I don’t know why I was born transgender, but I have no secret agenda. I want my child to live in a world where they are safe and free to be exactly who they are.

Fewer than 1 in 3 people report personally knowing someone who is transgender. Yet the American public is saturated with viral social media videos and political news stories, largely generated by a well-funded coalition of organizations long dedicated to making it as difficult as possible for LGBTQ+ people to go about their daily lives.

These organizations proudly advocate for the abuse of LGBTQ+ young people through the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy, and they have celebrated their role in influencing Texas to “investigate” parents who’re doing their level best to support their transgender kids.

They’ve succeeded in generating national debates about excluding transgender kids from school sports, banning medically necessary health care and even prohibiting restroom usage – all under a guise of “protecting young people.” But these debates are largely missing the point.

Transgender people are our friends, family members and neighbors. They work in the cubicle next to us at the office, and they pray next to us in our houses of worship.

….

  • Emerald@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Where I am, I don’t have rights to medical care. There are also numerous laws in progress that aim to remove the rights for trans people to participate in sports and use the bathroom.

    • Doxatek
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      8 months ago

      Since you mentioned sports. I was wondering your view point on how it should be handled in some cases. I’m not at all against it but think it could be tricky when dealing with some sports if someone is male to female transitioning after puberty. In some cases there’s no gray area such as when the world chess organization banned transgender women like what in the fuck. It’s not physical it’s a thinking game I don’t even know why they would separate genders anyway unless to just be sexist and imply one is smarter than the other.

      • femtech@midwest.social
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        8 months ago

        Trans woman here, i think the government should stay out of it and if an organization would ban a cis woman for having PCOS then that’s “ok”. i think they should get rid of that rule and allow all women on HRT to join but at least it wouldn’t be transphobic.

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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        8 months ago

        I don’t even know why they would separate genders anyway unless to just be sexist and imply one is smarter than the other.

        They don’t separate genders. There’s chess and then there’s women’s chess. As in there are tournaments for women and tournaments for everyone.

        Women’s chess is easier to compete and win in, and that’s likely why they banned transgender women from it - for fear that some AMAB 2nd rate player might declare themselves a woman to win in women’s tournaments and not wanting to navigate the minefield of how to define what a “woman” is in a way that prevents that but doesn’t piss of the LGBTQ+ crowd. Easier to rip the bandaid off and be called a bigot for a short time now than have months of discussions that involve you being called a bigot over and over resulting in being called a bigot essentially no matter what definition you use.

        And before it comes up, I’m not claiming women’s chess is easier because men are smarter than women or something like that but because women’s chess is a smaller pool of competition - it’s easier to be the big fish the smaller the pond you’re in. For example Judit Polgar is probably the #1 women’s chess player of all time, she even beat Kasparov in a game at one point (being the first woman to ever beat a #1 ranked player in a game). Measure her against everyone and not just against women and she goes from being a superstar to merely being very, very good. From best woman in the world by a healthy margin for literally decades to #8 overall at her very peak.

        Interestingly, basically all professional sports in the US use a similar setup, where there’s a league that technically admits persons of either sex if they can compete at the required level and a league that only admits women. Just a few years ago a woman tried out for the NFL (and was injured after just a few practice kicks). There were talks that Britney Griner considered trying to be the first woman in the NBA, but went WNBA and set a game record and tied a career record in her debut game - she’d rather be a star in the WNBA than second-string in the NBA. I mean, before she got busted for domestic violence and later for drugs in Russia.

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 months ago

          i like how your argument is “well it exists because otherwise it’s only marginally worse.”

          If i had the chance to take #8 globally, across the ENTIRE world, that’s incredible, fuck it, i’m done, my life is complete. I wouldn’t complain about that. You can also break out the statistics, you don’t have to break out the players, that’s another equally valid way to construe this. Simply have different leader boards for different people.

          I’ve never really been a fan of different competitive pools, if the entire point is competition, make it competitive. If you want to look at subsets, that’s trivial to do in most cases.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            8 months ago

            If i had the chance to take #8 globally, across the ENTIRE world, that’s incredible, fuck it, i’m done, my life is complete. I wouldn’t complain about that.

            Sure, but the point was the comparison between the two pools and how much the size of the pool impacts apparent performance - the same player with the same stats was #8 in the general chess pool for a time at her peak but was #1 in women’s chess by a fairly large margin for literally decades (basically from the end of the 80’s forward). She’s been inactive since 2015, but she still holds the highest peak ELO rating in women’s chess of all time (and is the only woman to ever cross 2700).

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              8 months ago

              but was #1 in women’s chess by a fairly large margin for literally decades (basically from the end of the 80’s forward). She’s been inactive since 2015, but she still holds the highest peak ELO rating in women’s chess of all time (and is the only woman to ever cross 2700).

              and my point is that these stats wouldn’t change, because you would be sorting them exactly the same, the difference would just be your competition is no longer one party only. Though i suppose you could make the argument that having a womens league in the event that your female league size is literally 1/10 the male league. Seems like a skill issue to me though.

    • 🇦🇺𝕄𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕕𝕔𝕣𝕠𝕔𝕕𝕚𝕝𝕖@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      If ur in the us u never had a right to medical care. I’m in aus and currently most if not all gender affirming surgery is classified as cosmetic surgery and not covered my Medicare (nation health) if I want to physically modify my body that is also not covered seems pretty goddamn equal to me. Here’s the dumbed down flowchart: brain doesn’t like physical appearance of body -> brain wants that changed to feel better about itself -> not covered regardless of reason. Explain how this is anything but equality? Should I be protesting my right to have the government pay for me to get a bigger dick?

      And the whole sports thing men have physical advances in many sports that’s just science not all of those advantages are removed by being trans. Therefore it is not fare to have them compete against women. Explain how someone with an advantage from having been born as a male competing against people who can never attain that advantage is equality?

      And the bathroom thing males are statistically more violent and prone to committing sexual violence this study found there is no appreciable difference in these actions post surgery therefore by putting trans women in women’s bathrooms the statistics say no there is a reason men and women’s bathrooms are separate being trans doesn’t change the math.

      • RedSeries@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        :claps fins and barks like a sea lion:

        You literally overlook how things like Viagra and estrogen are prescribed as gender affirming care and covered by Medicare to cis folks all the time!

        :bark bark:

        Why do cis folk get to have gender affirming care but not trans folks?

        :slaps fins, barks again:

        Your limp dick or low testosterone is god telling you not to breed, why should I subsidize your sex life?

      • kase@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I don’t get your point about gender affirming care. I mean, let’s say that the government punished doctors who prescribed medication for lowering blood pressure. Yes, you could say that it’s “equal rights” because no one is allowed to have the medication. But like, that still doesn’t make the law okay. And people with hypertension are still being unfairly denied access to healthcare, since the type that they need has been singled out. Does that make sense?

        I also have a question regarding gendered bathrooms. If I understand, you believe that there should be men’s and women’s bathrooms, and that trans women should be required to use “men’s” bathrooms. I was curious, where would you choose to place trans masculine individuals (trans men or NB)?