What was accepted and the law in the UK, was neither universally accepted nor, in many places, the law in the US. This is, I suppose, why so many USians have been so put off by so many UKers on this subject. To us, the fringe view you're talking about is truly a fringe, a distraction frequently employed in bad faith to arrest the progress for the huge bulk of actually trans people trying to get to the status that is accepted and protected by law in the UK. For you, it's the only point of remaining contention, so it's of course what the controversy is solely about.
Small example. In the last legislative session here, our R majority sought to forbid medical interventions (including non-surgical, which are by far the vast bulk) for consenting teens with consenting parents. The only trans member of the legislature said, correctly, that this was going to lead to increased suicides, among populations already at risk, in a state with a suicide problem. She was hounded out of the legislature -- not expelled, but forced to sit in the hall outside the chamber. This is the actual state of affairs.
We're in the process of forbidding *transitioned* people from using their new gender on their ID, in their passports, in selecting which public washroom to use, etc. The ruling consensus in the US is that the entire enterprise is illegitimate from start to finish. And we see rhetoric of how outliers -- that one swimmer, this one abusive person -- are used to completely discredit the entire concept of transition. It goes quickly from your 'someone might be faking' to 'they're all faking.'
Politically, yes, any support of trans rights, including for transitioned people, a losing proposition in most places. As was opposing slavery. Or overt racial discrimination.
Oh, there's so much to unpack in these arguments. I see the US left's position on these things as the apogee of its blindness to class-based oppressions in favour of identity-based ones. The freedom of a nice middle class person like LK to transition in San Francisco is bought at the cost of the -- largely PoC -- women who are raped in prisons there by males who have declared themselves females. I don't think that's justice or liberation. The last time we argued about this you said you thought that US authorities were too sensible to put intact men into women's prisons (I paraphrase). It turns out you were wrong, at least in California.
I don't make the mistake of supposing that the Republicans give a shit about those victims either. Anything you say about the nastiness and cruelty of the other side I will believe. But that's just the state of US politics at the moment. But since things are as they are, it was an avoidable mistake to embrace policies and slogans which made Trump's re-election more likely. That was a catastrophe which -- from here -- outweighs any other.
Dealing with the analogies to slavery and the civil rights bill will require coffee, which I have not had yet for fear of waking the dog.
I'm surprised and saddened that prison officials are failing to protect their charges so spectacularly. One hopes that prison assaults (including threats) are appropriately punished and perpetrators appropriately isolated.
I still don't think embrace of the extreme position you outline is particularly widespread, but then the calumny that Biden refused to enforce any immigration laws -- while deporting a huge number of people -- got spread and believed by people who wanted to believe the worst.
If Californian prisons are anything like British ones -- overcrowded and understaffed -- I doubt the prison officials are able to protect their charges, even if they're willing.
But there is something absurd in my hectoring you about your own country's politics and I will stop. What kicked off my original post was journalistic malfeasance by the Guardian, which I do know something about.
Also, given the immense global catastrophe of Trumpism and our powerlessness in the face of it, I should be concentrating on more cheerful things.
What was accepted and the law in the UK, was neither universally accepted nor, in many places, the law in the US. This is, I suppose, why so many USians have been so put off by so many UKers on this subject. To us, the fringe view you're talking about is truly a fringe, a distraction frequently employed in bad faith to arrest the progress for the huge bulk of actually trans people trying to get to the status that is accepted and protected by law in the UK. For you, it's the only point of remaining contention, so it's of course what the controversy is solely about.
Small example. In the last legislative session here, our R majority sought to forbid medical interventions (including non-surgical, which are by far the vast bulk) for consenting teens with consenting parents. The only trans member of the legislature said, correctly, that this was going to lead to increased suicides, among populations already at risk, in a state with a suicide problem. She was hounded out of the legislature -- not expelled, but forced to sit in the hall outside the chamber. This is the actual state of affairs.
We're in the process of forbidding *transitioned* people from using their new gender on their ID, in their passports, in selecting which public washroom to use, etc. The ruling consensus in the US is that the entire enterprise is illegitimate from start to finish. And we see rhetoric of how outliers -- that one swimmer, this one abusive person -- are used to completely discredit the entire concept of transition. It goes quickly from your 'someone might be faking' to 'they're all faking.'
Politically, yes, any support of trans rights, including for transitioned people, a losing proposition in most places. As was opposing slavery. Or overt racial discrimination.
Oh, there's so much to unpack in these arguments. I see the US left's position on these things as the apogee of its blindness to class-based oppressions in favour of identity-based ones. The freedom of a nice middle class person like LK to transition in San Francisco is bought at the cost of the -- largely PoC -- women who are raped in prisons there by males who have declared themselves females. I don't think that's justice or liberation. The last time we argued about this you said you thought that US authorities were too sensible to put intact men into women's prisons (I paraphrase). It turns out you were wrong, at least in California.
I don't make the mistake of supposing that the Republicans give a shit about those victims either. Anything you say about the nastiness and cruelty of the other side I will believe. But that's just the state of US politics at the moment. But since things are as they are, it was an avoidable mistake to embrace policies and slogans which made Trump's re-election more likely. That was a catastrophe which -- from here -- outweighs any other.
Dealing with the analogies to slavery and the civil rights bill will require coffee, which I have not had yet for fear of waking the dog.
I'm surprised and saddened that prison officials are failing to protect their charges so spectacularly. One hopes that prison assaults (including threats) are appropriately punished and perpetrators appropriately isolated.
I still don't think embrace of the extreme position you outline is particularly widespread, but then the calumny that Biden refused to enforce any immigration laws -- while deporting a huge number of people -- got spread and believed by people who wanted to believe the worst.
If Californian prisons are anything like British ones -- overcrowded and understaffed -- I doubt the prison officials are able to protect their charges, even if they're willing.
But there is something absurd in my hectoring you about your own country's politics and I will stop. What kicked off my original post was journalistic malfeasance by the Guardian, which I do know something about.
Also, given the immense global catastrophe of Trumpism and our powerlessness in the face of it, I should be concentrating on more cheerful things.
I see that California moved Tremaine Carroll to a men's prison. She's being charged with the assaults at the women's prison.