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A lot of fairly nonsensical things were stated by the Republican presidential candidates in last night’s debate. Some were hateful, that concerned our community.
Vivek Ramaswamy repeated what he has said many times before that transgenderism is a mental health disorder. This is patently false and I’m sure he has been made aware what those with the capacity to know better have stated. The experts no longer view “transgenderism” as having a mental disorder and are working hard to eliminate that stigma. That task is made harder when people like the Republican candidates toss that red meat to their base.
As if that wasn’t ludicrous enough, Nikki Haley announced that the debate over whether transgender women and girls should be allowed to compete on sports teams alongside their cisgender peers the “women’s issue of our time.”
Really? Not abortion rights? Not equal pay and other economic justice? Not violence from intimate partners? Not the lack of women in leadership? Not racial injustice that places black women in severe adverse positions? I guess the exit polls for the election a few weeks ago that clearly indicated abortion rights to have been the “significant issue for women” have quickly become passe.
Even worse. . .according to Haley the transgender sports issue is somehow contributing to suicidal ideation in teenage girls. Nonsense! Unless she means that the unfairness of keeping transgender girls from competing against cisgender girls is a contributing issue, which is probably true but exactly the opposite of what Haley meant.
Haley, DeSantis, and Raviswamy all showed their cowardice when they refused to condemn Trump for his actions and non-actions on January 6th. They further displayed cowardice by selecting transgender youth as their target of choice, based on the feeble political power of that group.
They spoke many times of the grievous problem of gender surgery.
Transgender and non-binary people typically do not have gender-affirming surgeries before the age of 18. In some rare exceptions, 16- or 17-year-olds have received gender-affirming surgeries in order to reduce the impacts of significant gender dysphoria, including anxiety, depression, and suicidal tendencies. However, this is limited to those for whom the surgery is deemed necessary after discussions with both their parents and doctors, and who have been persistent in their gender identity for years, have been taking gender-affirming hormones for some time, who have undergone informed consent discussions and have approvals from both their parents and doctors, and who otherwise meet standards of care criteria.
Several of the candidates indicated their willingness to sign into law a ban on sex-affirming surgery for anyone under 21.
I’m ambivalent of anyone under eighteen undergoing surgery, just as I’m personally against abortion, except as a last step. However, I believe anyone who is old enough to serve in the army is old enough to decide if they should have surgery. I further believe exceptions do exist and patients, doctors and parents should have the right to decide.
All in all, it would be great if politics was the pursuit of a better life for all rather than a pursuit of power without regard for the cost.
Jill
Comments
Caution
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Awesome!
I love this photo - I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.
Thank you for making my day!
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
LOL!!!
The truth has never been declared so clearly!
- Leona
It’s bad enough……
When a group of old white men decide they know what is best for the rest of us, but it’s worse when one of the very people being adversely impacted by those decisions becomes part of the problem.
Who was that idiotic gay man who was such a big Trump supporter? Oh yeah, Milo Yiannopoulos - what an asshole.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Milo Yiannopoulos
Milo Yiannopoulous is a good friend and former intern of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Congresswoman who's always calling trans people and anyone who supports them paedophiles and groomers. Which is kind of odd because Yiannopoulos has blogged that it's perfectly normal and a wonderful experience for both parties when grown men bone 13 year old boys...
https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-green-milo-yiannopo...
I'm no expert but that sounds like a fucking groomer to me. Or maybe she figures it doesn't count as long as you're a MAGA conservative, but politics sure seems to make strange bedfellows sometimes!
~hugs, Veronica
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Danger! Repeat Meme!
Some LGBTQ+ People are more
unequal than others!
Love, Andrea Lena
NAMBLA
North American Man Boy Love Association. A very real group who says the same thing.
https://www.nambla.org/welcome.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Man/Boy_Love_As...
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
My view from 3000 miles away
and as someone who watches US Politics with interest is that Vivek Ramaswamy is just another Trump wannabe but has to appear 10x worse to make up for the fact that he can't be a white nationalist.
He... like almost all politicians lies from the moment he opens his mouth.
I'm sure that there is something in the Project 2025 manifesto that will put all who identify as LGBT (esp Mayor Pete) in internment camps alongside the homeless, all immigrants, drug addicts (inc Hunter Biden). Problem solved unless you ask 'who is next'?
95% of the rest of the world are hoping that Trump or his replacement do not get elected in 11 months.
Yes, this is political and Erin does not like this stuff but it has to be said before it is too late.
Samantha
Erin Is Against the Disharmony Created by Political Discussion
I thought for some time before posting. Yet, it seemed important to document the hate spewed last night without so much as a "tsk tsk" from the moderators.
The reaction of the studio audience has to be measured against the reality that they were handpicked by someone for effect.
It's hard for BC to maintain its primary purpose of being a friendly place for TG lit. Yet, when it is becoming increasingly obvious the Republican party thinks of the rights of LGBT as Netanyahu regards the rights of the residence of Gaza, discussions such as this are existential.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Ramaswamy is important
In a truly free country, the mental cases must also have their own candidate, mustn't they?
Oh darn
I missed the Republican debate. NOT!!! I consider much if not all to be pure political blather and any adherence to it a severe mental aberration.
Ron
I'm still waiting
for any and all of the republican candidates to condemn Trump for being a rapist (Rape is described as sexual assault in New York, when the liability trial was held.)
"Kaplan wrote that the jury’s unanimous verdict was almost entirely in favor of Carroll, except that the jury concluded she had failed to prove that Trump raped her “within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law.'"
https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-trial-columnist-carrol...
He defamed her a second time AFTER he lost. He is facing a subsequent trial in January!
And they all are vehemently against LGBTQ+ folks; some speaking quietly in order to confuse the voters about their true intent,
https://apps.rainn.org/policy/policy-crime-definitions.cfm?s...
Love, Andrea Lena
As expected
Years ago, when congress was debating an LGBT rights bill, the LGB threw the T under the bus in order to get the bill approved; I lamented how the T group was so quickly abandoned by the others. This, I said, demonstrated the willingness of the LGB (a minority) to sacrifice another minority as long as they got theirs.
I was resoundingly rebuked by many of the notables on here that this was necessary to get a foot in the door, was only a minor setback, and to "wait until next year". Well, approximately 8 years later (guesstimate) and I'm still waiting. There is a phrase from a once popular song, "United we stand, divided we fall" (paraphrased quote from Benjamin Franklin). A truism to this day. The rethugnicans are using the transgender issue to divide the various LGBT+ groups. Remember the bit from the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller after WW2?
“First, they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And by then there was no one left to speak out for me”
― Martin Niemöller *
Does this seem familiar, looking at current events?
* The final words in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Different versions of this exist because it was assembled from oral remarks to various groups he spoke to.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Time Flies
It's actually sixteen years since Barney Frank threw us under the bus.
He can be excused because he was gay and being gay is a mental disorder.
At least that's what I took from last night's debate.
Ben Franklin said, "we must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately." That was right after they signed the declaration of independence.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Addressing these points
1) Thanks for the correction. I couldn't remember and for some reason Google was being uncooperative half the time.
2) Sorry, I'm just not buying that argument. Source is an bigot, ignorant, and incompetent, not insane.
3) Had that info, just didn't see it as being relevant. I was just sourcing the song lyrics. Different wording but essentially the same meaning.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
I've lamented that for years
Seems to be the consensus of the LGB crowd.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
A sound and fury
signifying nothing. The candidates were merely an echo chamber for the most radical members of the far right. Unfortunately, that's how you get financial support for the Republican primaries. There was no sign that any of them had actually researched the topic of transgenderism in a rigorous manner. We elect based on fund raising prowess, not proven or even perceived wisdom. I seriously doubt that some of the candidates are actually capable of producing a reasoned position paper on any topic.
Whose Ox are we Goering
There are always those who are all knowing about all things. In their passion they lead the followers into believing their ideas are the only truth. Those who don't agree with them are to be shunned, ostracized, and laughed at until no one will listen to opposing ideas.
Democrats and Republicans are so far out in opposing ideas and the laws they propose, they have become nothing more than a mouth with zero intelligence behind either one. Our once great nation has become a war zone where tolerance and acceptance of differing intelligence, lifestyles, and individualism is no longer accepted.
I blame Harry Benjamin Standards of Care for instilling the idea transgender are mentally sick. (may he roast in Hell) Those who wish to make a fortune treating transgender mental issues and those who wished to control every aspect of transgender acceptance and medical needs latched on to Harry Benjamin's ideas with a death grip. A year living as a female before we could be accepted for hormones or surgery? I shudder at the lives lost as the poor souls tried to keep their job under the rules of Harry Benjamin. Back then there was no legal shelter if they were fired. Almost all of them were.
Now I have the same emotions as our own government labels every child who acts out as transgender. The numbers of detransitioners are astronomical as no one can be made trans if they aren't any more than one can be cured of trans if they are. Who the hell is leading this destruction of so many young lives? Why aren't they looking at the numbers of those who are opting out after being surgically scarred along with chemically destroyed?
Too many have a professional opinion on something they have no understanding about. Republicans and Democrats are clueless and yet they are the last word as they make laws over something they know nothing about.
Barb
It's impossible to live someone else life. Offer advice, support if needed, let them live their life themselves. Let them make mistakes, trip and fall, they will learn life lessons and remember.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
"those who are all knowing about all things"
Oh, the irony.
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Irony
Your comment is at home here as irony is literary technique.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
The US government does not
The US government does not label people by their gender. They do not label people as transgender.
Getting gender-affirming care is different than transiting. Gender-affriming care is a range of social, psychological, behavioral, and medical interventions “designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity” when it conflicts with the gender they were assigned at birth. Many people have received gender-affirming care without transiting. Those people are not counted as people who have transitioned. This is for one simple reason they did not. By the way can you give the number of people who have detranstion, you state it is astronomical.
They have been medical studies on why people have opted out of transiting an dwho have detransition. The vast majority of people who detransition do so for either lack of funds for the hormones or pressure from their close social group.
Some info
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8213007/
Among TGD adults with a reported history of detransition, the vast majority reported that their detransition was driven by external pressures. Clinicians should be aware of these external pressures, how they may be modified, and the possibility that patients may once again seek gender affirmation in the future.
Love, Andrea Lena
Many if not most
of the societal pressures that have spurred the MINIMAL percentage of TG folks to de-transition are the very same factors that kept many of us in the closet. This might prove to be true for folks in my (Boomer) generation.
Or as my first therapist once remarked, "If your dad beat you until you legs bled just for pelting the shed with eggs, what do you think he would have done if you came out as transgender in 1966?" More about that relationship is documented in my autobiographical piece, The Invitation,
Love, Andrea Lena
Amazing what you can learn
When you get your information about transgender matters from sources other than FOX, One America, Briebart and 1819 News, with their narrative of lib parents and schools badgering little Johnny into identifying as girl if he should accidentally pick up a doll; with the subsequent "astronomical" rate of detransitions and suicides due to this evil Woke Transgenderite Child Abuse Agenda...
The number of people I've heard parroting this agenda driven anti-trans horseshit claiming it's SCIENCE (I heard one friend of my sister's who came to visit us babbling with authority about "hormone surgery", which is a thing in California, apparently...) just shows how persuasive these kinds of lies can be if you keep repeating them over + over...
~Lovesies! Ronni
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Excuses to Hate
The Judeo/Christian ethic and their binary gender nonsense is so wrong. In reality it is all a continuum with Male on one end and Female on the other with the rest of us in between. As to Abortion, only procreative women should have a vote. Especially with Trump, the Republicans place non conforming folk at great risk and most folk are too uneducated to know what an intersex person is. I am so happy to be near the end of my life and the end of Bull Shit.
Goering Was A Nazi
And a war-criminal. I don't think his name has any relevant place in this discussion. Oh, sorry, was that a diatribe?
As for equating Democrats and Republicans, please advise me which of those Democrat-governed states have passed Anti-Trans laws.
transgenderism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkWxjoJLqQc
How Many Times Do I Need to Remind
It is a logical fallacy because the strength, or the logic, of an argument or debate has none if one must attack the person instead of debating the subject. If one's only response is to slander the messenger so no one will listen, there is no substance to one's statement.
To postulate, to suggest a theory, idea, etc. as a basic principle from which a further idea is formed or developed:there needs be no real science or basic foundation on which that is sent forth. It was the Greek astronomer, Ptolemy, who postulated that the earth was at the center of the universe.
Usually my answers to attacks on me are pulled. Please understand I learned years back to copy these blogs. For the record, if I am canceled on this channel, remove all my stories also.
Hugs Jill
Barb
Life is a gift meant to be lived not worn until it's worn out.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Not Seeing What You Are Upset About
If you are referring to the link I posted, it was for informational purposes only. I thought it could add to the discussion. We all have our opinions, and I think our transgender thinking comes from a variety of sources. As for me, I just am, and very doubtful about my own origin. "Just tying to make the best of a bad situation", be kind to others and please my maker.
Gwen
It Was Very Nice, Gwen
To hear a reasoned exposition from a MEDICAL professional, rather than foaming-at-the -mouth political and opinionated statements.
If only those pundits would take notice of the statistics that Dr. Youn quoted, we could get this discussion back onto a rational basis.
What the doctor makes clear is that if TG people are treated fairly they are little different to the majority of the population.
Thank you for posting,
Joanne
Forget It
*
Let's Talk Facts
The video by Dr. Youn posted by Gwen is very informative.
I believe many people here will not view the complete video, so let me condense the main points:-
TG people comprise 0.7% of the US. That's 1 in approx 145 of the population!
Of these 56% contemplate suicide. 31% attempt suicide. In the general populace 20% think about suicide and 11% attempt it.
If the TG person has supportive parents only 4% have mental health problems. If they have unsupportive or hostile parents 60% develop mental health problems. Most of those problems are caused by homelessness, bullying and discrimination.
Blockers and hormone therapies have been used since the 1980s. That's a period of over 40 years and they have been found to promote positive outcomes to the physical and mental well-being of the recipients.
A survey of 22000 TG young adults and mature TG folk showed that only about 1 in 4 underwent surgery, either partial or full transitions. Of those only 1% regretted having transitioned. That's about 55 people in total!
I assume Dr. Youn was telling the truth. Even if his statistics aren't totally accurate it shows that the opinionated and Right-Wing politicians are lying purely for political gain because they think it will help them get elected.