The AG of Missouri wants to restrict care for minor’s that are gender affirming

What Transgenders Want to Know About Sexual Explosives: Seven Years in the Life of a Girl, a Giant Robot

What I experienced seven years ago was not an isolated case. Theocratic Republican party insists that it is necessary to have a culture war in order to promote the notion of freedom and individualism, and this ideology has led to the loss of the protections of school systems that should protect and nurture trans children. One of the popular myths is that there is a higher chance of sexual assault in a bathroom if trans people are allowed to use it.

I had become the agenda item and the subject of headlines not just in my hometown, but across the country. At the school board meeting, parents of children I grew up with were talking about my genitals in a public forum and calling me a freak. They were willing to do anything to cause pain to a child.

And you find that when you give young trans people this degree of autonomy over their own body and help them relieve off this massive weight that they’re carrying around, that suddenly they have ambitions, suddenly they have goals, suddenly they’re not just building friendships and being active in their schools and in their family, but they’re thinking through, well, gee, what do I want to do with my life? What artistic ambitions do I have? What creative ambitions do I have? What would I want to do professionally? What problems does the world have that I could help solve?

There are only about 300,000 transgender youth in America and yet, as Republicans obsess over these childrens’ bodies, bomb threats are directed against hospitals and schools. Parents are being reported for child abuse when they love and support their children. This assault is being launched on every front.

Even as a high school student, I saw that threats to the lives of trans Americans had reached a dangerous tipping point. I had never wanted to be an activist. I was a kid then. It felt as though I had to spread a greater awareness about the community that was pushed to the margins.

The treatments that allowed me and other people to become the people we were meant to be, have been studied and reviewed by leading health organizations, such as the American Medical Association.

Yet, across the country, they are being banned, challenged or indefinitely delayed, while people hoping to transition are put through a series of hoops and hurdles before getting access to treatment.

My case ended in a victory for trans students. The victories at the Fourth Circuit mean that the Title IX protections afforded by the Education Amendments of 1972 can apply to people of the same pronoun in different schools. The Supreme Court declined to weigh in, allowing the decision to stand. As a result, all schools in the Fourth Circuit were required to adopt a policy in their schools that provided for the needs and rights of transgender students based on the model policies set by the Department of Education.

After wending its way through the system for four years, the courts ruled the school board was in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX of the US Education Amendments of 1972, a federal law barring schools from sex discrimination.

This is seen as a disaster in right-wing spaces. I find in liberal and progressive spaces, I often have to remind folks that this happened. I remember seeing a poll before that case was issued that some 80 percent of the country thought it was already illegal to fire somebody because they’re gay or transgender. So I often have to remind people in liberal progressive spaces that this case even happened.

Reply to the “Comment on Unjustified Proposed Constraints on Gender-affirming Treatment'” by Glenn Youngkin

But last year saw the election of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who ran on a platform that included blatant misinformation and targeted attacks against marginalized communities.

In February of 2022, about a week before he and Attorney General Ken Paxton faced a primary, they issued this letter, which was directed to the state’s child welfare agency to begin classifying the provision of age-appropriate gender-affirming care for transgender youth as child abuse. And that does many things.

The Virginia Department of Education model policy allows schools to go beyond the guidelines if they wish, but also states that each school board should adopt policies consistent with but may be more comprehensive than those in the model policy.

It seems as if Gov. Youngkin is willing to reject not only established federal and state law, but also guidance and best practices from leading authorities on the physical and mental health of children and young adults. It is my belief that the real agenda of Youngkin is to scapegoat a group already under pressure in order to gain support from his base, which is why he has couched discriminatory actions about protecting children, religious liberty and the rights of parents.

His gains will be temporary, even if he succeeds. A few weeks ago, thousands of students across Virginia walked out of school to protest Youngkin’s proposed restrictions on trans students. Protests are continuing against this unjust proposed policy. The transgender community is not going away.

Late last month, Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill that bans hormone treatment and surgical procedures for minors who want gender-affirming care.

Cox explained in a statement that his decision was based on his belief that it was prudent to pause “these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences.”

Proposed House Bill 1029: Reply to the Correspondence between the Utah School Choice and the Texas Legislature’s Teacher’s Union

“While we understand our words will be of little comfort to those who disagree with us, we sincerely hope that we can treat our transgender families with more love and respect as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures,” he said.

In its letter to Cox, the civil rights organization said it was deeply concerned about “the damaging and potentially catastrophic effects this law will have on people’s lives and medical care and the grave violations of people’s constitutional rights it will cause.

And in fact, there’s one that has been introduced in the Texas Senate, S.B. 1029, that would effectively ban these treatments for minors, but it would also effectively ban gender-affirming hormone therapy and surgery for adults. So tell me a bit about the relationship between the legislation targeting children and the legislation we’ve seen in a bunch of different jurisdictions that includes adults.

The bill’s sponsor said government oversight is necessary for vital health care policy related to gender and youth.

The measure Cox signed would give students the option of going to schools outside the public education system. The bill also increased teacher pay and benefits in an effort to ease the state’s teacher shortage.

Several states are considering similar legislation in the wake of a landmark year for school choice battles. The debates have caused teachers’ unions to worry about privatization of public education. They could change the nature of the state government’s relationship with the education system and deepen the contrast between red and blue states.

The Utah measure allocates $42 million in taxpayer funds so that students can attend private schools. Roughly 5,000 students would receive $8,000 scholarships, which is roughly double the state’s “weighted pupil unit” funding that follows students to their schools. In an attempt to appease staunch opposition from the state’s teachers’ union, the bill also includes $6,000 in salary and benefits for Utah teachers.

“School choice works best when we adequately fund public education and we remove unnecessary regulations that burden our public schools and make it difficult for them to succeed,” Cox said.

Proposed South Dakota Health Care Laws That Eliminate Gender-Affirming Services for New Patients Under 18: A Statement by Robbie DeSantis

With the encouragement of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state’s Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine both passed rules that will ban gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, as well as surgical procedures, for new patients under age 18.

The prescription and administration of puberty-blocking medication in patients under the age of 18 is not permitted by the bill. Health care providers who violate the law will face civil suits and lose their professional or occupational licenses.

Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender – the gender by which one wants to be known.

A Republican said that they cared about children who were struggling with their identities and wanted to provide them with meaningful help.

Some children may choose to use puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors.

“Surgeries-gone-wrong are simply not happening in South Dakota,” Democratic state Sen. Liz Larson said during debate prior to the bill’s passage. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t need the state legislature when I’m in the doctor’s office.”

The signing of the new law was denounced by the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties of South Dakota.

Using transnouns to stop girls from getting health care: A case study of a transgender girl living with puberty blockers

Young children who are trans or have changed their clothes at school are not going to get health care unless they are seriously ill.

Providers and advocates say the new rules are already having a chilling impact. Several gender clinics in Florida have shut down.

Assigned male at birth, she identified as nonbinary by fifth grade and decided to use they/them pronouns. Liz identifies as female and trans, and she is a seventh- graders passion for video games and a bedroom filled with stuffed animals.

After months of counseling with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, Liz started receiving puberty blockers. Every three months, she gets a shot of Lupron, a gonadotropin-releasing hormone that pushes the “pause” button on male puberty, which she does every three months.

Her mother, Virginia Hamner, has seen her daughter get gender-affirming care. She says it’s fun and exciting to know she wants to be who she is.

The language of the new rules is very vague, for example, Liz, who wants to cross-sex hormones when she is a male, may want to go through with it.

FLORIDA BANNING Gender-Afirming Care Trans-Kids: A “Fast” Manifestation of Governor DeSantis

“It doesn’t feel like it’s over, which makes living in Florida really challenging right now,” she says, “because you’re basically being told that your child shouldn’t be able to be who they are, and that it would be better if they didn’t exist in the way that you, medical professionals, and the child who is thriving, feel is best for the child.”

If it gets too bad, she is considering going to a boarding school that isn’t located in Florida for high school.

There are two main things that Gov.Straits has targeted and made “parental rights” in as a slogan for a potential White House bid.

She says it’s a gut punch. It’s frustrating that the rhetoric of parental rights is used to say that kids shouldn’t have access to treatment because we need to let them be kids. You’re right when it’s like that. And guess what? That’s all I want for my kid.”

The treatment is an example of woke ideology infecting medical practice, according to Gov. DeSantis. The state’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who was appointed by DeSantis, called the treatments “highly experimental,” “risky and unproven.” The Board of Medicine decided to protect children fromirreversible harm by banning gender-affirming care.

The Tampa Bay Times has reported that many of the members of the Board of Medicine who were appointed by Gov. DeSantis have contributed to his campaigns or political committee.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1157493433/florida-bans-gender-affirming-care-trans-kids

What will the florida bans on gender affirming care for trans kids tell us about their lives? An example of a Tallahassee mom

Dr. Dayton runs the Youth Gender Program at the University of Florida and she disputes claims that gender affirming care is risky or experimental.

She says there’s a lot of evidence to support her assertion that this is safe for children. “It’s pretty offensive to me, because I pride myself in being someone who always follows the evidence, does the right thing for my patients.”

Dayton worries about her patients, many of whom haven’t yet started on puberty blockers or hormones, and now won’t be able to. People are scared, sad, and confused and are asking what they are going to do when this passes. We don’t have the answers.

Dayton’s colleague, clinical psychologist Jennifer Evans, says she is “extremely concerned” about what the ban will mean for her patients’ mental health. She cites research showing that medical transition has clear benefits. “Depression rates go down. Seductive thoughts and attempts also decline,” she says. “Anxiety is going down.” The rates of eating disorders are going to go down. The rates of substance abuse begin to go down.

Here’s what a Tallahassee mom named Sandi heard from her transgender son’s doctor, who explained that he will not prescribe anything beyond the son’s current puberty blockers. She says he has said that he wouldn’t want to go to jail.

She was wearing a shirt that said “Believe trans kids” when she was at home. I have a shirt for every day of the week. she says with a laugh. It is a great conversation starter.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1157493433/florida-bans-gender-affirming-care-trans-kids

The Birth, Death, and Death of a Baby: A Rejoinder to the Loss of Florida for a Family with Transgender Kids

When River was 3 years old he started to say that he was a boy and that he was out yet to all of their family.

Since he started on puberty blockers, his mother has seen him flourish. “I have this glorious picture right after he got his first puberty blocker shot where he is literally, like, ear to ear smiling,” she says. He’s glowing. I felt like he could finally put his shoulders down, like, relax.”

She is concerned about the constant invalidation of River in the current climate. She states that “seeing that who you are is a political debate, which makes you feel less than human.”

The relentless focus on trans kids is demoralizing. She said that on some days, you look at everything and are so afraid of what will happen to your child next, that you are paralyzed. You can’t show that to your trans kid. And it’s exhausting. You know, it’s so exhausting.”

Sandi is on regular calls with other families who have trans kids, many of whom are planning what she calls “escape routes.” They are considering moving to friendlier states if they decide to do so.

She and her husband think about it, too; they think about moving to Oregon, where they have family. It’s difficult to see how the support system can be changed.

“The fact that you have to consider re-homing your family to have access to health care in the United States in 2023 is ridiculous,” she says. I want my kid to be happy and healthy. And I just don’t think that’s a lot to ask.”

Nikole Parker, director of transgender equality for the LGBTQ civil rights group Equality Florida, has talked with a number of families who are actively planning to leave the state.

“Listen”, they’re like. The health care for my kid is my number one priority. And there are states who will allow that to happen seamlessly. And I’m not going to sit here and just wait in limbo to see what happens.’ “

With that in mind, I feel that we need to make sure we stand firm in our beliefs of Florida being a place for everybody. I think it’s sad to see where we’re at, because this is not Florida that I was born in.

Trans advocates in Florida are fighting the new rules in court. Simone Chriss is the founder of the Transgender rights initiative with the nonprofit law firm Southern Legal Counsel.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1157493433/florida-bans-gender-affirming-care-trans-kids

Right vs. Left: The Politics of Transcendental Perturbations in our Lives and in the Public (Re)thinking About It

“It’s hard not to feel like we’re losing on a daily basis, which can be very demoralizing. It really does take a toll,” she says. “All we can do is keep fighting.”

This past Saturday the Conservative Political Action Conference ended. If you don’t attend, it’s a huge deal every year because it’s the clearest window into modern conservatism. It brings together politicians and media figures.

And the right is now making trans people their political target. And the most ambitious conservatives are competing not just in rhetoric, but in policy, to make their lives harder, to try to push them out of the boundaries of public life. Individually, these policies, they have various rationales, a lot of them have conflicting rationales. But I think collectively, if you look at them, you see that what Knowles said was true.

The aim of the right is to eliminate the ability of trans people to live their lives in public so they can become themselves. And again, this is policy. It is not just rhetoric. It’s not just about social media. And so I wanted to have a conversation looking closely at these policies.

I think that people who follow politics feel this is happening but not of the scale or cruel nature of these policies. I think in a lot of the mainstream press, there is more attention to the hard edge cases. What should be the rules around NCAA swimming meets? What about the rare but real cases where somebody transitions and regrets it? How do you know if you should take this kind of care when you’re a minor?

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

Mapping the State Family Law to Address Abuse and Discrimination in Children’s Services: A Brief Review of a Key Issue by Branstetter

I don’t believe those questions are fake and I don’t pretend to know the answers to them. But I think it’s important that we don’t lose sight of the overwhelming political and material reality here, which is that trans people already face now terrible discrimination and difficulty — higher rates of poverty and homelessness and violence, workplace discrimination — just living their lives.

She works at the A.C.L.U.’s Women’s Rights Project and the L.G.B.T.Q. And the A.C.L.U. has been very involved in tracking and fighting these policies. So Branstetter has an unusually specific and global sense of how all this is coming together on the ground.

The state legislature failed to codify the definition of child abuse by adding gender-affirming care. The bill was introduced in the legislature of Texas but failed. His opponents took him to task for this. So he began a long-rolling process to apply political pressure and basically set the tone that this care and its provision in Texas was going to be the next focus of his target.

One of the things it does is mobilize the state family policing agency. Advocates have been complaining for some time about child welfare agencies having too much power. And this power often gets used in very discriminatory ways, in particular against poor, Black, Indigenous, immigrant families. Queer youth, especially, are overrepresented in our nation’s foster care system.

The first impact on this directive is to mobilize the agency to begin investigating. One person that was targeted in one of the challenges to this directive is a client of ours, and they’re also a client of the A.C.L.U. of Texas and Lambda Legal.

The other thing this does is anyone who’s ever worked in a field with kids, if you’ve ever been a teacher or an educator or a child care provider, you know that you’ve probably signed some paperwork making you a mandatory reporter, meaning that if you have reason to suspect that a young person is being abused, as the law defines it, then you must turn them in.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

The Pain that Gender Affirming Care Can Have on Young People, and How Does It Affect Their Lives? A Case Study in Arkansas

Now, what that means, of course, is that all of those health care treatments, most people who express a need for them have a very long road ahead before they can actually obtain them. This care is already very difficult to access and especially in rural areas like those across Texas.

And just to put some numbers on that. So we saw one study where 56 percent of transgender youth reported previous suicidal ideation. That was lower than the percentage of cis gender youth. The percentage of cis gender youth who had attempted suicide was 11 percent. And so how does access to care change that?

Foundationally. So when I sat in a courtroom in Arkansas, where we were challenging that state’s ban on gender affirming care, there was a long line of medical experts and doctors who work with transgender youth who took the witness stand and spoke to the efficacy and the impact that this care has on young people’s lives. It’s very abstract. I think it would be very hard for a lot of cisgendered people to understand what dysphoria is and how much it can impact your life and stunt your emotional development and your emotional growth.

That sense of possibility is something any parent would want for their child. And the, at times, cartoonishly vile rhetoric around this care is very much meant to obscure that positive impact that it has on people and very much meant to obscure the pain of being denied it, particularly when you know that it’s an option that you could pursue.

A lot of young people are facing this situation because they have politicians who have never met them and politicians who have never talked to them, and they need a better life than the one they have now.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

Gender Dysphoria in Adolescents: The Big Bag of Rocks, and Is it OK to Use Puberty Blockers or Hormone Therapy?

I want to wait for a bit, because I am certain there can be a better approach to addressing gender dysphoria. That if you don’t have it, what it means to have it and to feel it is very hard to put yourself in.

I think it can be hard — a colleague of mine, Rebecca Kling, has this metaphor of this giant bag of rocks that you’re carrying around your entire life. And after a certain point, you kind of tire out. And you either put down the bag of rocks or you stop going forward.

Gender is assigned to you over the course of your entire life because it feels like it when you don’t know who you are. It’s a very complex sense.

I think it means there will be a community of people like them for trans people, and that they will feel safe in doing so. When you talk with transgender people over a certain age, you hear a similar refrain, that I thought I was the only one. That they had no concept that there were other people in the world who felt like they did.

What is the foundation of the argument that it is child abuse to use puberty blockers or hormone therapy, if you want to know how Abbott or Paxton made it?

In terms of their willingness to just sweep aside the existing body of evidence and the actual reality of what this care is like, there’s a lot to learn here from how the anti-abortion movement has framed abortion care. You have seen the process of hunting around for any tail end risk or hypothetical in which this care might have any kind of negative consequence at all. And then using that to justify banning it.

The risks are taken very seriously by most trans people. Nobody’s not attuned to these, right, even in the informed consent model of providing this care. So for young transgender people, for people under 18, there’s a long road of mental health counseling and assessment and making sure this care is right for them.

There are risks associated with puberty blockers, but I’m not talking about the surgical interventions.

Testosterone has some low level risk for misuse and for abuse, so he looks into it. In the rare instance that somebody goes on from puberty blockers directly to hormone therapy, it may gradually increase their risks for osteoporosis. According to a New York Times report, it will increase the risk of osteoporosis for people in their 50s.

In the space for medical care for transgender adults, there’s been an increasing move towards informed consent, which basically means that as long as this person is informed about the risks and effects of this care, we should trust their autonomy to access it. When someone tells you that osteoporosis can occur in your 50s, you are like, we will cross that bridge when I get to it, I guess. It would be amazing to live into my 50s.

So I think, like I said, a lot of these arguments are generally in bad faith because all health care carries risks. And there’s lots of health care which these bans don’t touch, which carry these or worse risks, and are not the subject of legislation or litigation or much less accusations of child abuse.

So when we were working on this episode, we talked with Dr. Jason Rafferty, who authored the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for this care in 2018. One point he made was that this kind of care is very, very highly individualized.

If you look at the standards for it, you can see that it is built on discussions between the patient and doctors and their families.

And one thing that is very striking to me about Texas’s policy here, but not just their policy — I mean, you see this in a bunch of different states — is they’re trying to short-circuit — they’re putting literally the government — conservatives putting the government, which I know the charge of hypocrisy here has lost a lot of force over the years, but take it for a minute — into this process that would otherwise be an individualized weighing of risks and questions and the person’s individual needs with a doctor who knows what they’re doing and possibly mental health professionals and families.

And you can very much see that they’re running the same playbook on gender-affirming care. It is very easy to imagine them running this course on birth control. You can see that they are already laying the groundwork.

And anyone who’s accessed birth control, particularly hormonal birth control, knows that it’s very individualized. And it can carry side effects. And it can carry risks. And people hopefully trust you to manage those risks and to weigh them against your desire to not get pregnant, which, depending on who you’re talking to, is you rejecting your gender assignment in the same way that a transgender person is.

I don’t think anyone would describe the process of an I.U.D. being inserted in joyful ways, but people do it because they want that degree of control over their body and ability to tell their own life story.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

Protected against the L.G.B.T. Directive and other D.F.P.S. actions by families of young queers: A new lawsuit

There are two lawsuits that were filed against the directive and against D.F.P.S. They were both filed by A.CU., A.C.L.U. and Lambda Legal. We went back and filed a new lawsuit on behalf of many more families.

For folks who don’t know, PFLAG is one of the oldest L.G.B.T. rights organizations in the country. The work they do with parents is specific to young queer people. They were one of the first organizations to mention gender identity in their official policies. And they have hundreds and hundreds of chapters across the country. I have gone to these, and they are usually a lot like support groups. They’re usually parents talking through what it means to have a young queer person, not just protecting them from discrimination and advocating for their rights, but also changing their own expectations for what life their child is going to lead based on their queer identity.

A few months ago I heard that in Texas, around 600 families were protected under the injunction that we received on behalf of PFLAG national. Now, of course, what that means is that thousands of families are still exposed to this directive.

We know that the number of cases that have been opened is relatively small. Last I heard it was under 20. In each instance, the case was closed after it was open. And that’s enormously relieving, in that it means whatever accusation Greg Abbott wants to make against them, these folks are being exonerated by the state agency.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

Putting the American Principles Project on the line: Why young people are not allowed to live in a world without a medical diagnosis – an opinion piece

The process of the investigation is an invasion on a family’s life, especially when we’re talking about young people who are struggling to imagine a future world with them in it.

This is only about children, that is what you often hear. Children are being protected as a special class. Maybe they don’t know who they are yet. Maybe they were influenced by something on TikTok. Many of these bills target adults.

And one of them is the American Principles Project. Over the course of the last few years, has tried to educate politicians on the need to not go after people who are gender non- conforming. There was a report in The New York Times that said that the group wanted to ban care for anyone of any age, and that she contacted the president of the group, who said they really wanted to do that. He said the purpose was to go where the consensus is and go towards young people.

I would challenge the idea that there is a consensus. And two, I think that belies just how sort of bad faith a lot of these discussions are, that most of these groups, ALEC, these organizations that are really well-known in right-wing circles for basically acting as bill mills for printing off this legislation and distributing them across states — they are not going to tolerate medical transition at all.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

Why aren’t trans children in the Republican Party? What do we really want to see in our next president? What is the role of transgeneracies?

People with nonnormative sexual characteristics are called intersex people. Intersex conditions can range from hormonal sensitivities down to people born with what might be called anomalous sexual characteristics or maybe the presentation of sexual material that is associated with one sex right next to sexual material that is associated with another sex.

There is an exemption for those surgeries that are done to babies with little concern for their long-term well-being, but only to make sure that they look normal. And I became very curious. How can all these people come to agree in favor of forcing intersex children into these surgeries?

Right. Exactly. And I found the bill that was passed into law in Arkansas banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth that we have sued and blocked in federal court. The right wing regards intersex folks in different ways, regardless of the family situation.

One way of thinking about it, is that it’s a response to progressive victories on this point and to an change in reality of how many trans children we’re. How do you think about those as explanations?

But it’s also every right-wing legislature, more or less, across the country is now full of these bills. And it’s been a pretty quick move to the center of their agenda. And one of the ways I understand politics in this era is that we’ve been watching or living through this transition from — because politics is always changing as to what the core cleavages really are, what people will compromise on and what they won’t.

The Republican Party talked to social conservatives, but also had a policy of economic conservatism, I think, 15 years ago. The actual non-negotiable was tax cuts for corporations. And then they would tell the Evangelicals what they needed to hear to turn out to vote.

Over the course of this period, it may be more or less flipping. And you now have the post-Trump Republican Party. There’s a lot of people who are kind of confused and often opportunistic on economics. The question of the traditional American hierarchies of society have become fundamental, as a result of these questions.

There is a search for the issue that allows this to be open. And I think that there was a view that was immigration. That was Donald Trump’s initial play. And it worked for him to a degree, but it’s actually not popular to be highly anti-immigrant in this country. And then particularly post-George Floyd, when there were the protests that had riot elements in them, you had a backlash on Black Lives Matter. And then that failed. Joe Biden will win the election.

I am curious how you have understood the change to the center of the Republican agenda for this set of issues, since you are more aware of it than I am.

It’s interesting that you tease out this existing divide in the right between more economic concerns versus social conservative concerns. One, I think they have more similarities than they differ. Conservative economics tend to produce socially conservative outcomes.

Two, there’s been an interesting turn in right-wing politics over the course of just about the last decade where there’s been a lot of motivation and energy around the social conservative wing, this wing that’s devoted towards a explicit construction of what it means to be American along racial, gender, and class lines.

In North Carolina, one of the reasons for this was that the legislature had passed a bathroom bill, which was opposed by Pat McCrory. So basically a law requiring transgender people to use the bathroom that aligns with what was on their original birth certificate.

This was a real test for the rights of trans people in politics. There were some previous fights around HERO, and we could talk to that history if you want. But this was definitely the largest conflagration that gendered rights had had in some time.

The bill was enacted. You saw a number of large institutions pulling events out of North Carolina. And begin saying, well, we’re not going to spend money in a state that would endorse this hate. And according to one analysis, this cost the state of North Carolina’s economy around $3 billion.

Pat McCrory lost re- election because he focused on the issue at the expense of the rest of the state. And this caused a deep sense of frustration within the conservative movement. I think it was the beginning of waking capitalism, the idea that the culture has left our values and that they have taken corporations with them.

The Chamber of Commerce crowd is no longer able to act in defense of socially conservative actions. It was almost the end of fusionism, the idea of the libertarian-minded economic right and its ties to often more Evangelical, socially concerned right.

Social conservatives start to feel left behind. And particularly because the legislative agenda of the Trump administration was pretty much dominated by the Trump tax cuts, which as far as they’re concerned don’t move them towards their goals of rewiring the back ends of American culture to reflect these deeply conservative values.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

The Proposal of the 2019 Supreme Court Justice Scalia-A.C.L.U. on Equal Rights and Sex Discrimination in the Employer’s Life

The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision in June of 2020 that these protections are extended to queer workers. That if you fire somebody because they’re transgender or because they are queer, then you are exhibiting sex discrimination. You have violated the Civil Rights Act.

The A.C.L.U. was involved in representation of this person. She was a transgender woman in her 50s. She worked at a funeral home. She came out as transgender. This is important for her, that is why she wrote this letter. The funeral home turned around and fired her after two weeks.

What was important in this case was not whether or not the workers were gay, but whether they were discriminated against because of it. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits sex discrimination and there was debate about whether the workplace was in violation by discriminating against these employees.

And I think one of the reasons you see this massive reaction is because a lot of the legal victories on behalf of L.G.B.T. rights up to this point had very much hinged on the private life. It is the right to marry for Obergefell. As much as you’re running into the issues of does a baker need to make a wedding cake or does a website need to make a website for a gay couple that’s getting married, the foundational right to marry is about a right to privacy, as well as just equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment.

Bostock was interested in your public life. Suddenly, we are in the workplace. Now suddenly somebody has the right to be trans in the workplace, around other people even, Ezra. And there is the logic that the opinion, which was written by conservative golden boy Justice Neil Gorsuch, the logic of his opinion, it doesn’t take a whole lot of thinking to then apply it to all other laws, which prohibit sex discrimination, including Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education, or Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits sex discrimination in health care.

I want to get at something that you touched on there, which is that as part of what has changed in the politics of this, one, in a way that maybe progressives don’t realize or admit. You mentioned the quiet revolution here in the Obama administration, where policy became much more equal in this area. You mentioned some very, very important cases that pushed forward non-discrimination.

And some of the backlash actually was a response to the fact that the equilibrium on this was being pushed forward. It was being moved towards justice. And that created a kind of opposite counter-reaction. And there’s also the feeling that many people have — and I think is, to the extent we have data on it, seen as true — that we are seeing a rise, whether that’s because more people are coming out as trans and they would have suppressed it and not told anybody at another point or because something is changing. But that we are seeing a rise in the number particularly of trans kids.

In your book, “Why We’re Polarized,” available in stores now, you reflect on how polarization is not inherently a negative thing. It’s always important to move forward on important progressive issues when there’s a lack of homogeneity. Over the course of American history, it is usually an issue based on discrimination that we now look back on and are glad that we had a controversy on.

It is a cliché to think about the second term of the Obama administration and how it will be remembered, but within the first two paragraphs you have to mention the name of one of the trans pioneers of the 20th century, Laverne Cox.

It is a threat for a lot of people, that suddenly trans life looks a little possible. And the fact that the number of people who are willing to be openly trans is increasing is a really good sign for that reason, at least for my work.

Over the course of decades of advocacy, public education campaigns, and meeting with lawmakers you begin to see that slowly creak open in the early 2010s. And it’s one reason why if you’re over 30, you were raised in a culture which saw our existence as, if not an avid threat, then as pathetic, in a culture which portrayed us as ultimately as sickly eunuchs or decadent perverts.

And I’m a New York Times subscriber and that gives me access to The New York Times archive. And one thing I’ve been doing over the last few months is looking across the media coverage of an institution like The New York Times and finding the history of how the paper has regarded transgender people.

I want to go back then also to something else that happened in this period that you kind of touched on right around North Carolina, which is the North Carolina bathroom bill was not the only bill and not the only kind of social justice question, but I do think it was one of the first that began to open a wedge that is still not at all closed between the Republican Party and particularly major parts of corporate America.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

The Elephant in the Room: Disney’s response to the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” has created a strange realignment in the Republican Party

So I mean, we’re talking in a week where Governor DeSantis succeeded in taking away some special autonomous privileges that Disney had in Florida. I mean, Disney, which is one of the big namesake Florida employers.

I think it’s fair to say at trans people, Disney’s response to the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” is very targeted. There is a particular significance in our politics where corporations have fought over the issue of Black Lives Matter. But in an ongoing way, you really have it around these issues.

It appears to me that it is creating a weird realignment in the Republican Party, where the Republican Party used to be known as the big business party, and there is still plenty of deregulation efforts and corporate tax cuts.

— for its speech. It’s a sign that the commitment is high in the Republican Party on these issues. But two, I’d just be curious to hear you reflect on the way it is slightly altering some of the Republican Party’s traditional alignments and forcing members within it to choose sides.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

When Ron DeSantis Picks the Difficulty of Parental Rights and Gender Identity: A Story about Ron, Liza, and Donald

Sure. So the Don’t Say Gay law, as it’s popularly known, the Parental Rights in Education Bill, prohibits discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through the third grade. The Florida House has introduced a version that would allow it to go up to the eighth grade. It’s funny how that happens.

Involving queer teachers feeling like they need to hide who they are at school has been reported. There was a decision to remove symbols of L.G.B.T. pride such as the rainbow flag and the banning of books about queer people. “And Tango Makes Three,” is a book about gay penguins. This goal of queer identities is an ideology that is being forced onto people.

I think that one of the reasons he picks this fight with Disney is that it allows him to keep telling his story. So instead of the young queer kids he’s demonizing or the parents who are now afraid their kid might mention that they have two moms and will get them in trouble or the teachers that you’ve read about who now feel like they have to leave the state altogether, instead of those real people who are being scared, now the story is Ron DeSantis takes on woke capital and Disney forcing its ideology on our children.

And I think by picking that fight, DeSantis is selecting the frame for himself. He is positioning himself as the David against the Goliath when it is, in fact, he himself who is the empty-headed bully who hits kids face into the dirt.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

Are There Red States? The Role of Transcendent People in History and Politics, and What Happened When Trans People Are Openly Trans

One question I have about it is whether or not it’s getting worse and better at the same time, which is to say we’ve been talking about, particularly red states, where a lot of, I think, quite terrible legislation is being proposed and where the rhetoric has gotten very vicious. And I don’t think that can be discounted.

I think that there are also blue states that have been trying to move in the opposite direction. So are there places that are brighter to you? If you look up towards the bottom, you can find places that look like there is no bottom at all. I’m not sure that metaphor works.

There is a different kind of future. Are there places that are more hopeful to you right now, that if you’re just following the places things are getting worse, you might not see?

So you referenced that the number of openly trans people — and that word “openly” is important here — has been rising and particularly in younger generations. One, I think that matches the rise in L.G.B. identification over the decades. People are fond of citing this chart around left-handedness, and that once public schools stopped hitting children for writing with their left hand, suddenly there was a huge surge in left-handedness identification.

Then, as the internet grows and social media grows, I know that there’s a lot of anxiety that there are young people self-diagnosing themselves with gender dysphoria and rushing off and getting their breasts removed because they saw it on a TikTok video or whatever else, right? That’s not what I see when I see trans people gathering online.

I know that the boundaries used to separate us. The world still doesn’t treat trans people with absolute joy because they gravitate towards people like minded and have similar experiences.

And it’s very hard to find people who share that experience, especially in a lot of rural areas across the country. The internet is the ultimate gathering place in trans history where we can share experiences and wisdom. One of the reasons that trans life is deemed impossible is because we are all isolated from one another.

I’m going to start with a book by Gregory Woods called “Homintern.” And it is a history of queer life and culture pre-Stonewall, from the trial of Oscar Wilde up to just really right before the sexual revolution. And it is this incredibly rich, entertaining, vibrant history of people making space for themselves when, as many people who grew up queer did, they thought they were the only one, including finding community before they even really had the language to describe queer identities. The history is told through love notes, police reports, and gossip. And it’s very juicy in parts.

And it’s just fascinating to think, how did the arrest of Oscar Wilde, one of the world’s most famous playwrights, change how the media and politics regarded gay people? What was Josephine Baker learning from the drag queens of Harlem and Washington? How did George Orwell feel about being gay?

The second book is titled Caliban and the Witch. The wages for housework movement was started by a seminal feminist thinker, namely, Silvia Federici. And “Caliban and the Witch” is about a pandemic followed by a labor shortage, followed by a revanchist movement to assign rigidly strict gender norms onto people that targets queer people and women especially.

And the pandemic was the Black Death. And the movement to enforce these rigid strict gender norms were the witch hunts, this long period of time in Europe when women and queer people were hunted and killed because they did things like offer abortions or offer contraceptives or cross-dressed.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-gillian-branstetter.html

Can the Monster Speak? A Lecture by Paul Preciado at a Psychoanalyst’s Meeting: Fact Checking, Mixing and Music by Efim Shapiro

I will recommend a book by Paul Preciado called Can the Monster Speak? He is a man of a certain gender. He gave a lecture on the book “Can the Monster Speak?” at this meeting of the group of psychoanalysts.

The show was produced by Jeff Geld, Emefa Agauy and other people. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Efim Shapiro. Original music by Isaac Jones. Shannon Busta created an audience strategy. Annie-Rose Strasser is the executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio. Special thanks to Dr. Avary, Lisa Black and all the others.

“Because gender transition interventions are experimental, the regulation clarifies that state law already prohibits performing experimental procedures in the absence of specific guardrails,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a news release on Monday.

The rule will go into effect 10 days after it is filed with Missouri’s secretary of state office, which said it had not yet been filed as of late Tuesday morning.

The Medical Interpretation of “Bailey’s Arguments for Children’s Protection and Health Care” by M. J. McKay

Bailey said Monday that his efforts are aimed at protecting children and that the care is part of a woke, lefty agenda that results in irreversible consequences.

The chief medical officer of the St. Louis Region& Southwest Missouri called Bailey’s claims medically false and harmful on Monday.