206 Comments

Ta, Dok. Do they get their ideas for creating legislation by watching South Park?

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Close. "Beavis and Butthead."

Heh. Heh heh.

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One argument that the anti trans folks make is that kids are suggestible and gullible - they watch a movie with astronauts, they want to be astronauts, they watch a movie with archaeologists, they want to be archaeologists, and so on. So they'll say they are trans just because they think it sounds cool. And, knowing what young teens are like, there's probably some truth to that.

But the thing is, so what? If a kid who is not trans changes name/pronouns, clothing and hair for six months and then goes back to what they were doing originally, so the hell what? What harm is done? And meanwhile an actual trans kid's life may be saved. There is literally no downside to just letting the kids do what they want on this issue.

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Hang on, being trans is about conforming to traditional gender roles, they just happen to not match what is traditionally expected of your sex. So it wouldn't be "sees trans people and wants to be trans", it is "sees woman and wants to be woman". So the astronaut argument is actually an argument for complete segregation.

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Gender has mostly gone uninterrogated for a long time. When young people are given the opportunity to explore their gender, it only occasionally ends with the discovery that the tiny gender box assigned at birth tells the whole story--or is permanently the whole story.

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I think this is the proper response to all the folks clutching their pearls over de-transitioners. First, the rate of regret for gender affirming healthcare is lower than almost any other medical procedure, and there are so many barriers in place between a person and getting medical transitioning healthcare, few people who aren’t genuinely committed make it to that step. (Plus medical transitions on miners are rare and most occur in late teens, so informed consent is at play here.) Social transitions are fully reversible, and every person of every gender goes through a process of deciding how they want the world to know them. So if we see especially young people trying on various identities and abandoning them, that’s literally the same process everyone goes through to figure out who they are as they grow up. If a person changes their mind in either direction, it’s likely to be due to how the folks around them react to them doing whatever they’re doing. Many of the folks who de-transition do so because of outside pressure from family or community or religion; it’s unclear if their gender identity actually “changed back,” or if they just decided the closet was safer. (Note that trans folks’ genders aren’t really changing when they transition, just their expression and experience of being their gender becomes aligned instead of mismatched.) If we stopped freaking out as a society, and stopped making the boundaries of gender roles and norms so rigid and arbitrary, then people could be who they are and it wouldn’t matter to anyone besides them and their loved ones!

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If we make the boundaries of gender roles disappear, then you can't be trans anymore. Because there is no longer a distinction between genders. So what trans-phobes should do to finally and completely eliminate trans people is crossdress all the time.

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"So what trans-phobes should do to finally and completely eliminate trans people is crossdress all the time."

I think if you were to check their, ahem, closets...

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Eh, disagree. Not every hate comes from self-hatred.

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Agreed, but i do not think I said that, and I did not mean to imply it. There is a statistical probability, though.

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It is possible for them to crossdress, but I don't think it is more probable. I am willing to learn i you've got a source, but I don't care enough to look i up myself :)

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When I was in high school, one guy named Christopher went by Skip, one named Daniel (?) went by Trakker, one named Eugene went by Boo, and one named Mark convinced the physics teacher he preferred JoJo. No permission slips involved that I know of. And somehow Boo was allowed to be Boo up through the present day (hello, NCSU) without anyone clutching pearls.

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We had a vast array of nicknames that had zero to do with the person's given name and in some cases it was the opposite of a person with an awkward first name getting a less nerdy moniker, i.e., we had a Doug that was always 'Harold' and a John who was ' Lamont'.

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Good job folks, at the very least stopping the bleeding. Gotta get mobilized and make sure you vote down these assholes at every opportunity. Our big mission is in November! Act now and have your voting plan together especially if you're in an area with a voter suppression apparatus.

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I was driving through Orange recently and saw yard signs that read “Vote no on the recall! Protect parent’s rights!”

Which is weird because I think the Constitution says fuck all about parent’s rights

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Since Rick Ledesma is an adult, I can call him Limpdick Asswipe without having to notify his parents, right?

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In Orange County, of all places!! This gives me hope.

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We're not all bozos on this bus!

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Why can't the five members just vote it out?

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I was born way too early to be allowed to transition in school but if I had the chance HELL YES I would have taken it. I knew that was different than the other boys at around 5 years old at least. In fact I distinctly recall the neighborhood boys mocking my by feminizing my birth name when I was very young.

So yeah, kids know and understand their gender identities at a VERY young age. Schools are not "teaching" or "grooming" kids to be trans, they're just letting kids BE THEMSELVES.

But that doesn't compute in the average right winger's mind, does it?

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No. I just don't understand the abject bigotry of these people? Why do they care so much?

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An important thing too is that the demagogues that rely on them for votes need vulnerable minorities to throw as many disgusting remarks about as possible. A hate sink, if you will, and that tightens these voters' allegiance to the demagogue.

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They're authoritarians. They want total control and part of that is demanding adherence to extremely rigid gender roles. They want men to lead and women to submit and the women are expected to present as hyperfeminine (think Stepford Wife-core.) The existence of trans people upends that whole structure.

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I'm 65 and I've met maybe a half a dozen trans people in my life and they were all wonderful people...how that threatens anything is beyond my understanding...

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You are obviously not a close-minded bigoted cowardly bully. It's no wonder you can't understand the right wing mindset.

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I guess that's true!

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Demagoguery, plain and simple.

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They suddenly care because they see trans people as an easy target for advancing their bigotry and hatred. Once they defeat trans people, they're coming for the rest of the gay community.

But they miscalculated. Gay and trans people are NOT a weak target. Have these people not heard about Stonewall? Or the Black Cat riots in Silver Lake two years prior?

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It's so sad that people behave like that.

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"...included some district parents, but many attending the board’s most raucous meeting in September were religious conservatives without children in public schools, including some from well outside the community."

Sure it sucks, but it's time to restrict elected positions and 'speaking time' at school board meetings to teachers and people with children currently in these schools...

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"By Friday, the vote totals in their recalls were well over 53 percent for removing each, with very few votes left to count."

'well over 53%' fails to shore up my hope for humanity...It shouldn't have been ANYWHERE NEAR that close... 75/25 I could take and still keep down my lunch...

SO MANY fucking HORRIBLE people in this country. Was it REALLY always this way? have I been lying to myself all this time?

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Yes.

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Yeah...that's what I thought.

Well it was nice while it lasted

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I think they basically stayed hidden under their rocks until DOLT45 enabled them to crawl out.

Trump didn't start it but he sure did enable it to burst forth.

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It SURE did

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We should start a trend of using gender-neutral names for middle names, and then those names provide an easy way to use a less-gendered name without asking for any special consideration. Lots of people go by their middle names and no one cares, except it lets you know when the caller knows you or just got your name off a list of legal names. Mr. Moonshine's first name is very gendered, but he uses his way more gender-flexible middle name. This is very handy for me when I need to pick things up that are in his name. A ladygirl like moi with his name would blend right in.

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So from here on out everybody has to have as a middle name "Terry" or "Sandy."

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Robin, Sam, Lee, Jan......

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Pat or Kelly as well.

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or like me. for gosh sakes - Allison. Mom always said it was an "old family name" but I never could find it.

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OT but important to note. DOJ is investigating the use of software by real estate companies as a back door method of determining what rents their competitors are charging in order to coordinate, I. E., “fix” prices for rental properties. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/20/rental-housing-market-doj-investigation-00147333

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Fuck. Can they "greenline" (I hope I got the term right) with that as well?

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In America?!

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😡😡😡

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But that's just "fair market value!"

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Sounds less like this had to do with the occasional (and mostly theoretical) issue of trans* students whose parents don't known, or can't be told, than about the normal everyday business of school boards being neglected over whatever the latest right-wing scary panic de jour.

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Same as it ever was...

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Now look, Skepti, you just leave David Byrne out of this.

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A proposition to out trans and enby students would fail in California at the ballot if it ever gathered enough signatures. But, its supporters would hope that it would drive out enough crazies to vote and change the outcomes of tight races at the margins. OTOH, these propositions also galvanize the opposition, so it could be a wash or a net negative, depending on the county.

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That’s a continual pattern here in California: a culture war issue is put in the ballot by petition so as to attract more RWNJ voters on Election Day. It’s become less effective in recent years.

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I wouldn't want to rely on that. After all, Prop Hate passed.

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This November, we voters will be asked to repeal Prop 8. I believe that the state has changed in the last 16 years and that this will pass.

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OT: O'Rilli?

𝗟𝗲𝘃 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘀: 𝗥𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝗚𝗶𝘂𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗶 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗥𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

https://www.rawstory.com/lev-parnas-congressional-testimony/

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I am so shocked you could knock me over with a feather.

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