“The young [trans] people who are so brave — I want you to know that your president has your back.”

Maybe I am mistaken. Do I have to remind everyone everytime I post that I am not a trump supporter and that I have given biden credit on being better than I thought? You Biden Bros need to cool the fuck out with the flame thrower. The reason Biden is the most progressive president ever is not that Biden is progressive. It is that a large part of america has progressed and it is safe for him to move forward. The whole point of Biden was not big change. It was keeping things slow as possible to make the middle comfortable. My opinion is the middle will come along wherever you go because that is what they do. Now you put joe slug biden in the president seat because the right put a radical idiot in there for the last election. If you do not want another radical shift you need to make your slug put on the breaks for altering the elections for the radical right who are jumping up and trying to make all sorts of advancements in their regressive direction while the slug is just sitting up on top occaisionally moving somewhere better.

Trans rights are now worse off because a lot of the inaction of the obama years, which was better than negative action, has ended and now trans people are again being used as political fodder by a person who never gave a shit about anyone on the outside being hurt as long as the hirgher up rich people did good. He sort of cares for the middle management class because they keep the riff raff off his lawn.

2022 will be very interesting. The Tea Party rose to prominence within the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency because of the color of his skin and a very well funded astroturf campaign. Joe doesn’t have those issues to deal with. We’re also waiting on the reemergence of Trump at the national level, and that guy did a great job screwing the pooch.

True. I should say many in the community doubt that the Democrats will ably defend us, and that we also need to help each other.

The Biden administration is preparing to directly confront the rash of anti-LGBT, and specifically anti-trans bills proliferating in state legislatures, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the country’s leading LGBTQ advocacy organization.
Separately, the Department of Justice has told The Daily Beast it will “fully enforce our civil rights statutes to protect transgender individuals,” giving hope to campaigners that the DOJ is preparing to challenge in the courts the legality of bills that have been introduced—and some passed—in a number of states, outlawing transgender youth’s access to health care and sports.

.....
Biden had hoped to pass the Equality Act within the first 100 days of his presidency. It needs 60 votes to pass in the Senate, and Republican senators have thus far not shown much sign of supporting it. (Democrat Senator Joe Manchin’s support isn’t assured either.)
Equality campaigners have welcomed Biden’s many pro-equality actions since winning the presidency, as detailed by American Progress. For example, there have been executive orders to lift the Trump-era trans military ban, and another directing federal agencies to fully implement the “Bostock” ruling at the Supreme Court last year which ensured sexual orientation and gender identity were included under the umbrella of sex discrimination as laid out in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Department of Justice has also clarified that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in federally-funded education institutions. The Department of Justice recently cited the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution in the case of an incarcerated trans woman, writing that it “requires prison officials to conduct individualized assessments that lead to reasonably safe conditions of confinement and adequate medical care for all prisoners.”
Alongside these actions, there has been a relentless legislative assault on the rights of trans youth, with Republican politicians at a local and national level using issues such as trans rights as part of what of a broader culture war, which they see as galvanizing their voter base in the 2022 midterm elections.
However, a recent PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll found that 66 per cent of Americans—including 70 per cent of Republicans—opposed legislation that prohibited gender transition-related medical care for minors.


https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden...aiSwpBINRcSrlnNfyzL22e5_bqBC2YvRP3sYi6OYouF7k

"Adequate medical care" for fucking convicts ought to be "keep you alive" and nothing more. Up to and including 24/7 suicide watch.

Well, points for consistancy I guess, but

A. SCOTUS long ago called bullshit on that idea
B. if you are looking at it strictly from an expense point of view, anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the topic knows that treating a condition BEFORE it becomes life threatening is wildly less expensive - and many things, left untreated, eventually become life threatening (and I'm not referring to suicide)
C. not everyone is a "convict" for the same reason or the same level of offense. It's easy to say "Yeah, suffer motherfucker" for someone that raped their kid - maybe not so much for someone who got caught with 5 ounces of pot for the third time.

While I'm emperor of everything and this is up to me, nobody would be in prison for victimless vice crimes anyway.

Nice. Whore Island, here we come!

Is that the new season of Survivor?

Isn't that every season of Survivor?

That's nice, but in the real world where not every incarcerated person is a child rapist, maybe we could treat the people who are in there for five ounces of pot with some compassion?

Compassion, yes. Indulge with elective procedures at taxpayer expense? No. And five ounces of pot my pimply white ass.

Your definition of "elective" is specious, however, when it includes "all procedures not literally keeping you from dying today."

https://www.gq.com/story/chase-strangio-on-anti-trans-laws


Across the country, 33 states have introduced more than 100 bills that Chase Strangio, the deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU, argues have a clear-cut goal in totality—“to stop people from being trans.” Notably, the bulk of these bills focuses on kids: Some would prevent trans kids from using the restroom or locker room that corresponds with their self-identification; some would ban trans kids from participating in same-gender youth sports; others would outlaw gender-affirming health care for minors; and still others would essentially ban LGBTQ issues from being taught in classrooms. In April, the Florida state house even passed a bill that would allow for genital inspections of trans student athletes.

In Texas, state lawmakers have introduced 12 different bills aimed at curbing transgender rights in this session alone. As Kai Shappley, a 10-year-old from Austin, Texas, said during her testimony before the state senate last month, “I do not like spending my free time asking adults to make good choices.” She pleaded with lawmakers not to pass a bill that would make it a crime to provide hormone replacement therapy, puberty-suppression drugs, and medical or surgical procedures to anyone under the age of 18. Another bill up for consideration in Texas could potentially allow Child Protective Services to remove trans children from their parents’ custody. Shappley, who testified with the full support of her mother, added: “It makes me sad that some politicians use trans kids like me to get votes from people who hate me just because I exist.” In other words, the very people who love to shout, “But what about the children?” are effectively endangering children’s lives in order to “own the libs.”
..............................
Last week, I hopped on Zoom with Chase Strangio to talk about what the hell is going on. Strangio is no stranger to high-stakes debate over the rights and treatment of trans people. He was lead counsel for Chelsea Manning when she was court-martialed for disclosing classified documents to Wikileaks. He was part of the ACLU team that sued on behalf of 17-year-old Gavin Grimm over the right to restroom access at his high school. And in June 2020, Strangio made history as part of the legal team that won a landmark Supreme Court victory for trans rights.

In the months since that ruling, Strangio has focused on opposing this new wave of anti-trans bills in court, which he describes as a “relentless fight to allocate resources, support people on the ground, press litigation if necessary. Because the geographic scope and then the scope of the laws themselves are really like nothing we've ever seen before.” During our conversation, he explained how conservative think tanks have strategically pushed these bills, the climate of commentary that surrounds them, and, oh, what it’s been like to help his kid navigate school in the middle of a pandemic, which, as we know, is kind of hard.


What's a normal day for you? What's your day-to-day like?
Every day is different, I would say. The first four months of 2021 so far have just been so relentless in that every day is unpredictable and overloaded with tasks related to legislative advocacy or litigation. And then just managing the emotional terrain of trying to figure out, how do we both fight back against what's happening and also acknowledge that it is going to cause both short and long term serious trauma, both for those of us doing the advocacy and then for everyone who's more directly impacted? So I feel like it's just been such a whirlwind of that.

I wake up really early, so today I woke up at 6am, anxious. I have a huge court argument a week from today on May 3rd [representing the college student Lindsay Hecox, who wants to join Boise State’s track team, against the state of Idaho’s recently-passed law banning trans athletes from women’s sports teams, which is the first such law in the U.S.]. So a lot of what I'm doing now is preparing for that. I have practice arguments set up, I did a mini one just before this call. I have another big one tomorrow. But I have a bunch of these binders [holds up an absurdly large binder presumably filled with legal briefings] -

Oh my gosh, that's a huge binder.

Yeah. So there's four of them on my desk. I have been reading and talking to myself out loud. And then between getting off of the last call I had, and joining this call, I got an email about this really hideous felony ban on health care for trans minors in Alabama that we’ve been trying to stop from ever coming to a vote. There's one vote left before it would pass, and we were getting positive intel that they were going to hold off on it, and that maybe we would get through the session without this bill passing. It is probably the most extreme bill that's been pending this entire session. And so it's been this waiting game because they only have about three days left to meet.

Now we're hearing that they are going to take up this bill on Thursday. So in the middle of prepping for this huge argument I have next, now we have to continue to prep for litigation to challenge that bill if it passes. And we also are prepping litigation against Arkansas's bill that passed [HB 1570 is the first U.S. bill to criminalize the provision of puberty blockers and hormone therapy to trans kids]. So the days are frenetic, I would say.

I'm exhausted! [laughs] I'm exhausted just as an observer.

It is not an ideal situation at this moment [laughs]. I've been at the ACLU for eight and a half years, and there have been different moments that are very intense in terms of the volume and scope of the work, and this is probably the most intense.

Let's talk about these state bills, because I have so many questions. Like you mentioned, Alabama is an especially odious bill, but there's also Arkansas. It feels like these bills — where they’re targeting transgender health or trans student athletes or trans people and public restrooms — are happening in states across the South, to be sure, but also in states like Wyoming, Iowa and New Mexico. It’s like a shock and awe campaign. That’s what it looks like to me. In seemingly every state legislature in our country right now, some version of a bill that would severely target and impact the rights of trans people, trans kids and their families in particular, is being introduced and debated. Is that an accurate read?

Yes. It's an accurate read and it's deliberate. They're trying to exhaust us. And the reality is that it is working on some level because it's happening everywhere. There have been over 100 bills introduced just targeting trans people, most of them targeting trans youth. Many of them have gotten hearings. Many more have passed through a legislature chamber. And a lot have become law, a shockingly high number. All of a sudden four different states are on the verge of doing something radically harmful to the trans community. And there aren't the resources to respond in the ways that we need to in four places at once. And so that is where it becomes this relentless fight to allocate resources, support people on the ground, press litigation if necessary. Because the geographic scope and then the scope of the laws themselves are really like nothing we've ever seen before.

You mentioned over 100 bills. Is there a specific think tank or group that's coordinating this? It seems so intentional.

Yeah, it is. I think there's a lot of ways it's happening now. The contemporary origin is that the groups who are pushing these bills are the same groups that were funneling tons of resources into stopping marriage equality, fighting to put bans on marriage on the ballot in the first decade of the 2000s. And then when marriage equality became the law through the Supreme Court's decision in November of 2015, essentially all of those groups that had invested millions and millions of dollars in stopping that shifted all their resources to attacking trans people. Very swiftly they were ready to go. And we weren't.

The mainstream LGB—nominally T—movement did not do the legwork to make sure that trans people who would be the obvious target of backlash were protected. And so in 2016 you have the coordinated assault on trans people through state legislative action with bathroom bills happening. And the groups that at that time were very much leading the way were the Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom, some of the Focus on the Family unit and the state policy groups that were offshoots of those larger networks.

We did see some success in stopping the bathroom bills. And so what ultimately happens towards the end of 2018 and 2019, ADF and Heritage get together with ALEC, the conservative legislative group that fights and distributes right wing legislation to lawmakers across the country. They start drafting these model bills in the summer of 2019, and that's what we're seeing now—the anti-trans sports bills and the bans on healthcare for trans minors. They started to get filed into 2020, but legislative sessions were picking up and so was the pandemic and a lot of sessions adjourned early, so they couldn't push the bills as aggressively as they wanted. So they doubled down, particularly after Biden's election and after the Supreme Court decision in Bostock that summer. What we're seeing essentially in 2021 is the perfect storm to put forth these bills that were already pre-drafted by these conservative think tank groups.

So much of this is disturbing and hurtful, but part of what gets to me is that so many of these bills are going after kids in particular. They’re trying to prevent families from getting healthcare for their trans kids. They’re trying to keep trans students from using the restroom or playing on the sports team that corresponds with how they identify and live. We’ve seen so many iterations of anti-gay and anti-trans laws in our time (and obviously well before our time) but it feels different to be in this moment, when the ire seems to be directed at kids as opposed to adults. Is there a strategy? Why focus on trans and non-binary kids in particular?

It's so significant. It's so painful. I think the goal of these bills is to stop people from being trans. And they will say as much. They will say, "It's harmful to be trans. There's too many trans people." I'm like, "There's not enough." They'll say, "Well, 40 years ago, there weren't as many trans people." And I'm like, okay, well, first of all, there were, it's just that people did not have as many opportunities to live and self-determine in ways that were validating and authentic. But if the response is, "There's too many of a population, you must eradicate it," that's a eugenics project.

I was going to say, that's genocide.

Yeah. That's just a murderous project of genocide and eugenics. And that's what's going on here. The bans on healthcare are targeted at kids because they want kids to not be trans. Instead of recognizing that what kids who are trans need is affirmation, love and support, they're saying it's harmful to be trans and we're going to take away your lifeline. They're claiming that they're doing it so that kids will become cis. What we know is going to happen is that kids are going to die, or flee their homes. And so I think the real reason for the focus on kids is this idea that we can root out trans kids at a young age and target this group of people who don't have as much power and ability to access things on their own.
.......................................
For people who aren't following these bills closely, when you say, "trans healthcare saves lives," what does that mean?

This is care that is recommended by every major medical association. I think that's an important starting point. The American Academy of Pediatrics, not a hugely progressive body, 20,000 pediatricians across the country, says this care is essential. The American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society, the Pediatric Endocrine Society. So we're talking about a standard of care medicine that is provided to young people with the consent of their parents, under the supervision of medical professionals, from primary care pediatricians and pediatric endocrinologists. Tons of kids are already not getting it. This is not care that people are walking into the pharmacy and just getting over the counter. It is already highly regulated and supported by every major medical association. And the care is individualized and specific to the age of the young person.

We also hear a lot about, "We have to stop surgery on children." No. When you're talking about a kid before puberty, there's no medical treatment at all whatsoever. Some of these bills are literally just trying to stop kids from being able to dress in a way that affirms them, to use names that affirm them. This whole notion about irreversible surgeries—first and foremost, when we're talking about pre-pubertal kids, there's no medical intervention at all.

And then there's the care which is called puberty blocking or puberty delayed treatment. This is care that has been used for decades to treat precocious people, essentially where a kid initiates puberty too early. But it could be as young as five, the doctor will essentially pause it so they can continue to develop in an age-appropriate way. We know that this care is not harmful and is fully reversible. Meaning that you start the treatment, it blocks puberty. You take the kid off the treatment, puberty starts. Very straightforward treatment and has been used on trans kids for about the last 15 years with incredible results. Because if you're a young person and the single most traumatic thing for you is your assigned sex at birth, probably one of the most traumatic times in your young life is puberty. And puberty is traumatic for everyone.

I was about to say, puberty is pretty much an awful time for all of us, but I can only imagine how much more intense it is for a trans kid.

Exactly. So let's say you transitioned at four years old. You knew you were a girl, even though you were assigned male at birth. And the scariest thing to you as this four year old trans girl is that someday you're going to start going through a typically male puberty and developing secondary sex characteristics that are going to feel violent and alienating and dangerous to you. That's not everyone's experience, but for the people for whom that is their experience, it is a devastating and scary nightmare. And this treatment is a lifeline because it pauses the body at a pre-pubertal stage, in an age-appropriate way, and allows young people to have the time before experiencing that traumatic incident of their endogenous puberty.

Then what happens is, after a few years on blockers, let's say, then an endocrinologist would initiate—if the person and their family agree that it's appropriate—gender affirming hormones, and they would start puberty consistent with their gender identity. So for a trans girl, they would never go through a typically male puberty, and they would initiate treatments so that they could have estrogen and testosterone suppression so that they would go through a typically female puberty. And the same would be true for a trans boy with testosterone. These bills are targeting these hormonal interventions.

So much of the anti-trans rhetoric is phrased in terms of, "Oh, what if this person changes their mind later?" But that's not actually how this medical treatment works?

No. It's totally not true. That's not how the treatment works. Again, it's highly regulated. The doctors, the parents are checking in all the time. The idea behind these bills is that there's somehow this huge social pressure to be trans and kids are just going to be pushed into this by the world. It's just preposterous. First, the care is very difficult to receive. The biggest problem we have with trans healthcare is that not enough people are getting it. The only people who are able to get it are those who already have supportive parents, have access to health insurance, and live in a geographical location where there is access to a clinic or a professional to be able to provide the care. That's part of why these bills in the South are so dangerous.

For example, the University of Alabama at Birmingham has one of the preeminent gender clinics across the Southeast that treats kids from neighboring states like Mississippi and Florida and Georgia. So the consequence of a bill criminalizing the care is to shut down avenues of ongoing treatment not just in the states where these bills are passing, but potentially in the neighboring states too. Arkansas passed a ban already. It is not yet in effect. We know two things are already happening, one, families with needs are fleeing states like Arkansas and Texas because of these bills. And two, kids are so desperate that there is already an increase in ER visits for mental health crises.

I would care a lot less about the prison population if there were not so many in there because of poverty, skin color, prostitution, drug use, and any other piss poor reasons for incarcerating someone. If it were all right wing terrorists, rapists, murderers, chomos, and trump people I would say fuck it too. But when things like jail are a legitimate way to avoid freezing on the streets in the winter, or some way of ensl;aving black and poor people and keeping them on the poor end of society I say people like UA can pay for their imprisonment.

As for it being some legitimate or good way to get HRT and SRS that is all a load of bullshit the right spouts. It just does not happen that way unless you already have the money for a lawyer to fight for your continued medication. 99 percent of them get their HRT interrupted when going to jail because it is not like they hand it out if you answer yes when admitted. They do not even want to give out COVID vaccines, and they are paid for by the government.

The conclusion that seems to be overlooked or not well stated is this would appear to be the present fight against the influence of the dems in red states. It is the same strategy employed by the right to try and stop immigration to the states by making things so bad for immigrants they would think twice about moving there. The problem with their plan is that it runs contrary to trying to get industry to move to your states through lower wages, taxes, and big bonuses for companies. They want the higher level jobs while trying to keep the white wing poor, uneducated, and prejudiced. The more you get people working with the others, and the more you bring the others from the blue states, the weaker you make the right wing advantage in voting.

This is where you eventually run into the problem GA has. They did so much to get the blue industries to come to their state, and they had to pull quality workers from better educated areas, and now the companies have to protect their people over the white wing attempting to eliminate their voting block because people like @oldfella1962 are not capable of running a global corporation. Now they want to poison the water for the cities to drive away the blue stain. It does work in some states because no one wants to live in arkansas, MS, AL, or many other red states. Places like Texass and GA are doomed because large parts of their state has access to decent travel and local options for something aside from red state entertainment.

So the fight is on, and the corporations and industry do not want to be left holding the bag in a white trash heavy area with nothing to do. They have to poison it now before their cities become too large due to the COVID flight from high priced city and suburb properties. Does coke really want to bring people to their corporate HQ in GA when they are going to be attacked by the trumpistas, and they cannot get medicine, or they cannot vote?

Regarding "elective procedures," we already accept, as a society, that "elective or non-elective" is a matter of degrees, not a binary state where it can only be one or the other.

Cosmetic surgery because you don't like the shape of your nose is always viewed as elective. Cosmetic surgery because you were injured in a fire or car accident, or even because of a disfiguring condition present since birth, is usually not viewed as elective, even though it's not physically essential in order for you to continue living.

For a person with gender dysphoria, treatment related to transitioning is a lot closer to the second category than the first.

UA-
You should look like Freddy Krueger or Toxic Avenger after an accident like nature intended!!!
And if you want to make yourself pretty again, save up your Girl Scout Cookie money for 1000 years like a good American!!!
None of this commie bullshit!!!

The girl scouts would never let a snowflake like @T.R in because he cries to damned much.

But that can't be, it's much more important for jackasses to have someone to look down on.

You don't want my notice, don't impose on me. Do your thing without involving anyone else in any way.

How the fuck are they doing that?

Asking for rights because assholes are shitting on them isn't "imposing" on you.

It is @Uncle Albert , he had to try and be the victim while making a threat. It is right wing 101. They think it sounds tough while we all see it as a terrified animal striking at a much stronger predator. He is more scared of everyone else than we are of him.

It's also a tax thing.

UA won't admit he benefits from the taxing of others.

that is exactly the opposite of what right wing politicians are doing all over the country right now. Maybe you could have a word and express your disapproval of their methods?

By all means. They should also cut it out.

Copying this from a thread in TNZ:

How You, Personally, Can Fight the Anti-Trans Bills Surging Across the U.S.

Here are the organizations listed in the article (which also lists some of the anti-trans legislation in progress). A number make it possible to set up recurring donations online.

• Equality KS
• Equality NC
• Equality TX
• Fairness WV
• Tranzmission
• InTRANSitive
• Center for Artistic Revolution
• Mississippi Rainbow Center
• Montana Gender Alliance
• Montana Human Rights Network
• Student Advocates of North Dakota
• TEAP-MS
• Transformation Project
• Transgender Education Network of Texas*
• Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition

As detailed here, the Equality Act is not currently moving forward in the Senate. A lot of us here probably reside in states whose representatives in Congress either are cosponsors of or support the Equality Act. But it is not going to move forward through the Senate and make it to the President's desk unless President Biden and the Democrats make passing it a priority that is treated on at least the level of Covid relief and the omnibus American Families Plan. In my opinion, it would be a real good idea to directly contact the White House and our representatives to insist that everything required be done to push the bill through the legislature as soon as possible, which will probably require discarding the Senate filibuster. They talk a lot about doing it to accomplish this thing and that thing, but there's not much indication that they're determined to do it. They absolutely have to be willing to do it for this., and they ought to know that we expect it. IMO.

The ACLU and Amnesty International are good umbrella organizations engaged in protected human and civil rights, but even if one belongs to these, both spread their focus over many issues, and both have substantial dependable ongoing and political sponsorship. Supporting organizations that are narrowly targeted on efforts against this current threat right now is probably best.

*The contact information for this organization is bad, and I can't find much online about their activities since 2017. Hopefully they are active and someone here knows something about it.

The Trevor Project
Lambda Legal

Legislative Tracker: Anti-Transgender Legislation

This page provides a direct and simple way to call or contact your senator to express support for the Equality Act.

How is @Nova imposing on you?

She's doing a thing that involves someone else even slightly.

I trust I needn't explain how that's a huge violation of the unwritten societal contract the Uncle Alberts of the world make everyone else sign at birth.

I am the final authority on who may impose mandates or prohibitions on me and mine.