By Ann Rostow–
Living in the Moment
As I write this, the election results have not been announced, even by my favorite reporters and friends at MSNBC. So, um, what can I say? Literally.
I’m very optimistic, for some reason, but I can’t go blathering on about the proficiency of the Harris campaign when you, dear Reader, already know whether or not she’s been elected. Nor can I speculate on our near-term fate under a Trump restoration when you, dear Reader, already know whether or not he won. As far as the presidency, the courts, and the next four years, there’s nothing I can write about. I don’t even know who’s going to win control over the House, and although I think I know who will run the Senate, I can’t tell whether or not the GOP-controlled branch of Congress will be a gadfly for President Harris, or a demonic sidekick to President Trump. Or who knows! Maybe the polls were all wrong and the Democrats can keep Chuck Schumer in charge.
Making my sad life even more difficult is the fact that I’d like to spend the entire day watching commentary and calculating things like which states will announce results at what moment. For example, I’m watching news with the subtitles and no sound right now and I keep seeing random-looking counts of how many people from each state voted early. But since I have no idea how many people in whichever state are registered to vote, I can’t determine the significance of these numbers. They’re meaningless! The Wyoming early vote was 89,767, I see on my screen. So what! I can’t put that number in context. The same news stations, like MSNBC, go out of their way to drone on about something that we all understand, like the electoral college, but toss around data points with no explanation.
If I wasn’t on a deadline, I could google the Wyoming electorate and be able to pontificate on the possible implications of the early vote for the edification of my wife and my friend Denise, who is visiting. Instead, I’m forced to let them down.
Oh, before I move on, here’s a pet peeve: It’s those interviews with unknown people walking down the street. Who cares what they think?
“And here’s Leticia to give us a sense of what the voters in Battleground Pennsylvania are thinking. Leticia?”
“Thanks Mike. I’m here with Melissa Morris, who is still torn between former president Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Melissa? What are your main issues?”
“I don’t like some of things he says. I think he goes too far. But he’s good on the economy. I don’t think she knows anything. She just smiles and laughs but she’s never done anything in her life.”
“Thanks, Melissa. Melissa is a wife and a mom here in Harrisburg. Mike?”
“Interesting viewpoint! This election is on a knife-edge right now but there are still some votes up for grabs. When we come back, we’ll be having a word with presidential historian Michael Beschloss.” (Cue commercial for Medicare Advantage advisors.)
Banished!
A few minutes have passed. My wife returned from the grocery store and put the volume up on the TV, so I’ve gone to the living room. I can hear it, though. Right now, Steve Kornacki is excitedly telling us what time the polls close and when results are expected. I like Steve, but there are times when he dives too deeply into, let’s say, the trend in GOP voting in Important Bellwether County over the last six elections that he scrawls illegibly on his whiteboard with a magic marker. Sometimes he’ll draw a circle around a particular number, which blots out one of the other unreadable numbers. Then, when he’s finally done, one of the anchors will thank him and shake her head ruefully and join her fellow hosts in wondering how on Earth they could get through Election Day without Steve, “who’s been up since six this morning!”
Note: my new position finds me right next to a large tray of Halloween candy. You think forecasting the election was hard; have any of you ever come up with a correct estimate for Halloween candy? We used to throw the excess into a junk drawer with all the paper clips and batteries, and at times, that same candy found its way into future Halloween “treat” bowls. Because kids just like candy, right? It’s like your dog, who will happily eat the remains of your dinner or something you can’t even identify that you found in the fridge. Kids will eat whatever candy you give them. Or at least they’ll put your candy in their bags. Maybe they try a bite when they get home, spit it out, and call for their mothers in tears.
My mother lived in a somewhat remote house that never attracted any trick or treaters. But she still bought dark chocolate every year, basically for her own consumption. I have too many kids every year to try that, and I overestimate and buy too much weird candy. I just ate a “fun size” pack of M&Ms and a gross red “Twizzler,” but I drew the line at the “blue raspberry airheads,” mainly because I have no idea what they are. (I just opened the package after I wrote that line and it was a disgusting gummy sheet of something blue with a nasty taste.)
To Block or Not to Block?
I do have some actual news this week. I have
some appellate court arguments on the ongoing attacks on Biden’s interpretation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of (maybe) 1972. And the Supreme Court also announced they would hear arguments on Tennessee’s anti-transgender health law on December 4. In the end, the Court will pass judgment only on the Equal Protection aspect of the health care ban and will not rule on the question of whether the law tramples on constitutionally protected parental rights.
Tennessee’s ban on health care includes a halt to the type of puberty blockers that are given to kids who are reaching puberty too soon. The blockers will still be available to these patients, but they will be outlawed for transgender kids. That’s mainly where the Equal Protection argument against the law fits in, and that’s the main basis for the Justice Department’s challenge. There was another challenge to the law, however, brought by parents of transgender children. That challenge, which was not accepted by the Court, included the parental rights case that now becomes irrelevant since this issue is not included in the federal government’s lawsuit.
The case against Tennessee will be argued by Chase Strangio, the co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project and the lead lawyer for the rejected case. A year ago, when the parents’ High Court petition was filed by the ACLU, Strangio spoke to law dork Chris Geidner, who had told him that many of his readers were afraid of taking this issue to the conservative Court.
“I would say, ‘Of course, you’re afraid. It’s scary right now.’ It’s going to be scary if it gets to the Supreme Court, although there’s no guarantee of what they’ll do. But it’s also really scary to allow losses to pile up and let them stand.”
That said, Strangio noted that the question of youth transgender health was headed to the High Court one way or another, and the Sixth Circuit 2–1 opinion that upheld the Tennessee law was particularly flawed.
And as a trans man, Strangio felt particularly committed to the fight. “I think it matters that trans people are centrally involved in these decisions,” he told Geidner. “ … because we have a singular and visceral understanding of how critical this healthcare is. I will speak for myself, and not other trans lawyers involved, but there’s no universe in which my career would be what it was without this healthcare. And I would give anything to have had access to it earlier.”
He continued, “And so for those of us—I’m 41 years old—of my generation, who are seeing a younger generation have access to care earlier, only to have it ripped away by misinformation and horrible untruths spoken about trans life and trans bodies, it propels me to fight back and to fight with everything we have.”
On the Other Hand
Meanwhile, on the same subject, we recently learned of a Los Angeles-based doctor who did a lengthy research project on about 100 trans kids who took puberty blockers. The doctor, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, concluded that blockers didn’t make much of a difference over a two-year period, but then decided not to report her federally funded results, fearing that they might be used as anti-trans weapons by rightwing politicians.
Somehow I “forgot” about this story, which doesn’t fit neatly into our valiant LGBT agenda. Indeed, I’ve been having a hard time reporting on the scientific side of the youth trans health story because, as the author of the extensive British study leader explained, we really don’t have long-range studies available. Olson-Kennedy began her study in 2015, but she only recruited 95 kids and then she followed them for two years. She saw no particular change for good or ill, which kind of matched some other studies, including the one commissioned in 2020 by the National Health Service England and run by Hillary Cass. England had been replying on puberty blockers for some time, but limited their use this year following the Cass Report.
The blockers reportedly have some negative side effects, including possible bone loss and possible problems with fertility. These risks would be manageable as long as the outcome was positive. We’ve all been watching the cheery singing and dancing as a happy-sounding narrator recites a terrifying list of possible downsides of whatever drug they’re hawking.
But if the blockers aren’t helping, it’s going to be harder to justify their use. That said, who knows how these kids would have fared without blockers? Imagine developing breasts if you’re a guy, or muscles and facial hair if you’re a girl. It’s a complex area, and the exaggerated disdainful uneducated rhetoric of America’s conservative politicians doesn’t help.
The Adventures of Bostock
I think I might save the Title IX litigation for another time, because we know that this is another legal merry-go-round. Back in 2020, Justice Gorsuch led the 6–3 Court to rule in favor of the premise that “discrimination because of sex” inherently includes a ban on sexual orientation discrimination and gender bias. That Bostock decision seemed to add LGBT to every federal law that banned sex discrimination. As such, Biden’s administration clarified a number of laws and policies, including Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination in public schools and universities.
Even though this seems to reflect the Court’s majority opinion in a fairly recent case, everyone and his brother on the right is now trying to toss Biden’s various trans-friendly efforts into judicial limbo or worse. That’s why we’ll have many more of these frustrating “Bostock rejections” popping up in these pages.
Can I Hold It?
But not now! Because now I have to mention that One Million Moms hates the commercial that shows parents lying on their bed looking at an iPhone, while their frowning teenaged kids listen to their pillow talk on the other side of the door.
The Moms complain that the parents’ discussion is deliberately provocative, leading the kids to think they’re either having sex or talking about it. Here are the key exchanges that have disturbed our friends.
“I have a surprise for you.” “Oh yes, please.” “Feast your eyes on this.” “Oh, that’s sexy!” “Feels so new.” “I want to feel this feeling again and again.” “Can I hold it?” “How bad do you want to hold it?” “I am not going to beg, but pretty please.”
First, in my memory, the husband also notes that “it’s glowing!” Second, it’s the husband that wants to “hold it,” not the wife. And third, the entire conversation between the parents is spoken in a matter-of-fact voice devoid of the slightest sexual undertones. These people aren’t having sex. What single item would the husband ask to hold? What would glow? It’s not clear what they’re talking about from outside the bedroom, but their kids are teenagers and likely to be disgusted by anything they do anyway. I don’t like this commercial either, but only because it doesn’t add up.
Okay then! The bar’s open and the excitement’s about to begin. Sorry for the haphazard column. See you on the other side.
arostow@aol.com
GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on November 7, 2024
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