By Ann Rostow–
Let’s Go Democrats
What the hell, you guys! We have just experienced one of the most ambitious and successful Presidential terms in our lifetimes. We have weathered a pandemic that should have sent us into a sustained recession, but instead, our policies have saved jobs and businesses without much damage, if you’re not counting a little higher price for eggs. While the rest of the world wrestled with massive inflation, we have kept ours in check. Our stock market is hitting record highs and our unemployment rate is the lowest in decades. Wages are rising, we have lowered the cost of some significant health care services. We have embarked on massive infrastructure projects. Our troops are out of Afghanistan, although it was a horrible withdrawal, and we are juggling a number of international crises that would explode in our faces if the MAGA right were in charge.
Yet our leader appears to be a doddering old man, ten years too old to drive a car let alone run the country! Hey, I said “appears to be. “I personally don’t think Biden has dementia. He is tired, 81, and driving himself too hard, but I assume he has the mental fire power to carry us forward for another four years. That said, who cares what the real story might be when the fragility on display means we may well lose the election? Not only could we lose, but we could lose to a frigging maniac!
I read one article that said a large number of aides and consultants were involved with Biden’s debate preparation. I can’t remember the total but it was dozens of people, as I recall, an insane circus that could not possibly have served the ultimate goal of winning the damned debate. Plus, I guess I hadn’t realized that Biden went back and forth to Europe and Los Angeles in the days prior, zipping around with his entourage like a bunch of rich teenagers on a gap year. What were people thinking?
But the only way we can switch nominees at this stage, obviously, is if Biden himself drops out of the race. As I write, he does not seem so inclined. Therefore, can we all stop with the speculation about how many Democrats might dance on the head of a pin and which ones we prefer? Our only hope is to somehow pull this faltering ticket back into contention. Hand wringing is not helpful, not even mine.
Revisionist History
By the way, speaking of the record-setting stock market, I just saw one of those bizarre commercials for a gold brokerage, in which a young (MAGA) father decides to buy gold for “security” in the middle of this “disastrous economy.” Fine, buy some gold, you doofus, and pay a commission to whatever brokerage was responsible for the commercial. But meanwhile, the “disastrous economy” has seen the S&P 500 rise 60 percent in the last five years and the Dow improve from about31,000 to nearly 40,000 from 2021 to 2024.At least the bitcoin bros manage to make some money. The gold bugs, less so. It’s a commodity, not a treasury bond.
Oh, and on another irrelevant note, have you been reading about lesbian lawyer Roberta Kaplan of E. Jean Carroll fame? The woman is reportedly a horrendous manager, berating her underlings and creating such a hostile environment that her law partners kicked her out of her own firm!
Hey, I have no idea, but I do believe The New York Times, so I guess she’s a real piece of work. What annoyed me, however, was that all the news reports described Kaplan as a leader in the fight for marriage equality.
Woah, Nellie! Here’s one of the rare times when I count myself as an expert having focused on the legal fight for marriage equality as a reporter since the mid-1990s. That’s a quarter of a century, everyone, and Kaplan had a cameo appearance in the early 2010s,when she represented Edith Windsor for a year or two in the lawsuit that led to the end of the Defense of Marriage Act. Good for her, but the Defense of Marriage Act was tottering by the time she pushed it over.
Kaplan had nothing to do with the laborious legal fight for same-sex marriage that started with Evan Wolfson’s activism, the Hawaii marriage trial, the Vermont domestic partnership fight led by Mary Bonauto and the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders(GLAD), the fight for marriage in Massachusetts(thanks again to Mary Bonauto and company) and the coordinated fight for marriage around the country run by GLAD, Lambda, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the ACLU.
Years and decades went by as I watched our legal advocates plan long-term strategy and our political activists battle the right-wing campaigns of the late 1990s and early 2000s.Trust me. This was a period of time when, unlike now, I used to call the notable GLBT lawyers on a weekly basis. I used to read legal briefs and follow every minor detail. I was an obsessive youngish reporter, whereas now I’m, well, you know. Just an aging scribe relying on my vague memories.
Kaplan had little to nothing to do with any of these sustained efforts. She’s a flamboyant celebrity lawyer and she latched onto an excellent vehicle to challenge the Defense of Marriage Act. But that case, and cases that followed in state courts and in the High Court, were originally engineered by Lambda, the NCLR, the ACLU, and the coalition that remarkably coalesced over a period of two decades to win our legal challenges. I am not a lawyer, but guys, I watched them do this, and Kaplan dropped in at the last moment to take advantage of an historic opportunity.
Hey! She’s on our side and I’ve never had anything against her, but let’s not exaggerate her impact on the fight for equality because it was basically zero.
Wake Me Up in Four Years
There are several anti-trans rulings by various right-wing federal judges this week, at least three of them, which leaves me with a dilemma. Do I throw up my hands and write vaguely about how “lots of judges are undermining trans civil rights?” Or do I buckle down and give you a breakdown of all three, obliging me to actually read a bunch of opinions, sort them out in my own mind, and then produce some kind of coherent account for your benefit even as I suspect many of you are skipping ahead in search of a more accessible topic? Or is there a middle ground? I think there is!
All of these rulings (in Florida, Kansas, and Mississippi) are challenging the idea that “sex discrimination” includes sexual orientation and gender identity bias.
I won’t completely rehash it, but you recall that, in 2020, the High Court ruled that Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination in the workplace applied to gays and trans people. Since then, our adversaries have been insisting in various courts that this expansive definition does not apply to sex discrimination in any other instance of federal law.
Sex discrimination is also outlawed under Title IX in education, under Obamacare in healthcare, and in many other areas that I can’t think of at this moment. Does that mean that gay and trans bias are also outlawed in these instances? Logic says yes; conservative courts say no!
All of these court challenges will wind up first in front of federal appellate courts, and eventually in front of the High Court once more. Given that Neil Gorsuch authored the6–3 2020 Title VII decision, how on Earth could the Supreme Court subsequently rule that there’s some kind of big legal difference between “sex discrimination” on the job and “sex discrimination” in education?
Pessimistic analysts say they’ll find a way. It’s noteworthy that Gorsuch himself inexplicably said that the Title VII ruling had no implications for other areas of transgender rights: “We do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind,” he wrote four years ago. “Whether other policies and practices might or might not qualify as unlawful discrimination or find justifications under other provisions of Title VII are questions for future cases, not these.” I have no idea what Justice Gorsuch meant by these distinctions, but I assume we will find out.
Knives Out
In other transgender news, the Biden administration has come out against surgery for transgender minors, even as the Justice Department is fighting for transgender youth healthcare in a case that was just accepted for review by the U.S. Supreme Court. (That case, out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, will be argued in the session that begins in October.)
I’ve been torn on the subject of transgender youth healthcare, in part because experts in Europe believe the jury is out on the near and long-term effects. These aren’t conservative experts; they are government health professionals who are generally in favor of trans rights. My main objection is to the black-or-white political battlefield we are forced to traverse in the United States. This is complicated, not cut and dried.
And so here we are again in a “right-orwrong” framework. Surgeries for transgender boys and girls are very rare and mostly limited to top surgeries for trans boys. Guys, can you just wait until you’re 18? What if you’ve had puberty blockers and/or hormones? Can you hang on one or two more years? Honestly, it doesn’t seem that crazy for the administration to take surgery off the table as we defend blockers and hormones in court.
But here’s Allison Scott of the Campaign for Southern Equality, a nonprofit organization supporting LGBTQ people in the South. The Biden position, “is a troubling concession to the right-wing assault on transgender Americans, falling for their false narratives about surgical care and betraying a commitment to equality and trust in the medical community,” she said in a statement.
“There is no justification for restricting transgender youth’s access to the very same care that many cisgender youth receive every year, “she went on. “That’s literally the definition of discrimination. We demand the Biden Administration retract this thoughtless statement and work to undo its damage.”
Since when do “many cisgender youth” receive top or bottom surgery? What the hell is she talking about? What are the “false narratives” about surgical care we are falling for?
Over at the Human Rights Campaign, President Kelley Robinson had more criticism. “The Biden administration is flat wrong on this. It’s wrong on the science and wrong on the substance.” Again, I don’t know that the “science” agrees that surgery is appropriate for kids under the age of 18. There’s no right or wrong on the science here.
“No parent should ever be put in the position where they and their doctor agree on one course of action, supported by the overwhelming majority of medical experts, but the government forbids it,” Robinson added. But “the government” doesn’t let 17-yearoldsdrink, drive, or vote, even though they may be well equipped to join their parents in all these activities. And don’t tell me the “overwhelming majority of medical experts “thinks surgery is imperative at 16 or 17 and a trans boy can’t possibly wait until 18 to have his breasts removed.
I could be wrong. But why can’t we talk about this stuff?
Mom!
I see that I’ve exhausted my space and time without sharing an important alert from One Million Moms! Our latest warning concerns a Disney series called Star Wars: The Acolyte, which “pushes the LGBTQ agenda and witchcraft.” Released last month, One Million Moms informs us that the Acolyte uses the Force to “create children from lesbians.” Sounds easier than IVF.
The Moms are also pissed at Bounce dryer sheets, which feature a TV ad that mentions “the insinuated but obvious profane” expression “it’s the Sheet!”
As far as I know, a word or phrase is “profane” if it disparages religion in some way, which is not true of the implied expletive, let alone “sheet.” Where, I wonder, do the Moms find the various exemplars of what they consider bad taste, sacrilege or promiscuity? Do they have paid TV watchers? Do informants submit offensive clips? Inquiring minds want to know.
arostow@aol.com
GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on July 11, 2024
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