwanted."
Like the girls in their own locker room who can't say know to sharing with boys with ladyfeels? Like college sportswomen who have to fear concussion now from NCAA volleyball matches? How will recognizing sex, rather than gender, "upend peoples' lives and make them feel unwelcome and unwanted" more than these examples?
These kids have been lied to by their parents, their doctors and therapists, their teachers and counselors. It's terribly sad, but it's not the job of the US government to protect these liars and their lies.
Anyway, you completely missed the point of my comment. I was saying that the administration could have specifically focused on abuses like the ones you mentioned, but instead they issued a sweeping executive order that is going to create chaos for people who are just trying to live their lives, not bothering anyone. They are suddenly going to be “outed” in unwanted and unnecessary ways.
I think you misunderstand the powers of an EO. What you’re talking about would require legislation, whereas EOs can outline executive branch policy interpretation.
One thing that is changing is that passports will now be required to reflect one’s biological sex. Imagine being a passing trans person having to travel for work to a country where your life might be at risk if you are outed. There are many facets of our daily lives that are affected by changes in executive branch agencies.
Yes that's rough. But there are far more non-passing trans people traipsing around with falsified documents than passing trans people. And frankly, if they wanted to retain the ability to falsify vital records, they had every opportunity in the past few years to listen to the electorate and stop behaving like totalitarian monsters.
If someone is traveling to a place where their life may be at risk for being trans, then they're at risk regardless of what the passport says. And I have zero sympathy as a woman who isn't safe to travel alone to about 85% of the globe at this point anyway.
Speaking of locker rooms, guess what man bragged about going into the dressing rooms of underage pageant contestants just to ogle them? They couldn’t say no to him, but nobody cares about that anymore.
It's not a defense. It's just my bewilderment that so many people could have voted a person who has been accused by many women of sexual predation into a position of power in part because they claim to be so worried about protecting women and girls from potential sexual predators.
This is silly. The Democratic Party *policy positions* are at issue, not the actions of individual politicians. The Democratic Party has decided to turn its back on material reality, evolution, basic biological science, and women's rights in order to cater to a small group of seriously mentally ill males. Harris refused to distance herself from any of it, and it was clear that if she won she would further gaslight and abuse women and girls like Biden has done.
All they had to do was start being reasonable. All the Democrats had to do was stop behaving like raving misogynistic lunatics, and instead they allowed the GOP to win on this issue *even though Trump is a groper.*
Budde isn't remotely Christian. Christianity condemns LGBTQ as sin, whether you like it or not, and it also says to follow the law. It is not Trump, but Democrats who are vindictive, and they are the ones who cause people to be (justifiably) scared. They hate the "other", which is anyone who deviates from the party line in the slightest. They don't just make non-extremists "feel" unwelcome, they cancel them.
You can lie and lie and lie in service of your DARVO, but you can never make the things you want to believe actually become true.
Christianity is also completely incoherent. Jesus would have abhorred homosexuality but he also was adamant about following the law to a T and would never have let Paul allow the non circumcised into communion with them.
I’m glad made your anti -“LGBTQ” comment. There are lots of “normal gays” who supported Trump thinking his administration is only coming after trans people.
The left-wing view is that it is impossible to fail to reach left-wing conclusions if one is aware of left-wing arguments, ergo the existence of people who disagree can only be evidence that they don't hear left-wing arguments.
This is similar to the narrative that unequal outcomes can only possibly come from oppression. It's beyond dispute.
What Lititia James did today made me come back to this article. She thinks NYC is her congregation. She is acting like some gender prophet high priest. What a battle with the crazy!
Excellent piece. Clear and precise. She’s a ‘charitable’ preacher who hasn’t bothered to find out the real cruelty involved in the notion of ‘trans’ children, or the brutality of surgically altering a healthy child’s body. Sometimes I feel depressed about how women have been socialised so as to appear charitable and kind. I’m aware of it in myself and have to fight it, although both sexes virtue signal, probably for different reasons. It must have taken some courage to say all that in front of Trump’s top team on a big day. But she doesn’t have the courage to investigate and speak the real truth. And maybe her religion requires her to appear virtuous. So there’s a double dose of it. I wish someone more demanding could interview her. Perhaps invite her to a discussion on your podcast? Her religion requires her to love her perceived enemies.
Emotional. And i’m feeling pretty emotional on these topics lately. It is hard being a gay person. Thanks for writing
Openly gay pastor who agrees with you on many issues - but not this one. First, and most fundamentally: a plea for mercy, during a Christian service and sermon is never political. It is a virtue Christians should aspire to. Now, you may not agree with the preacher wether mercy in this or that case is good/justified/or the right thing to do, but a plea for mercy is always a plea to touch the heart and mind and action. A plea for mercy, a recognition of the stranger in our midst, is core to the Christian faith. Second, I agree with you that many parents are rushing to transition their children for a variety of reasons. But having said that, there are also trans people who are genuinely scared. Now, I cant go into details of any pastoral conversations (and neither can the bishop) and you may disagree - but there are trans sisters and brothers, and parents of trans kids who are scared right now. (And gays and lesbians too - she also did mention gay and lesbian children too). She pled with the POTUS to show mercy - if not in action than in words, and stop using rhetoric that makes people scared. Again, it is core of Christianity to plead for those who have no voiced. Finally, the Gospel is political meaning it touches the life of our POLIS but should not be partisan. The bishop did not say, that the Gospel=The Democratic party. She said that what is said, and what is being done is hurting the polis, the commonweal. It was her duty and job as a Christian minister to do that. She was much better than all those allegedly straight clerics who worshipped him like a calf. It is in the long tradition of ministers to ask the heavy handed ruler to think about the Gospel. look up emperor Theodosius and bishop Ambrose). So - while I agree with many things you bring up, the bishop did all right.
She reinforced the dangerous lie that there are ‘trans’ kids, whereas there are transhausen parents, or parents of teenagers who are very worried at the cult-like grip the anti-reality religion of gender ideology, is having on their children. They must have felt scared for years - fearing their daughter’s double mastectomy, or their son being harmed with dangerous hormones. Trans activists are scaring them with lies about suicide. She is reinforcing a harmful concept that affects tomboys and feminine boys, and robbing them of their future health. There’s no excuse left for ignorance. Evidence is available out there.
I strongly disagree with your assessment. Budde's ego is nearly as big as Trump's, and she didn't give a general 'mercy' message. She fed into false hysteria, invoked the false spectre of 'trans kids,' and wanted to boost her own image.
Don't stop spreading the truth. It always wins in the end
Bishop Budde had the courage to follow her heart and the bible and ask POTUS to show mercy. She stood up to Trump knowing full well MAGA would come down on her like a ton of bricks (She has received death threats) . She pleaded for gays, lesbians, immigrants and yes trans kids.
Had she not mentioned trans would she still be guilty of sanctimony, hypocrisy and the wrath Ben and others have laid at her feet? I think not. The hypocrisy lies elsewhere when unfounded accusations are made about a persons beliefs and motives.
The Bishop and many others have a different view on trans issues but articles like this Ben, go nowhere to changing hearts and minds.
Budde's message went nowhere in changing hearts and minds.
A million times, YES. And I would like to mention the 24-year-old woman from Rhode Island who also died after botched surgery, this time a phalloplasty that caused so much infection that it ultimately killed her. I don't use her name out of respect for her family, who may not want her name used to argue against these medical interventions and the lies being told to young, vulnerable and often, but not always, gay/lesbian/bisexual or proto-gay/lesbian/bisexual young people. If this Bishop wants to be caring and protective of the vulnerable, she should be joining the fight to end gender ideology.
Bishop Budde does not speak for the gay kid I was. It’s also sad that she seems to think of gay people as powerless and in need of her protection. We’re not that powerless, and the things we need are not a woke Bishop. Sometimes a little pushback helps the gay community keep growing.
Toxic empathy--that's what that sermon was. Way too many women wield this like a sword and shield--some of them are personality disordered, to be sure, but it's become a style for women to try to bully or shame other women (usually) out of their reality-based opinions and ideas. She was the living embodiment of that astonishingly aggressive and ugly T-shirt that says "Protect Trans Kids" interspersed by a thorny rose an a KNIFE!
Ben, thanks for your thoughts on this. Love your work & am looking forward to your book. It's time for more gay men to join you in speaking out against this attack on kids who will mostly turn out to be gays and lesbians.
Transgenderism is clearly a religion. Jesus rose from the dead. A man can become a woman. Both are examples of a kind of magical thinking protected in the US by the First Amendment as is my belief as an atheist that they are religious nonsense.
"If trans people had simply shut up and kept themselves out of public life we wouldn't worship a fat orange pig!"—Ben
"We’re the ones who’ve alerted them to the well-documented history of these medical practices, which reveals that, out of the 70 kids who participated in the original Dutch experiment in pediatric transition, only one was heterosexual—and that one of those kids died."
The ending number was 55.....15 people quit and the study lost track of them or didn't want to know why they quit. The person who died had a "micropenis" and consequently insufficient flesh to use in the creation of the neovagina.
As most of you know, in the creation of a neovagina, the penis isn't cut-off. Rather, it's sorta deconstructed and inverted, best way I can put it.
Well argued Ben, although I remain very concerned that Trump’s decrees are not realistically going to be impactful on most Democrats who have the conviction that they are fighting the good fight on this and other social issues against a corrupt and tyrannical leader who makes no pretense about his intention to expand Presidential powers to suit his whim and to cater to his base for political advantage. You’re right that he doesn’t come across as if he gives a crap about saving proto-LGB kids from medical harm, that wouldn’t play well with his base and also his whole brand is about disruption of norms that can be equally destructive to the ones that should matter in our society and in our government as the post modernist left has been, in mirror image fashion
The real battle is far from over to win hearts and minds and I still think stories like yours have the most potential to be persuasive if you can continue getting your message out to people who are already more inclined to care about sexual diversity and gender non-conformity as a positive thing for society, if they were exposed to more personal testimonies from gay and lesbian people like you who can be trusted more not to be preaching from a right wing pulpit but from a first person perspective
Lisa Selin Davis observed in your most recent Genspect panel discussion that all you have to do is look at NYT readers’ comments to know that left leaning media coverage when it does tell the truth about gender ideology and gender medicine is actually well received—I think this means that more legacy media that swings left could still be more helpful in reaching Dems than any Fox News reporting or alternative media could ever be
I agree with Braver Angels idea that you can’t change people’s minds through coercion, that doesn’t work whether that coercion is coming from the right or the left, it’s too loaded to even get people to listen to the first sentences out of others’ mouths if it sounds like “we’re on the moral high ground with this and you’re all idiots/ignoramuses and just need to STFU”
That’s why I like what you tried to do at the school meeting in NYC and are doing with LGB courage coalition campaigns and telling your personal stories, don’t give up on that approach of speaking passionately and vulnerably without too much irritation/condescension even though it must be very frustrating for you at times:(
I work in a super-woke sector (academia, humanities but still evidence-based), and most everyone I talk to is 100% skeptical of and/or hostile to transing kids. I just had a very lively conversation with a friend (also an academic) about how queer theory has ruined humanities scholarship.
The only academics who argue with me are in it for the status games. One, a former friend, is now a big DEI dean on her campus (or was--who knows how much longer that job will be fun, if it ever was?), and the other is an old lefty in his 70s who just can't be arsed to see what this movement has done to women and girls. He truly believes that transing kids and "being kind" is the path to liberation.
When I hear liberals/Dems whining about the media or even denying that they have the MSM locked in as their PR wing—how often are you blasted by CNN's Dem talking points when at the airport or in a doc's office waiting room?—I'm reminded of one of the Left's Maoist maxims that they've used to get their way: "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
Having to hear and accept opposing viewpoints makes them squirm and get very angry.
Much like how I've been telling my gay friends for about a decade now that the Trans agenda meant gay erasure, to which they could only respond by sputtering out some lame bigotry accusation.
All of Crit Theory is an overheated undercooked neo-Marxist conspiracy theory light on sense or logic but very heavy on moral bullying and emotional blackmail (Do as we say or a Trans kid dies!), which is why it will be so hard to dislodge. Every true believer will have to be deprogrammed one by one, mostly because it will be so painful for them to admit complicity in so much social poisoning and child mutilation.
Great piece!
You're right on the money noting the Maoist and neo-Marxist roots of all this crapola which I'm afraid a lot of moderates are having trouble discerning. Calling out the current wave of socialist revolutionaries is hampered by past Cold War, McCarthy overreach. Yet all the George Floyd and pro-Hamas protests have been awash with placards made by socialist orgs and violent anarchist graffiti, where black bloc armies recruit for their revolution "by any means necessary" and take over sections of campuses and whole city blocks. There is a method to this madness. Orwell warned us.
Bishop Budde asked Donald Trump to show mercy on people who are scared right now. She just asked for mercy. It was a brave thing to do, to challenge a notoriously vindictive president to his face. She did what Jesus would do. Her sermon was consistent with the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Sermon on the Mount. The way the administration is behaving right now is not merciful. It is brutal and hamfisted and designed to create fear and trauma. Even if you agree with the administration's goals regarding illegal immigration, there are more humane ways of going about it than having ICE agents show up at schools at churches. I haven't heard Trump say a thing about the businesses who hire illegal immigrants. It's always the "other" who is targeted. Rather than focus on some of the excesses of gender ideology involving girls and women's sports or medicalizing minors, the administration issued a sweeping executive order that will instantly and needlessly upend peoples' lives and make them feel unwelcome and unwanted. It was Bishop Budde's duty as a Christian and a pastor to confront the president, and she is now facing backlash. Unfortunately, she is one of the only people willing to check him. It would be far better if Republicans in Congress had such courage.
Well an entire chunk of trans activists have being very actively condemning people for believing in material reality in ways that have been cruel and harsh. She is knowingly or not, endorsing a dangerous belief in the ‘trans child’, and claiming virtue. She’s colluding.
The Executive Order, written by a woman MM(sorry forgotten her full name) is beautifully clear, as it states that sex is different from gender. Trump hasn’t quite got it - keeps saying ‘gender’. But she who wrote it completely understands the need for that distinction and the need to protect women’s single-sex spaces, such as rape crisis shelters, changing rooms, specific medical implications of sex and fair sex categories in sports. And women of course, should not be raped in prisons. These are all minimal requirements for women’s safety and dignity. Most men would understand that too. It was very unkind to condemn women (and men) for wanting the least of our rights to be protected.
Wait, who’s condemning people? That’s a strong word. Condemn. Disagreeing is not condemning.
"Rather than focus on some of the excesses of gender ideology involving girls and women's sports or medicalizing minors, the administration issued a sweeping executive order that will instantly and needlessly upend peoples' lives and make them feel unwelcome and unwanted."
Like the girls in their own locker room who can't say know to sharing with boys with ladyfeels? Like college sportswomen who have to fear concussion now from NCAA volleyball matches? How will recognizing sex, rather than gender, "upend peoples' lives and make them feel unwelcome and unwanted" more than these examples?
These kids have been lied to by their parents, their doctors and therapists, their teachers and counselors. It's terribly sad, but it's not the job of the US government to protect these liars and their lies.
Anyway, you completely missed the point of my comment. I was saying that the administration could have specifically focused on abuses like the ones you mentioned, but instead they issued a sweeping executive order that is going to create chaos for people who are just trying to live their lives, not bothering anyone. They are suddenly going to be “outed” in unwanted and unnecessary ways.
I think you misunderstand the powers of an EO. What you’re talking about would require legislation, whereas EOs can outline executive branch policy interpretation.
One thing that is changing is that passports will now be required to reflect one’s biological sex. Imagine being a passing trans person having to travel for work to a country where your life might be at risk if you are outed. There are many facets of our daily lives that are affected by changes in executive branch agencies.
"Imagine being a passing trans person"
Yes that's rough. But there are far more non-passing trans people traipsing around with falsified documents than passing trans people. And frankly, if they wanted to retain the ability to falsify vital records, they had every opportunity in the past few years to listen to the electorate and stop behaving like totalitarian monsters.
If someone is traveling to a place where their life may be at risk for being trans, then they're at risk regardless of what the passport says. And I have zero sympathy as a woman who isn't safe to travel alone to about 85% of the globe at this point anyway.
Speaking of locker rooms, guess what man bragged about going into the dressing rooms of underage pageant contestants just to ogle them? They couldn’t say no to him, but nobody cares about that anymore.
That's bad too. We have to stop pretending that "the other guy has done bad things" is some kind of defense of the bad things others are doing.
It's not a defense. It's just my bewilderment that so many people could have voted a person who has been accused by many women of sexual predation into a position of power in part because they claim to be so worried about protecting women and girls from potential sexual predators.
This is silly. The Democratic Party *policy positions* are at issue, not the actions of individual politicians. The Democratic Party has decided to turn its back on material reality, evolution, basic biological science, and women's rights in order to cater to a small group of seriously mentally ill males. Harris refused to distance herself from any of it, and it was clear that if she won she would further gaslight and abuse women and girls like Biden has done.
All they had to do was start being reasonable. All the Democrats had to do was stop behaving like raving misogynistic lunatics, and instead they allowed the GOP to win on this issue *even though Trump is a groper.*
At least you didn't say "The Democrat Party."
Budde isn't remotely Christian. Christianity condemns LGBTQ as sin, whether you like it or not, and it also says to follow the law. It is not Trump, but Democrats who are vindictive, and they are the ones who cause people to be (justifiably) scared. They hate the "other", which is anyone who deviates from the party line in the slightest. They don't just make non-extremists "feel" unwelcome, they cancel them.
You can lie and lie and lie in service of your DARVO, but you can never make the things you want to believe actually become true.
Christianity is also completely incoherent. Jesus would have abhorred homosexuality but he also was adamant about following the law to a T and would never have let Paul allow the non circumcised into communion with them.
I’m glad made your anti -“LGBTQ” comment. There are lots of “normal gays” who supported Trump thinking his administration is only coming after trans people.
"It’s fascinating to think there are people out there who actually believe it’s the Democrat’s narrative that fails to get any airtime."
Agreed. 100%. Wild denial.
The left-wing view is that it is impossible to fail to reach left-wing conclusions if one is aware of left-wing arguments, ergo the existence of people who disagree can only be evidence that they don't hear left-wing arguments.
This is similar to the narrative that unequal outcomes can only possibly come from oppression. It's beyond dispute.
I love you so much. Keep up the good fight in truth telling. May you be blessed for your efforts. 🤗