By Ann Rostow–
Hear No Evil, See No Evil
I already told you that I had decided not to think about Trump or politics until after the inauguration, affording myself a pleasant holiday season free of stomach-churning news and dystopic speculations. Well, I’ve kept to that, and I’ve even gone further. No more obsessive MSNBC watching. I skim through the “national” section of The New York Times, which I still get delivered because a) I am a baby boomer, b) I understand more when I have access to the whole paper, and c) I always do the “two not touch” puzzle, which is not available online.
Now, I no longer ace the weekly Times news quiz. Where once I was awash with current events trivia, I have become mystified and ignorant. The less I read, the less I want to read. It’s like going on one of those diets where you can’t eat or drink “X.” Once the diet is over, you can’t stand “X” anymore.
This is just to warn you that my observations may be lacking a certain je ne sais quoi.
Pardon?
Snippets of information still reach me. The guy Trump lined up for Defense Secretary is a falling down drunk who can’t keep his hands to himself and uses administrative money to fund parties and trips. The president of South Korea has declared martial law because he can’t work with the opposition-led legislature. And not only did Biden pardon his son Hunter, but also a whole bunch of Democrats whined about how he (Biden) was breaking a promise.
Really? Does anyone think Hunter would have been facing relentless investigations if his father wasn’t a powerful politician? And does anyone think the Trumpies in the incoming Justice Department won’t start a whole new round of Hunter bashing, this time with new “evidence” that none of us have seen before?
Biden sat back when Hunter was facing several criminal prosecutions; lying about addiction on a gun sales document, and failing to file taxes during a period of heavy drug use. Hunter returned the gun after 11 days and paid back the IRS in full. Still, his father expects Trump’s FBI Director, possibly Kash Patel, to initiate new attacks targeting Biden via his son. Of course the president pardoned Hunter! I’m not sure exactly what Joe “promised,” but these are exceptional circumstances that demand action from a father.
What bugs me are the pundits who criticized Biden for his decision. No, I didn’t read their explanations, but in the context of a sadistic Trump-led American government, you can no longer condemn Democrats for minor missteps.
The Dead-End Dynamics of Transgender Fights
By the time you read this, the Supreme Court will have begun to hear oral arguments in the challenge to Tennessee’s law against transgender medical care for kids and teens. The case is centered on the Equal Protection Clause, since many of the banned trans treatments are still available for cisgender kids with cisgender medical needs. Is this a constitutional violation? Or does the state have a good public policy reason for the separate standards?
Let’s take a step back. You saw how the political campaigns we just experienced included crazy talk about trans kids and adults. The Republicans’ 30-second ads featured hefty boys bashing cute little girls on the soccer field. Trump warned that you could send your son to school one day and (surprise!) your “daughter” comes home to you. Vice President Harris was quoted out of context in a clip advocating for transgender prisoners to receive something, maybe transition surgery? It was a collection of exaggerations that made us look dangerously out of step with the rest of the country. And because it was based on the truth, it was effective and we had a hard time responding without looking transphobic ourselves.
In late November, Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post titled: “I’m Done With Democratic Purity Tests.” Usually, an editor writes the headlines so I won’t label that a direct quote from Moulton, but the gist of his opinion gets to the root of our transgender dilemma. As I’ve written many times, as long as we are trapped in a black-and-white fight over a complicated issue, we will not make progress.
Moulton wrote that he recently announced that he does not want his two daughters to have to play sports with biological boys. Well, no one wants that. I don’t consider most transgirls to be biological boys, but the question of when and under what circumstances transgender girls can join a team is not a yes or a no, and it can’t be answered without figuring out many factors: How old are these girls? Has the transgirl gone through male puberty? Any hormones at issue? Are we talking about having fun on the playground, or training for a state track meet?
That said, there should be room for a proven champion of trans rights to make a comment like Moulton’s. Instead, the movement watchdogs came down on him as if he had questioned marriage equality.
“The blowback, which was swift,” wrote Moulton in the Post, “included the chair of a local Democratic committee calling me a Nazi ‘cooperator’ and about 200 people gathering in front of my office to protest a sentence. My unimpeachable record of standing up for the civil rights of all Americans, including the trans community, was irrelevant.”
This is wrong. Save the Nazi accusations for some of those white power types defending Confederate statues. As for the 200 protesters, can they not find a truly evil target in this day and age?
“What has amazed me, though,” Moulton continued, “is what’s happening behind the scenes. Countless Democrats have reached out, from across the party—to thank me. I’ve heard it again and again, from union leaders to colleagues in the House and Senate; from top people from the Obama, Biden, and Harris teams to local Democrats stopping me on the street; from fellow dads to many in the LGBTQ+ community: ‘Thank you for saying that!’”
And don’t be confused. These are not secretly transphobic people. They are people, like me, for example, who want to have serious investigations about transgender health, who want to understand at what age parental responsibility for a kid’s medical needs should give way to the child or teenager’s own sense of self. What kind of tests should doctors provide to help the process? Should it make a difference if a child has spoken up about his or her gender from toddlerhood? How about a girl who decides she’s a transboy at age twelve? Is that gender dysphoria? Or fear of becoming a woman and/or a sexual being?
It’s time for the thought police in our own community to ease up and give us the flexibility to have a real debate on some aspects of trans rights. We want to be able to oppose irreversible surgery for children, without being called a Nazi by our own allies. We want to ask about new, more cautious trans health policies instituted by the health authorities in Norway and England. Why the hesitation? What have the European scientists determined?
No, we’re not going to ban transwomen, like incoming Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride, from using the ladies’ room. But should a woman who went through puberty as a male be allowed to swim on an Olympic team? Maybe, maybe not!
By the way, McBride was most gracious in announcing that she would abide by the House majority’s anti-trans rules, but does that mean she has to join the guys in the men’s room? Or perhaps she will have to make a long trek to some single use facility. I, for one, hope she uses the men’s room and stands right next to the urinals putting on her makeup.
Finally, a big part of the reason transgender issues are complicated is that we do not have much of a historical perspective. Just a couple of decades ago, it was rare to encounter transgender men and women. The gay community wanted to drop the T and promote GLB civil rights legislation that would cover gays and lesbians but stay clear of the hot potato transgender community. Some transgenders weren’t even gay, people said! Others seemed confused over the difference between drag queens and transgender women.
In this century, we started to move towards general acceptance. Do you remember when someone asked Donald Trump if Caitlyn Jenner could use the ladies’ room in Trump Tower back in 2016? He said yes, of course. “I’d have no problem with that” (I paraphrase). But in the last few years, as more GenZ kids have decided they are transboys, and as GenZers in general don’t think of themselves as straight, it seems as if fear has set in across the land. What if everyone changes their gender? What if anyone can use any bathrooms? What if everyone turns gay? We have to confront this fear, but we have to confront it with logic, science, and compassion—not by calling our opponents Nazis, let alone our friends.
The bottom line is that real analysis of transgender development is so new that we don’t have the longitudinal studies to inform us. Are puberty blockers good or bad? If the best research involves 56 people from three years ago (and I made that up), we really can’t answer that question.
What Might Have Been
Here are a few of the headlines that I am skipping over this week: “The nonstop gay sex party on the Mexico City subway,” “Ohio governor requires trans to use birth-sex facilities at schools, universities,” “Walmart, nation’s largest retailer, dumps HRC, DEI and trans merchandise … Joins Ford, Toyota, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Home Depot, Jack Daniel’s, Lowe’s, Tractor Supply, Molson Coors,” and one of my favorites: “U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall introduces bill to define male and female.”
“In human beings,” Marshall wrote, “there are two—and only two—sexes: male and female … . In no case is an individual’s sex determined by stipulation or self-identification.” I had no idea you could take a personal opinion and enact it into law. What’s next? “Resolved: In the United States education department, public schools will adopt the following premise: ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty that is all we know on earth, and all we need to know.’ Failure to promote this lesson will carry a misdemeanor charge.”
But the one headline I cannot just skip is a holiday recipe for “Chocolate Lamb Chile.” I know this is the season for recipes. I have received dozens, many with cranberries or yams or ideas for leftovers. Many involve cookies.
But “Chocolate Lamb Chili?” No, no, no, no. Lamb deserves special treatment. You don’t just chop it into chunks and throw it into a pot with beans, odd spices, and chocolate. You just don’t. You don’t put any chocolate into a lamb dish, period. And I really don’t like the chili idea, with or without chocolate. The spices in chili take over a dish, and would overpower the subtle taste of lamb.
Plus, it’s one of these deliberately artful dishes, fashioned for those people who can’t pull off a simple rack of lamb or roasted chicken. Hey! Let’s try jumbo shrimp with persimmon and soybean paste topped with sweet beaten egg whites. No one will accuse you of screwing up these dishes because no one has tried them before. And no, it’s not as if I myself have mastered the classics. It’s just that I myself have mastered eating them.
arostow@aol.com
GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on December 5, 2024
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