I AM LGBTQ, a gay man but I am not transgender. Just as I would never, and have never figured I had any business telling Lesbians about their lives, I would never tell Transgender People or Bi-sexuals about theirs and "how far" they should go in identifying and asserting their needs and asserting their rights. I don't think I'd much advise other Gay men on that, not without having some good basis in rigorous evidence for doing that. A good example of that is my frequent and generally not taken advice to not practice promiscuity to start with or, barring that advice not taken, not having unprotected anal sex. The prevalence of that among, especially, younger gay men today, even those who remember the horror of the worst years of the AIDS pandemic - which is kept at bay by research and the development of medication for the incredibly rapidly adapting and changing HIV virus, RESEARCH WHICH TRUMP, MUSK AND RFK ARE STOPPING* - even that has not changed that rather obviously health and life risking habit. Just as the legal proscription against men having sex with other men didn't change it, in fact the consequences of making it impossible Gay Men to have open, faithful marriages is one of the major contributors to the development of those habits.
Republican-fascists, the corporate media that wants to keep them in power to profit its owners and the grotesquely well compensated "talent" they get to propagandize and lie, have fixated on Transgendered People as the current figures of overt hatred for the ignorant goons who make up their audiences and the Republican-fascist voting base. Which is bad enough, but we have media figures, most of them straight People who are all too willing to offer up Transgendered People's lives for whatever temporary gains they think we might get from doing that - My guess is that there will actually be no gain for the non-fascist side in doing that. I'm not talking about the relatively minor issue of Transgender athletes doing something that is, when you get down to it, no more important that playing checkers (my game, by the way) or any other board game. I don't see any reason for us to get involved with that, there is no right to play a game otherwise I'd assert the rights of those without talent for sports or those physically unable to play sports to do that. I would be a lot happier if all sports were entirely private, no public schools or universities being involved in them, no government money going to them. In which case there would be no legitimate interest in anyone regulating them - as indeed that fencing organization was able to point out when Mag Green's hate committee called them to testify before it. It's one of the great things about not taking government money, you can tell the government and politicians on the make to go blow it out their ass when they want to dictate to you. I say if Transgendered People want to participate in sports, they have every right to do that with People who want to have them play. They should think about organizing - I'd go into Womens' softball as a good example of that, by the way.
I'm talking about the real matters of rights which make a real difference in the lives of real People. The really important things about being whoever we are.
This piece posted today at National Catholic Reporter is a far better source with far more legitimate views on the matter, in fact the author. Maxwell Kuzma, takes issue with one of NCR's staff writers who has been pushing the idea that it's Democratic "elites" who care about Transgender equality, as if Transgender People - who I've read are, taken as a group, anything but "elite" were not the primary party of interest in the matter. It's like a discussion of the abolition movement that ignores Black People, those who escaped slavery and those held in slavery while concentrating entirely on the far, far fewer white abolitionists. I'll give you a big part of the article but you should read it at NCR's website.
The consensus among major medical associations—including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the Endocrine Society—is clear: Gender-affirming care is evidence-based, life-saving and developmentally appropriate when guided by professionals in collaboration with families. Trans medicine is not up for debate in peer-reviewed journals or at the bedside of compassionate doctors. But our health care is repeatedly dragged into bad-faith political attacks disguised as legal nuance.
I am a transgender man and lifelong Catholic who knows what it means to live at the intersection of faith, identity and marginalization. And I'm telling you: There is nothing neutral about legitimizing pseudoscience, stoking fear over trans existence, and invoking "reasonable concern" while transgender youth are under legislative siege.
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision upholding Tennessee's ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender teenagers sidesteps much of the scientific debate while implicitly legitimizing pseudoscience.
The case raised foundational constitutional questions — whether transgender people are a protected class, whether such bans violate equal protection, and whether the Constitution guarantees access to necessary medical care — but the Court avoided answering them. Instead, it carved out a narrow exception permitting medical discrimination based on "gender dysphoria," effectively greenlighting care bans nationwide and paving the way for broader restrictions.
Michael Sean Winters on June 20 engaged the scientific debate in an opinion piece that leans heavily on what is known as the Cass Report. Winters' column cites the Cass Report as though it offers a settled, comprehensive scientific assessment.
Never mentioned is that the Cass Review has been widely critiqued for its methodological flaws, biased framing, and the political context in which it was created. The seven systematic reviews by Cass demonstrated a remarkably weak evidence base underpinning current practice in the care of children with gender-related distress. Multiple international medical bodies have reaffirmed their support for gender-affirming care in the aftermath.
Yet Winters presents Cass as a corrective to what he calls "diagnostic overcrowding," suggesting that transgender youth are just troubled kids with other issues who need to be slowed down or stopped. This framing is medically inaccurate.
Winters invokes Sarah McBride's interview with The New York Times' Ezra Klein. McBride, the first transgender member of Congress, recently sat down with Klein for an interview that many well-meaning liberals shared as a model of measured trans advocacy. But as journalist and transgender woman Erin Reed pointed out in her sharp critique, the interview functioned more as political cover for those urging Democrats to retreat from trans rights than as a defense of our community.
McBride suggested that trans people may have "overplayed our hand," that we need to moderate our demands and meet the public "where they are." But justice has never waited for the public to catch up. If it had, interracial marriage would still be illegal in half the country.
I like Michael Sean Winters' articles about the things he knows most about, internal matters in the Catholic Church, for example, but he'd do well to pay attention to those who know the most about it and not the like of Ezra Klein and who the NYT will deem acceptable on the issue.
* I don't know if it will be in my lifetime or not but it is certain that a new highly infectious, pandemic viral disease spread by sex is going to happen. If the next one kills as many as HIV-AIDS has AND STILL IS, that potential is always there. As with AIDS, despite what stupid Americans have been led by the media to think, it can be spread by straight sex as easily as it has spread among Gay men. If the CDC and other scientific agencies are up and running and looking for it, a lot fewer People might die from it when it comes, no doubt as RFK jr. weaponizes the federal department that used to do that TO MAKE HIS FIRMS LAWSUITS AGAINST VACCINE MANUFACTURERS AND OTHERS MORE PROFITABLE FOR HIM, he doesn't give a damn for that, no more than Mitch McConnell does for those who will die as Republican-fascists throw them off of Medicaid and Medicare and insurance.
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