Delaware elected Sarah McBride to Congress. Representative McBride is transgender. Republican women are going nuts for fear that Rep. McBride might use the women’s bathroom. Or the women’s gym.
Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina has introduced a resolution to bar Rep. McBride from using the women’s facilities. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is aghast and insists on calling Rep. McBride “he” and “him.”
“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say,” [Nancy Mace] told reporters on Monday night. “I mean, this is a biological man.” She said that Ms. McBride “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms — period, full stop.”
The move by Ms. Mace, one of the more attention-seeking members of the House, was straight out of the political playbook Republicans have long employed on transgender issues, which they see as an effective wedge to divide Democrats….
…with Ms. McBride’s arrival in Washington, House Republicans for the first time have a transgender colleague to target in their own workplace…
House Majority Leader Mike Johnson was flummoxed. He said:
“A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. And a man cannot become a woman,” Mr. Johnson said. “That said, I also believe that we treat everyone with dignity. We can do and believe all of those things at the same time.”
McBride posted a comment on social media:
“Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness,” she wrote. “This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing…”
Marjory Taylor Greene was outraged:
“He’s a man,” Ms. Greene told reporters bluntly on Monday night. “He’s a biological male. So he is not allowed to use our women’s restrooms, our women’s gym, our locker rooms. He’s a biological male. He has plenty of places he can go.”
Ms. Greene said she was “fed up with the left shoving their sick trans ideology down our throats and invading our spaces and women’s sports.”
The Democrats defended their new colleague.
Who will stop her from using the women’s bathroom?
Having used many women’s bathrooms myself, I would like to point out that there are no open stalls. No one is naked. Privacy is certain.
What’s the deal?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
can’t come up with real policy? Divert attention while you rob the public. Most places I have been have a gender-neutral bathroom where anyone uses the potty. Most restrooms I have been in have doors on stalls. Most people I know will go out of their way to be hospitable to others. Where is the problem?
The problem is that it benefits various political personalities on the far right to be overtly cruel. Your trans cousin is not the problem. They want to be left alone or accepted on a personal basis and allowed a life. Your problem is the political personalities who want you to think about this while they rob you.
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Agreed. The real issue is what are we going to do to address the climate crisis. Putting our collective heads in the sand and appointing a climate change denier certainly won’t address it.
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You could also point out that more and more restaurants and such have unisex bathrooms and they are the only choice. What will Mace and Green do when confronted with that?
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VERY big difference when F/M single occupancy, lockable WC’s are converted to unisex from when F/M multiple stall/ multiple urinal restrooms are converted to all gender restrooms or start allowing gender non-passing trans people to access the restrooms of the opposite sex.
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I await the day when some district elects a beefy trans man and Congress is confronted with the reverse: if “she” is a “biological woman” who belongs in the women’s restroom?
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SImple solution: require all existing single occupancy, lockable WC’s to be unisex, which is already happening; build additional single occupancy WC’s to accommodate gender non-conforming people, regardless of their trans status; and maintain F/M single sex restrooms with multiple stalls and urinals to accommodate those who require dignity, privacy, safety when relieving themselves or when having to deal with menstruation, menstrual mishaps, miscarriages, & breast feeding….based on sex.
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Trans women are no threat to dignity, privacy or safety. I guarantee you have used a bathroom with a trans woman at least once in your life and never even noticed. Probably many times.
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Oh, BYW, the idea that women should nurse their babies in the bathroom is gross. Do you eat in the bathroom?
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Oh and egad I didn’t even see the thing about miscarriages. For pity sake, if you’re having a miscarriage in a public bathroom, trans women are the least of your problems.
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Rachel Dolezal…..what did everyone think of that and why?
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Way ahead of her time.
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I think that’s a bad analogy.
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Today, I feel like a delicate snowflake and I demand that you treat me as such! Tomorrow, I may feel like a mermaid and wish other special treatment.
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https://www.msnbc.com/nerding-out/watch/why-rachel-dolezal-is-not-like-transgender-people-466235459868
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Unwise politics by Mace. This personalizes it and looks nasty. Even Mike Johnson seems to be distancing himself from it.
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I think it NEEDS to get nasty. It’s about time this boil comes to a head and gets popped. The Dems will NEVER regain any ground as long as they keep supporting utter madness and nonsense.
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I think this makes Mace look silly. Good red meat for her gerrymandered base but not good in terms of the battle for the sympathy of the median voter.
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Mace wants to impress the voters in her district.
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From the mind of a man, it may seem silly, nasty, mean. Quite frankly, I’m TIRED of going into a bathroom where a 6’3″ man (covering up his 5 o’clock shadow with enough pancake makeup to cover a full body and wearing ill fitting and inappropriate clothing) is taking selfies in the mirror to post on social media. I’m TIRED of grown men appropriating womanhood in my dressing rooms. When I go to the bathroom at sporting events, most of the time it’s to get a few minutes away from the crazy men/fathers in the stands….and I don’t want a man in my private space. And I don’t want nor do I need a man to show me or tell me HOW to be a woman.
I don’t like the firebrands like Masey, MTG, Bobert, but they are raising an issue that the Dems seem to wish to ignore (and that the Dems actually made as an issue when they accepted the delusion of “gender identity). Not gonna lie….how has kicking the can down the road ever made a situation better? Gender Identity is the opposite of sex based rights.
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LisaM,
I have never identified a trans woman in any bathroom I have used. Never.
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Lisa, I certainly defer to women about how they should feel about this issue.
In general, I think the trans restroom-ban stuff plays well politically for Republicans and badly for Democrats (to the extent Dems oppose bans). Back when this issue first surfaced in 2016 in North Carolina, you had a long list of major corporations boycotting over the issue. Not anymore. A shrinking minority of Americans are opposed to bathroom ban bills (same with banning puberty blockers for children, same with limiting women’s sports to biological women, same with requiring biological men to be in men’s prisons, and so on and so on). After an initial explosion into mainstream political discourse, mainstream views about gender identity are getting more and more negative. (This is sad for all the non-activist trans people who just want to pass and live their lives as the opposite sex.)
But I think the Mace bill is different because it is clearly targeting one person. It seems cruel. I think that’s why Mike Johnson is not embracing it. (We know he surely has no substantive problems with it.)
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Correction, I don’t think Mace is proposing a “bill.” I think it’s a “rule.”
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Well, I stand semi-corrected re: Johnson. Apparently the bathroom rule is going into effect.
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Lisa: why not just provide generic restrooms that are either? They are called family bathrooms, and provide complete privacy. Last night, we had dinner with a friend in the wildly liberal town of Athens, Alabama. The restaurant had two bathrooms, both family bathrooms. Around 50 years ago, a friend traveling in Germany was surprised to find that European privacy was assured in individual rooms, and lavatory facilities were not segregated by gender.
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Well Ms Ravitch, I’m glad you have NEVER had to deal with it. I had a whole hockey season with one ( and his sons and wife were mortified by his behavior). The fathers weren’t bothered by it much because they didn’t have to deal with him….we mothers did! and it was even creepier for us when his wife (whom he referred to as a lesbian….when she wasn’t!) was obligated to participate in his shenanigans.
I run into this almost every time I go to a clothing store around here. I just purchase all my clothes and then go home, do my try on and then return what I don’t want…..more trouble for me! And I don’t want unisex dressing rooms.
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Lisa,
You are right. I never have had to deal with the issue.
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oh Lisa this is just BS. I’ve been a woman for 58 years and never have I ever had a trans woman stressing me out with her bathroom visit.
Now tbh MTG looks pretty muscular to me, and way less traditionally “feminine” than most trans women,but I’ll still not care if she uses the ladies room.
don’t you have better things to do with your life than troll?
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Roy….I don’t think that you understand “the movement”. Generic bathrooms are available in smaller businesses and I have no problem using/sharing them….1 in 1 out. It’s in places where there are generic bathrooms along with same sex bathrooms that these activists like to populate and get their freak on. Many have Autogynephilia (AGP)….a sexual fetish and some are just activist A-holes cosplaying as women for social media trans status.
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LeeAnn….Well, I’m 60 yrs old and I don’t troll and I don’t lie and I have been posting on this blog for many years. This is the kind of attitude that lost Dems the election. Just deny that there are issues and call people liars and other various names. I will NEVER go back to the Dem party as long as they keep pandering to the crazy activist types.
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Wow, some 6’3″ trans woman is forcing her wife to participate in her shenanigans?
The description LisaM gives sounds like some right wing troll who orders his wife around and pretends to be trans in order to scare the gullible trans-haters. TAKING SELFIES IN THE WOMEN’S BATHROOM??? While her sons are at hockey practice?
WTF??
This is a supposed trans woman hockey parent with sons? I don’t believe that for a second.
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There is so much opprobrium and stigma attached to being trans that I can’t visualize a guy doing it as an act, just so he can go into the ladies’ bathroom and see women putting on lipstick. Nothing else happens in women’s bathrooms. No nudity. No open stalls.
I can’t imagine using a public bathroom as a place to rest and relax. Very few have chairs. They are not welcoming environments. I hear the panic and horror that some people feel, but I don’t understand why a Trans woman would go into the bathroom for any nefarious reason. It’s a place to relieve yourself as quickly as possible.
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dianeravitch
You save me a nasty comment to Lisa.
I call BS. As many have mentioned, in Scandinavia many of the bathrooms were unisex. Floor to ceiling stalls.
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Joel,
The facts show how much anti-trans propaganda has helped create the hate.
In 2016, Ted Cruz was bashing Trump because Trump opposed the NC bathroom bill (and invited Caitlyn Jenner to use the women’s room at Trump Tower if she wanted).
In 2016, Ted Cruz sounded a lot like LisaM – holding himself out as the protector of women and his own young daughters and bashing Trump for trying to hurt them.
So why didn’t Republican voters flock to Cruz and abandon Trump in 2016?
Even Republican voters did not care about trans women in women’s bathrooms in 2016.
They had to be carefully taught to hate over the next 8 years. And too many Independents and Dems seemed to have been taught the lesson of hate at the same time.
What’s very disgusting is that the Independents and Dems who were also taught to hate trans people more say that it is the behavior of trans people themselves that has led to more people (including them) disliking them so much. They say they are only advocating for Dems to join the Republicans and demonize trans people more because of the very bad things that trans people – or “trans-activists” are doing that are supposedly ruining it for the “good” trans people.
It sounds so much like what many white Americans used to say about Black Americans fighting for civil rights in the 1950s and early 60s. The ones fighting for civil rights who won’t quietly accept discrimination are to blame for why people have so much more bias against Black Americans than they used to have before the civil rights era, when Black Americans just quietly obeyed what those with more power decided was right.
Why didn’t even Republican voters care about trans issues in 2016? If your answer is “trans-activists are to blame”, then your anti-trans bias is showing.
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The self appointed czar of left wing democracy shows up to call me a liar! How rich!
You want to know WHY the Dems lost?….go look in the mirror….. you and people just like you gave us trump (or worse….Vance) for another 4 yrs. The far left, activist wing of the party needs a muzzle and a leash with a walk down Reality Lane.
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“I had a whole hockey season with one ( and his sons and wife were mortified by his behavior). The fathers weren’t bothered by it much because they didn’t have to deal with him….we mothers did! and it was even creepier for us when his wife (whom he referred to as a lesbian….when she wasn’t!) was obligated to participate in his shenanigans.”
So not only does this person tell what is almost certainly a very exaggerated tale, but apparently she knows the feelings of this supposed trans woman’s wife and sons. In what universe do trans women announce the sexual orientation of their wives? (“she’s a lesbian”) In what universe do trans mothers there to see their sons’ hockey games choose to take selfies in the ladies room? In what universe does someone who feels only disgust for one spouse claim to know that the other spouse was “obligated to participate in his shenanigans”?
“I run into this almost every time I go to a clothing store around here. I just purchase all my clothes and then go home, do my try on and then return what I don’t want…..more trouble for me! And I don’t want unisex dressing rooms.”
WTH? You sound really obsessed. Do you peek into the other dressing rooms to see if the person has a penis or not? OMG what is wrong with you?
You’ve described such a parody of what trans men are that it certainly borders on a lie. Six o’clock shadow?? Taking selfies in the ladies room? Can’t try on clothes in department store dressing rooms because of the trans women? Come on.
By the way, women – especially women over 60 – may wear ill fitting clothes and even have facial hair despite not having a penis. I hope you don’t hate all of them.
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Dressing rooms? Where I shop, even at the mall, dressing rooms are private.
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You ignored everything I said – it is a FACT that Ted Cruz held the same position you did about trans women and public restrooms in 2016 – and Ted Cruz tried to make it a political issue when running against Trump, who at that time did NOT share your view that laws forbidding trans women to use public women’s rooms should be supported.
Ted Cruz LOST to the politician Cruz accused of endangering women for supporting trans women using any bathroom they wanted.
But that was 2016. Now that we know that hate is in fashion again, you seem to be advocating for Dems to give in to the hate instead of standing up for what is right.
Why do you think it is okay to demonize trans people and deny their very existence? I am sorry, but the fact that you believe evil trans people brainwashed your daughter is not a good enough reason for your hate of anyone who is trans.
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The way that you react gives me every reason to believe that YOU are one of those men posing as a woman. I’ve always thought you are a woman because of your hysterical writing style…..but maybe you’re just a man appropriating womanhood and the estrogen is giving you “the feels”?
Anyway, Bob warned of the consequences of not having truthful and nuanced discussions about issues such as these not too long ago. 4 more years of trump is what people like you have given us all….and you still don’t/won’t get it.
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I find it insulting to Bob that you describe the comments you made here at 12:09pm, 1:34pm, 2:39pm, 2:57pm, and many other places here as the kind of “truthful, nuanced discussions” Bob wants more of.
“I think it NEEDS to get nasty. .. utter madness and nonsense.”
“I’m TIRED of going into a bathroom where a 6’3″ man (covering up his 5 o’clock shadow with enough pancake makeup to cover a full body and wearing ill fitting and inappropriate clothing) is taking selfies in the mirror to post on social media. I’m TIRED of grown men appropriating womanhood in my dressing rooms….I don’t want nor do I need a man to show me or tell me HOW to be a woman.”
“his sons and wife were mortified by his behavior). .. it was even creepier for us when his wife (whom he referred to as a lesbian….when she wasn’t!) was obligated to participate in his shenanigans.”
“I run into this almost every time I go to a clothing store around here.”
“…YOU are one of those men posing as a woman. I’ve always thought you are a woman because of your hysterical writing style…..but maybe you’re just a man appropriating womanhood and the estrogen is giving you “the feels”?
You thought I was a woman because I am the one with a “hysterical” writing style? And love your embrace of the gender stereotype that “hysterical” is a trait of a woman.
Your persistence in using insulting slurs instead of addressing my point is noted, but I will point out for the 5th time that in 2016 Ted Cruz invoked the same anti-trans fears and falsehoods that you expressed multiple times just today because Ted Cruz thought if he attacked Trump for not joining him in bashing trans people, Ted Cruz could win the primary. But more Republicans voted for the candidate who was NOT anti-trans in 2016.
You may be right that with help from people who suddenly seem to feel more comfortable demonizing trans people, voters are far more anti-trans in 2024 than in 2016. You shouldn’t be proud of it. You shouldn’t be so smug that the hate machine that sowed violence and hate toward Haitian immigrants also successfully sowed violence and hate against trans people.
Your assumption that trans women are dangerous to straight women – potential rapists – is based entirely on your own biases. Not on some epidemic of trans women raping other women. Not even in prisons. Which I’m sure you believe since you read it on the internet, despite a careful study that debunked every false claim made by the trans hater pushing those lies. Just because you fear something unknown and you are white and Christian does not mean that your fears trump other people’s rights. Just like the fear of Black people doesn’t actually give white women the right to call the police on them.
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OOOHHHH! Struck a nerve. Good night….but you just keep screeching away.
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My reply above quoted your nastiest comments, so I understand why you called that “screeching”.
You still ignore that Ted Cruz couldn’t make political hay out of the fear of trans women in bathrooms in 2016, and yet you already demand Democrats join Republicans to demonize trans women “to win elections”.
I will keep reminding people of your hypocrisy when you profess to want to have a nuanced discussion.
Your child’s issues aren’t because trans women have been using bathrooms without anyone knowing it. Your child’s issues won’t be solved by denying the very existence of trans people.
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“these activists like to populate and get their freak on. Many have Autogynephilia (AGP)….a sexual fetish and some are just activist A-holes cosplaying as women for social media trans status.”
Of course that false depiction of trans women stuck a nerve. If it doesn’t strike a nerve with people here, then that speaks to their own integrity and conscience. I think most of us know what’s wrong with the type of “nuanced discussion” that you like so much (and seem to believe other people here do, too).
Perhaps I am wrong, but I don’t have the same very low opinion of blog readers on here that you do.
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Just found the delicate snowflake.
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LisaM,
Would you feel comfortable with this trans male obeying the policy and using the women’s restroom?
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TE,
Great question.
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Respectfully disagree. Lifelong, liberal and longtime San Francisco Democrat here. Mace is absolutely right that girls and women have the right to fight to maintain single-sex spaces, services and sports to preserve their dignity, privacy, safety, bodily autonomy when vulnerable and fair play when competing in sports. Sarah McBride seems decent enough, but he IS breaking women’s boundaries and leading the way for other trans-identifying males to break female boundaries, too…some of whom may be autogynophiles or not nearly as decent as McBride.
Many liberal women in San Francisco agree with me, and if the Democratic Party (my party) continues to privilege subjective, unscientific gender identities over the material reality of binary, biological sex, it will not retake the White House for the foreseeable future.
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Diane, can you add a Blue Sky symbol for sharing there instead of Twitter?
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Federal employees have excellent health insurance. Nancy Mace should avail herself of some therapy, as she claims she is triggered by Sarah McBride because of a sexual assault. Seems like Matt Gaetz or Pete Hegspeth would be more triggering, but what do I know?
She’s a nasty piece of work. She’s introduced a federal bathroom ban which would ban trans people from bathrooms in DCA and Dulles airports, national park bathrooms, museum bathrooms, and all federal building bathrooms.
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Federal employees have excellent health insurance. Nancy Mace should avail herself of some therapy, as she claims she is triggered by Sarah McBride because of a sexual assault. Seems like Matt Gaetz or Pete Hegspeth would be more triggering, but what do I know?
Mace is a nasty piece of work. She’s introduced a federal bathroom ban which would ban trans people from bathrooms in DCA and Dulles airports, national park bathrooms, museum bathrooms, and all federal building bathrooms.
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Christine,
I wonder how Nancy Mace plans to e force her ban on trans people. Will every public bathroom have an entry guard who inspects everyone’s birth certificate?
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By their nature these rules only apply to people who can’t pass well.
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Which is precisely why these rules are wrong. The percentage of trans people hovers about 2%. Remember when it was considered proper to protect minoritized groups? Do we all need to start carrying a laminated copy of our birth certificates to be able to pee in public places? Will the short form do or must it be the long one?
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The data is pretty terrible on that point — other surveys show closer to 0.6%, and there’s no data that can do any better than just self-identification, which doesn’t tell you how many are actually living as the opposite sex. So there’s some reason to think the number is much smaller than 2%. I only have one trans person (who lives as a woman) that I would consider a “friend,” and her view is that everything was a lot better before trans rights became a civil rights cause celebre. Before then (she says), one could just live one’s life quietly as a woman, as opposed to living as a “trans woman” that requires civil rights accommodations.
It’s tricky. On the one hand, as you correctly note, transgender people are definitionally the kind of “group” that needs protection by law, because they are so small in number that they cannot count on protection by ballot. On the other hand, to the extent trans rights are politicized — that is, to the extent they are taken up on the ballot — it is a likely to be a losing proposition, because, again, trans people are so small in number and, let’s not B.S. ourselves, unusual in nature.
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Ok, so let’s say it’s 1% of the population. Cis women share the bathroom with transwomen all the time, though they may be blissfully unaware of it.
Whatever happened to MYOB? The same is true of praying in public places, like in a school; or ending a pregnancy; or refusing to eat meat. People have their reasons and what those are is no one’s business but their own.
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“Before then (she says), one could just live one’s life quietly as a woman, as opposed to living as a “trans woman” that requires civil rights accommodations.”
You’re kidding right? No, transwomen could never just live quietly as women. It’s just that you never heard of the deaths of transwomen. SMH.
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Pearl-clutching snowflake is not a good look for a party whose stated goal is veneration of the strongman.
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It’s more craziness to distract from the reality that at least 4 cabinet nominees are connected with sexual assault allegations.
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A sign of how much our culture has been propagandized and the media cowed by the far right:
In 2016, when North Carolina passed a transgender bathroom bill, liberal scolds who hate Democrats weren’t lecturing Dems about how they needed to join in the demonization of trans people to win votes.
In fact, even Trump was saying that these laws weren’t needed, as North Carolina paid a heavy economic price for trying to hurt trans people for political gain. In 2017, NC repealed parts of the bill.
It turned out this was a non-issue. Didn’t hurt Dems until a slowly co-opted media – along with self-serving writers – validated the far right lies.
Trans people aren’t scary, but the people filled with so much toward trans people are. Their extreme hate is typical of the damage that has been done to our public discourse thanks to the hate-filled Republican party and those in the media and those who claim they aren’t complicit with the right wing agenda, but are complicit and help legitimize the hate.
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This sounds like the comments in hearings in MO legislature two years ago. “This is just boys trying to get into the girls’ locker room.” “This a way for boys to get college scholarships on girls’ teams.” “One day he’s a he and then decides to be a she just like that.”
What are they afraid of.
They make this sound trite and a whim. It’s not and I hope the following comes out alright.
Greene states: “He’s biologically a man” and should be banned.
That’s what they don’t get – this is not only biology. It’s head, heart, emotion, self, and ALL that makes a human human and humane.
In the school world, the medical and biological is the last step in transitioning after years of counseling, parenting, consultation and if the student wants to play sports, State approval with a lot of paperwork.
And, these guys think Congress is like a bunch of middle school boys on a whim. In fact, I’d trust middle school boys and girls in these seats than the people elected
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Missouri,
No one changes their identity just so they can play sports with girls/boys.
Being trans is deeply stigmatized. Why would anyone change their gender identity for a frivolous reason?
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What are the bathrooms like in the building Congress uses, the United States Capital. Are they huge bathrooms like we find in a COSTCO or are they single use like a Trader Joe’s?
Costco has a separate bathroom for men and women.
Trader Joes labels all their bathrooms for both sexes and once in (at least the one’s I shop at), you lock the door so no one can walk in on you. One person at a time.
I’ve only been in the men’s room at Costco, and it has a few urinals and a lot of stalls with toilets inside and doors that can be closed.
I’ve never seen anyone running around naked in that Costco men’s room. I’ve never seen anyone exposing their junk even at the urinals that have privacy dividers.
If a Trans was using the women’s large bathroom there’s be no way to tell if they were trans unless they stripped outside of the privacy of the stalls before going in. I don’t think the women’s bathrooms in Costco come with urinals.
I wonder if MAGA insanity is contagious.
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Lloyd,
I have been in many public bathrooms for women. All have stalls with locked door. This trans frenzy is an act.
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Its not an act. if you had children that have had to deal with this issue you would be singing another tune. For example, they are allowing boys who dress up as girls to enter the girls locker room, bathroom and play on the schools girl volleyball team at a middle school in Phoenix, AZ. The worst part is they hide it from the parents of the girls. This isn’t make believe, my brother as a teacher had to stay quiet about it. As a parent of girls this is absolutely unacceptable and anyone making excuses for this is at best clueless.
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Yes, bad performance art when you are trying to distract the nation from your destruction of government .
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“I’ve never seen anyone running around naked in that Costco men’s room”
Next time you’re in NYC I’ll take you on a tour of the Penn Station men’s room!
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Btw, to your question: there are single-occupant restrooms throughout the Capitol, and each Representative also has a private bathroom in his or her office.
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At first I kind of laughed off this whole question. But now I’m trying to think about it in a different and maybe deeper way instead of just reacting out of a strong emotion that might arise in me. WHY is it that some women may not like a trans woman in their bathroom? Some often go back to the idea that this person is a biological man. And maybe a lot of women have an underlying (or overt) fear of men. So to have what they consider to be a man in their bathroom or locker room is threatening – physically and sexually. Sometimes women change clothes in bathrooms or discuss personal matters like menstruation. I’m wondering if women who change to men have this problem with other men. I guess what I’m asking is how would men feel about a woman who has changed to a man feel about that person using their bathrooms and locker rooms.
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As a general rule men don’t make eye contact with other men in the restroom. It’s in and out as quickly as possible. So you probably wouldn’t even notice.
But yes, certainly a significant part of this has to do about predation and physical intimidation, and I don’t think that would be in play with trans men in a men’s room.
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Right. So I’m wondering if the fear of men is actually what is underneath this.
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A very large part of it is just emotional reactions to things that people see online but don’t experience in real life.
But both the emotional reactions to online-only stuff and the real-life reactions to what some people do encounter in real life probably do have a lot to do with fears of men. There’s also a creepiness that many (most?) perceive, partly from prior associations (cross dressers have not been very flatteringly portrayed in mass culture), maybe partly from a deeper sense of the “uncanny” when the trans person is clearly not “passing.” Above my pay grade.
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I agree with your astute comment about the uncanny aspect of it and (and your other comments). There is a general inability to tolerate gray areas and uncertainty in most things.
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Let me just reply to the common sense comment from Mamie…and flerp. I don’t fear men (because I have been trained to protect myself! and I will) but some women ARE afraid. If some man wishes to chemically castrate himself and then turn his pole into a hole, I wouldn’t mind at all if he were in my bathroom. The problem today, is that all a man has to say is that he “feels” like a woman and we are supposed to accept the absurd. Sorry, but he still has his junk and he can use his junk and manly strength to over power a woman….and he is wearing “woman face” and clothing to cosplay as a woman. Now, we no longer view black face and minstral shows as acceptable in society, but women are supposed to just take it?…..and I’m NOT against good old fashioned Drag (which is performed by gay men for adult/and mostly women audiences).
I just can’t believe how many people refuse to acknowledge the erosion of women’s rights and private spaces to satisfy “the feels” of some creepy men. This is a fetish and should be kept in the bedroom or in a Psychiatric office where it belongs. And don’t even get me started with how this has seeped down into the culture of young adults/teens/children.
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“So you probably wouldn’t even notice.”
Bingo. I don’t know what you ladies are doing in the women’s room, but I don’t hang out in there either and there is likewise a no looking rule. Anyone – male, female or indeterminate – trying to look over, under or between the stalls would get the same reaction as a man in the men’s room checking out junk. It doesn’t happen because people are just there to do what is done in the bathroom.
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The way you write about trans people – the words you choose to use – is extremely creepy. Talk about hysteria.
Then again, hate is contagious.
How very sad that anti-trans voices like yours that were marginalized in 2016 are now amplified as non-hysterical truth-tellers who just are trying to have a nuanced and honest discussion. In 2016, even conservative Republicans didn’t buy into your kind of anti-trans hysteria. If they had, they would have voted for its loudest purveyor, Ted Cruz, who tried hard to demonize Trump for not joining him in demonizing trans people as being as dangerous as you think they are.
But 8 years of lifting up voices of hate as “good people” has changed our culture. If it makes you happy that now more people hate and fear trans people than in 2016, well, that speaks for itself. And if you blame trans people for that hate, that says a lot about you as well.
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Mamie,
You make good points. And this has always happened where people with more power can claim that other people are doing things that make them “uncomfortable”.
Remember the stories of how gay men were eyeing straight men in locker rooms? How about lesbians making straight women uncomfortable (there was a big anti-lesbian movement a couple decades ago in college women’s sports)?
And of course, whites in the south cited all the reasons why Black folks made them uncomfortable and should not be in the same swimming pools or locker rooms or bathrooms or sitting at a counter eating a meal with them.
It’s astonishing that since the rise of Trump, we’ve normalized that the comfort of the powerful decides what is right or wrong. And then propagandize it until more regular people believe lies about “those” people so they are “uncomfortable” too.
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The Potatus Moron in Chief Biden is escalating us daily into a direct conflict with a nuclear power and this is what you choose to focus on? If you haven’t been living under a rock you would know that Biden has authorized Long range missile strikes into Russian territory by Ukraine. They instantly took advantage of that and now he has approved sending anti-personnel mines to Ukraine for the first time. Why is the progressive left so anxious for war? Your party has been infiltrated by NeoCons and you don’t care. Instead you wail and gnash your teeth about a mentally ill man dressed up as a woman. Pathetic.
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Jim,
I did not bring up the issue. Republican Cobgresswoman Nancy Mace did. I wrote about it because it was news. MJT also brought it up.
I’m glad that Biden finally gave Ukraine the power to defend itself against ruthless invaders. What kid of war allows the rules of engagement to be set by the aggressor. For 2 1/2 years, Putin said, “I can strike you, your houses, hospitals, schools, museums and power stations as often as I choose, but you are not allowed to strike back.” That’s nuts.
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There are way more gays of both genders mixed with heterosexuals in locker rooms, bathrooms, offices, teams, etc. So once righties eliminate the rights of Transexuals, don’t be surprised if they go after gays again in some form or another. The Christian Nationalists have gained more influence & many political offices this political round, so they feel entitled to enact their ideas & policies on the rest of us because they feel they are in the majority, despite being ever so slim. They don’t care about Constitutional rights of freedoms if they protect people who they think are wrong, based on their religious beliefs. Their god is more important to them than any stinkin’ Constitution or laws.
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These Christian zealots have no problem rejecting anyone they claim offends their religious beliefs. Some of them hide behind their religion and use it as an excuse to discriminate.
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Sad to say, you may be right.
I would be upset but not surprised if SCOTUS overturned gay marriage. Even criminalized gay relationships. The only relationship that will be sacrosanct will be racially mixed marriages…because Clarence Thomas is in one.
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Doctrinally, I get the concern. (About overturning Obergefell, not about the Court criminalizing gay sex.). The rationale for Obergefell is similar to that of Roe. And there is a case that was recently appealed to the Sixth Circuit (Ermold v. Davis) where the appellant is seeking the overturning of Obergefell.
Politically, it would be tough. Americans are strongly in support of gay marriage, including around half of Republicans.
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SCOTUS overturned Roe despite its public support and their own alleged devotion to stare decisis
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I suspect Clarence thinks he’s white, or at least exceptional.
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Anyone who believes that mainstream views of gender identity are more negative than they were in 2016 and blames trans people instead of a right wing media full of hate is simply living in a little bubble of complicit privilege.
The fact that the mainstream view of Haitian immigrants happens to be more negative now than it was a few years ago is NOT because Haitian immigrants didn’t tiptoe around more. It was because of right wing media hate and lies, the right wing politicians and complicit folks who claimed to be “unbiased” but just observed that so many more people have negative views of Haitian immigrants now, so there must be something that those Haitian immigrants are doing that causes people to view Haitian immigrants more negatively now (but don’t you dare say it’s the fault of right wing propaganda).
Perhaps the reason that so many Jews still vote Democrat is that they understand how easy it is to make other people complicit in readily agreeing that the “other” did something wrong that increased the hate against them.
I think teachers should have some empathy for how this works. There was not a huge epidemic of pedophile sexually abusing teachers being protected by the union that increased the public’s dislike of teachers’ unions. But there was an onslaught of negative media scapegoating the union. And concern trolling by people who said “if only those pedophile sexual abusing teachers protected by the union didn’t make us talk about how evil teachers’ unions are and make us punish unions because some teachers just want to teach without abusing children.”
There was NEVER some epidemic of Critical Race Theory infecting public school children’s education. But voila! Suddenly lots of parents thought there was. Complicit folks then say that the proof that CRT is a huge problem is that parents think it is.
That happened in Nazi Germany, too. After all, no one thought it was a good idea to round up all the Jewish families and make them disappear until they did decide that it was all okay to round up all the Jewish families and make them disappear.
I can just imagine those complicit Germans watching Jewish families get rounded up and expressing how sad they were for the “non-activist Jewish people” who just wanted to live their lives as Jews, and scapegoating those “activist” Jews for why so many more people hated Jews. They would of course claim not to be antisemitic but just following the “evidence” that causes them to blame “activist” Jews for why there was increased hate against them, and minimize that the Nazi propaganda has anything to do with it.
People are TAUGHT to hate, and other people who are complicit claim that it isn’t that hate is taught, the hate just increases because of the very bad things “some” of those people do to make everyone hate them and have to target and punish the entire group. Like sexually assaulting children. Or eating pets.
I see older folks who are so full of hate and ready to scapegoat any group that is not their own. When Linda even mildly alluded to something negative the Catholic Church was doing that was affecting US politics, boy was there an uproar here. But when those folks upset about Linda being too critical of Catholics allude negatively to trans people, because they claim some 6 foot 3 trans woman regularly takes photos of herself and disturbs other mothers during their mutual children’s’ hockey matches, that’s pure hypocrisy.
there was a slew of anti-trans lies posted here about trans women in prison raping female prisoners. In fact, all of that was proven to be false. But when your goal is to get people to hate, it doesn’t matter. That’s why the myth of the epidemic of pedophile teachers protected by union teachers was so frequently cited by people who hated teachers unions and public schools.
Try to imagine a teenage trans woman being forced to use male bathrooms when she had previously used women’s rooms without any person even noticing that she was a trans woman. That is far more common than the supposed 6 foot 3 trans women with 5 o’clock shadows taking selfies in the ladies’ room.
trans women in male prisons were frequently raped, while there were no credible cases of sexual assault by a trans woman in a women’s prison. But some people’s hate clouds their reason. Or they just lack empathy.
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^^^And that hate was NOT evidenced in 2016 when people knew the NC bathroom law was wrong.
But they have heard so many stories of bearded females infiltrating women’s prisons and raping them, or 6 ft 3 trans women who disturb users of women’s rest rooms by posing for selfies in the bathroom.
So they start to hate more and more.
Anyone who says it is the fault of trans people is simply blaming the victims.
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How sad that the hate has exploded since the right wing got regular people to amplify their lies about trans women raping women.
In 2016, while running for president, DONALD TRUMP opposed the NC anti-trans bathroom law.
“But Sen. Ted Cruz supports the North Carolina law, bashing Trump’s comments as what he called evidence that the New York real estate mogul is too politically correct to be the GOP nominee.
“Donald agreed with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in attacking the state of North Carolina for passing their bathroom ordinance,” Cruz told supporters today at a rally in Frederick, Maryland. “And Donald, on television this morning, said, gosh, he thought that men should be able to go into the girls’ bathroom if they want to. Now let me ask you, have we gone stark raving nuts? This is the political correctness.”
In defending his support of the North Carolina law, Cruz said, “I’m the father of two little girls. Here is basic common sense. Grown adult men, strangers, should not be alone in a bathroom with little girls. And that’s not conservative or liberal, that’s not Republican or Democrat, that’s basic common sense.” (ABC News, 4/21/2016)
Now maybe the folks who believe Americans LIKE anti-trans candidates can explain how Ted Cruz’ scare tactics about trans people didn’t work in 2016 with the most conservative voters in the country – those who vote in the Republican primary?
The people who are anti-trans say it is all the fault of those “trans-activists”. And they say it has nothing to do with the right wing anti-trans propaganda that I see being repeated and amplified here by haters, even when it is a lie.
Because trans people are now more evil? Or because right wing propaganda got ignorant people to hate trans people more, just like they got them to hate teachers’ unions and Haitian immigrants and – in 1988 – “card carrying liberals”.
Just look at what Trump was saying in 2016 AND GOT ELECTED while people hated Ted Cruz despite Cruz fighting for those poor daughters victimized by trans women in their bathrooms:
“North Carolina should allow people to “use the bathroom they feel is appropriate,” Donald Trump said this morning of the state’s new law that bans people from using bathrooms that don’t match the sex indicated on their birth certificate.
“North Carolina did something that was very strong,” the Republican presidential front-runner told “The Today Show.” “And they’re paying a big price,” a reference to the growing economic boycott against the state.
State lawmakers should “leave it the way it is,” he added.
Asked whether Caitlyn Jenner would be free to use any bathroom she wanted if she walked into Trump Tower, he said, “That is correct.”
PS – Caitlyn Jenner took Trump up on that offer and used the women’s room.
I wonder if the people so outraged now were outraged when they heard of this potential rapist Caitlyn Jenner using a ladies room in Trump Tower. Or were they not propagandized to be scared.
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Gender Dsyphoria is a mental illness. Full Stop. Society should not and thank goodness now will not cater to this mental illness. So all the blue haired biological cul-de-sac cat ladies can find some other issue to promote.
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Caring about the genitals of people you don’t plan to sleep with is a mental illness. Full stop.
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could an adult man rape or molest a child in a single sex bathroom? Could an adult woman rape or molest a younger girl in a single sex bathroom? Do these things happen?
maybe the issue to focus on is sexual assault and rape? A look at the President elect and his cabinet nominees has me thinking they won’t be adequately addressing this topic.
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Someone, please enlighten me. Have there been any documented cases of a trans woman raping a child in a girls bathroom?
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As a general rule, I try to avoid public bathrooms but when nature calls, she calls.
I have never seen a trans woman in a bathroom but who knows, maybe I did and she was adept at blending in, or maybe it’s because I was taught not to stare in public.
Still, I am struck by Lisa’s story. What would I do if I kept running into the same 6’3” trans woman in the public bathroom I frequented and also around my town?
I think I would try to strike up a friendly conversation, that I would continue every time we crossed paths. I’m 4’11”, there has to be a joke somewhere in that.
I would also remember that the best public policy is based on data, and one quirky 6’3” trans woman is an outlier, irrelevant to policy concerns.
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If you read her posts, she claims these trans females easily identified as male are everywhere. She won’t even try on clothes in a dressing room because women with male genitalia are everywhere she shops.
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A true New Yorker weighs in:
https://bsky.app/profile/erininthemorning.bsky.social/post/3lbggz3d3mk2r
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That’s a fine statement, but I have to note that activist journalist Erin Reed is a geyser of misinformation and lies.
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Good for AOC!
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This thread has been contentious, to put it mildly. We probably would do well to dial back the temperature. But this discussion ultimately relates back to the election post-mortems that many have been doing. There was a Thomas Edsall column in the Times yesterday on this topic that I swear I could have written myself, as well as played the part of every expert he quoted. It’s about the degree to which the Democratic Party brand has drifted (or lurched) away from the “median voter,” a political concept that many believed was outdated back in 2015-2016, and how the party might find its way back. Many here will disagree, some vehemently, but this is pretty much how I have seen things for a while.
Some excepts:
“The ascendance within the Democratic Party of well-educated white people holding very liberal views has, in fact, pushed the party to the left of the mainstream. This intraparty ideological shift raises another question for 2026 and 2028: Have the forces supporting unpopular progressive policies in the general electorate become strong enough to successfully push back against the calls coming from Democratic pragmatists for centrist retrenchment on such issues as immigration, policing and the promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion?
In a Nov. 15 article, “Trump Broke the Democrats’ Thermostat,” John Burn-Murdoch of The Financial Times wrote:
The shift to the left was most pronounced among those who identify themselves as “strong Democrats,” those who dominate the activist and agenda-setting wing of the party. Burn-Murdoch cited General Social Survey data to show that these Democrats reacted most intensely to the election of Donald Trump, which was manifested in their shift on such issues as affirmative action and immigration.
In the case of immigration, for example, strong Democrats were close to the median voter in 2008, supporting cuts in the level of immigration by 20 points, according to Burn-Murdoch. But by 2020, strong Democratic voters had taken a giant step to the left, supporting increased immigration by 40 points, placing them far away from the median voter, whose views remained unchanged.
There are signs that the Democratic Party not only has adopted left orthodoxy on social and cultural issues but also is still not prepared to tolerate debate over these choices. This is reflected in the hostility expressed toward Democratic leaders who suggest moderating the party stance on transgender rights — a seemingly peripheral issue, as far as the country as a whole goes, that Trump and other Republicans used to portray Democrats as more concerned with special interests than the public interest.
. . . .
Parties evolve. In the eight years after their complete loss to Reagan in 1984 the Democrats moved from the ideals of the New Deal to the free market policies of Bill Clinton. It took time, but the party shifted to match the demands of the country.
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard who specializes in election and constitutional law, replied by email to my inquiries:
Nick Gourevitch, a partner and the managing director of the Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling firm that worked on the Biden-Harris campaign, wrote me to say:
David Hopkins, a political scientist at Boston College, pointed out in an email:
Democratic politicians, Hopkins argued,
A less dangerous path, Hopkins continued, “would be for the prominent figures and social institutions that have most strongly promoted culturally progressive ideas in recent years to mute their aggressive advocacy of controversial values and practices.”
Noah Smith, a former professor of finance at Stony Brook University who now writes at Noahpinion, has produced an optimistic analysis for the future of the Democratic Party and liberalism generally. On Nov. 15, Smith posted “Liberalism Is the Rebellion Now”:
Now, three decades later, Smith argued:
The significance, Smith continued,
Of all the posts he has written, Smith contended, “this one scares me the most,” adding, “I wish it was just a bad dream.”
In fact, few things could reinvigorate the center-left and the Democratic Party more than coming to the realization that liberalism in contemporary America is the underdog and that it is in a fight for its survival.
The left has grown comfortable as it dominates the culture — academia, the media, television entertainment — and as its well-educated constituents remain insulated by their college degrees from the costs of globalization, as the technology revolution ravages less well-off sections of the country.”
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here’s a gift link
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/opinion/democrats-left-center-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bk4.OKlc.W9tTP8H3L_nl&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
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Flerp, I answered you below under general posts to get more margin space
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Flerp– Edsall’s column puts our trans discussion into a larger context: how important is the “culture war” to a postmortem on the election? I disagree with the opinion that it’s very important.
Don’t get me wrong, Mace et al outré Republican comments deserve a slapdown. The conversation here has been lively and interesting. But how relevant to election results? Gourevitch (cited in the extract of Edsall column) frames the key question: What do Democrats need to do to add voters to our coalition and not subtract voters from it?
Pertinent: an Oct 9th report on Gallup pre-election survey of registered voters:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-2024-presidential-vote.aspx
The polled were asked to cite their ‘extremely important’ and ‘very important’ issues influencing their choice for president. 22 issues made the list. The economy was by far at the top, registering highest since Gallup’s October 2008 pre-election survey during the Great Recession [55% then, 52% now]. It was the only issue listed as “extremely important” by most voters surveyed. The only ‘culture-war’ issue that made the list was “transgender rights”– #22 of 22 issues cited. Dead last.
Gourevitch frames Edsall’s POV as “the theory that the Democratic Party needs to move to the center on cultural issues and focus more on working-class economic issues in order to win back a more culturally conservative working class,” and worries some parts of the existing coalition would be thrown under the bus. Good point by Hopkins: cultural issues becoming more central “was not principally driven by the preferences or choices of Democratic politicians and professional strategists,” but rather by “a large population of journalists, intellectuals, educators, nonprofit and corporate executives and celebrities who represent liberalism in the public eye.”
In other words, in this election, Democrat candidates/ campaigns were in fact playing to middle/working-class concerns. The only people playing “culture war” were Republican candidates/ campaigns. Was their strategy key to winning the election by a smidge of the popular vote? Not likely.
Nevertheless, going forward, Democrats need to dial back the identity politics, which have become divisive and exclusive, belying the so-called ‘inclusion’ principle. The Guardian has an interesting 2018 article, an excerpt from Amy Chua’s book “Political Tribes,” which traces the development of the phenomenon: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/01/how-americas-identity-politics-went-from-inclusion-to-division
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Kamala did not play identity politics. I watched many of her rallies. Surrounded by ecstatic fans, she said “We are doing this because we LOVE our country.” She always repeated that line. I don’t recall her ever using the race card or the fact that she is a woman or the first woman of color to run for president.
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She did avoid that stuff, which is good, but I think it will not have much effect unless Dems go further and explicitly disavow these things.
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If the Democratic Presidential campaign avoided identity politics, what is the press and pundits talking about?
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FLERP,
I have this argument all the time when I talk with my older son. He thinks Dems are too woke. I don’t.
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As just one example on this point, consider the immense reach of a politician like AOC, who was reelected with only 120,000 votes in an ultra progressive district in Queens, but who I believe has more Twitter followers than any other member of Congress. To millions of people, AOC is a portrait of “the Dems.”
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Perhaps as a sign of the times, AOC recently removed her “she/her” pronouns from her Twitter bio.
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AOC is not the party. She is a very attractive, very articulate spokesperson for her views.
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“Parties are not entirely the masters of their own fate. The rising centrality of conflicts over social identity, D.E.I. initiatives, transgender rights, language policing, tolerance of illegal immigration, “fighting the patriarchy” and other similar topics over the past decade or so was not principally driven by the preferences or choices of Democratic politicians and professional strategists. Instead, it mostly reflected the priorities of other influential social actors — some activists and interest groups within the party, for sure, but also a large population of journalists, intellectuals, educators, nonprofit and corporate executives and celebrities who represent liberalism in the public eye, even if they don’t hold formal positions within the Democratic Party.”
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I don’t remember a lot of pundits complaining that the Harris campaign was too woke. But yes, a lot of the voting public did have that view. That’s partly because there’s plenty of videotape of Harris being ultra-woke in her 2019 campaign. And it’s also because there is a huge public discourse that is not driven by the Dem candidates but still is attributed to what voters correctly understand to be the “left” side of the political spectrum. It is a branding problem. Quoting from the Edsall article:
“Parties are not entirely the masters of their own fate. The rising centrality of conflicts over social identity, D.E.I. initiatives, transgender rights, language policing, tolerance of illegal immigration, “fighting the patriarchy” and other similar topics over the past decade or so was not principally driven by the preferences or choices of Democratic politicians and professional strategists. Instead, it mostly reflected the priorities of other influential social actors — some activists and interest groups within the party, for sure, but also a large population of journalists, intellectuals, educators, nonprofit and corporate executives and celebrities who represent liberalism in the public eye, even if they don’t hold formal positions within the Democratic Party.”
I assume your son is not stupid, given who his parents are and how successful he has been. There’s a reason he believes “the Dems” are too woke, and it’s not just because of Republican propaganda.
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Diane,
It would be interesting if your older son was asked to be more specific about what he means by “too woke”.
Does he think the Dems were “too woke” in 2016, because the Dems spoke out against the North Carolina law to keep those dangerous trans women out of female bathrooms?
Because that did NOT hurt them in 2016.
Or does he just want Dems to remain silent and complicit when groups with less power are being thrown under the bus?
What exactly does it mean to be too woke? The Dems should not defend the vulnerable against the hate policies Republicans promote when Republicans play identity politics?
Which group that Republicans have mischaracterized as dangerous and evil should the Dems be throwing under the bus, and which are okay for the Dems to defend?
The Dems aren’t promoting trans surgery on minors just because they are opposing laws that replace a parent and doctor’s judgement with the judgement of a right wing politician who hates all trans people.
I find that the examples that are given when people criticize Dems for “being too woke” are as exaggerated as 6’5″ trans women with 5 o’clock shadows taking selfies in ladies rooms and infiltrating the dressing rooms of department stories all over town.
I am not a fan of people using terms like “too woke” without being a bit more specific.
I think we all know exactly what right wing Republicans consider “too woke”. But I don’t know what people who aren’t right wing Republicans mean. I just hope it isn’t a code word for allowing Republicans to demonize people without power because doing the right thing and speaking the truth to defend them supposedly has a political cost.
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NYCPSP: I ask him the same questions. I have not gotten a satisfactory answer.
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Diane,
Thanks – you were already one step ahead of me!
It’s interesting he can’t give you a satisfactory answer to that question. Hopefully just you asking the question will make him think about what really bothers him when he says “too woke”.
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Agree, Diane. I was very happy with the tone of Harris/ Walz campaign. As to “then what are the press and pundits talking about?,” there we have the problem that nycpsp frequently reminds us about. They tease out the tiniest suggestion that some identity-politics item is being implied, then go off on their fave controversy-stirring spin, trying to sound like constructively criticizing Dems for their own good, but meanwhile reinforcing rw faux talking points.
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Dem party does not need to explicitly disavow anything in particular, IMHO. So what if its most extreme lw progressive politicians go over the top on certain issues? There aren’t many that fit that description among our politicians/ reps in govt. We’re not a party that votes in a bloc for extreme positions, like Republicans do. RE: your comment that AOC represents the public’s idea of “liberal,” I disagree. I spend time at a message board dominated by the other side, and their POV’s encompass everything from libertarian to MAGA to old-fashioned conservative. It is only the angry, chip-on-shoulder, calls-all-Dems-marxists MAGAs that characterize all Dems (even Hakim Jeffries!) as “the squad” thinkers.
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I am surprised you would cite Amy Chua. She is J.D. Vance’s very special mentor – the Tiger Mom whose husband was suspended for sexual harassment and who supposedly advised her female law students in how to dress “right” to appeal to SC Justices like Brett Kavanaugh.
Republicans are the ones who play identity politics. Republicans keep trying to exclude people because of their identity, and if the Dems stand up for those people instead of allowing the Republicans to throw them under the bus, then even our own side calls that “identity politics”.
It’s depressing to see that the right wing has successfully propagandized too many people to affirm their Orwellian definitions.
It wasn’t always like that. Back in 2016, the Dems (and the Republicans who joined them in opposing the anti-trans law in North Carolina) stood up for trans rights and BLM and WON.
The voices telling Dems they should join the Republicans and throw trans women and BLM under the bus so they could win an election were marginalized.
Today those folks are elevated to truth-tellers.
I wrote a long post being held up in moderation about how Republicans doubled down on their most hateful policies that supposedly lost them the 2020 election, and won. How sad that Dems are being advised to run away from doing the right thing to win.
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You’re right, nycpsp, and I was prepared to be turned off by anything Chua had to say. I was browsing for something that would perhaps counter Hopkins’ claim that culture-war stuff had become central to liberal position, so needed a summary of how identity politics had developed over recent years. I was surprised by this book excerpt, it hit all my ideas about what exacerbates this: huge increase in income inequality, Reaganism & the understanding “colorblindness” was being used to cloak racism, something to do with postmodernism (intellectually) & collapse of USSR (politically), and of course social media’s impact. She also went into my sense that it’s a self-feeding phenomenon, that continually comes up with new (smaller & smaller) groups to add to the “must confront oppression of” list– a reverse mirror of MAGA tendency to oppress the smallest minority, then work up the chain to larger & larger groups. And then– she delves into the conservative side of the “tribal” phenomenon. A good read if you get a chance.
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I am confused by why AOC is being invoked here. I read a news report about how a bunch of Trump voters in her district ALSO vote for her to be re-elected?
Obviously, “wokeness” wasn’t why they voted for Trump.
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The Democratic party “brand” is simply the so-called liberal media repeating ad nauseam that the Democratic party is exactly whatever the right wing narrative that undermines them says it is.
It’s obsessed with identity politics! It’s too liberal! It’s too woke! It’s too socialist! It’s too elite! It’s too pro-trans. It’s too pro-Black Lives Matters! It’s too pro-Israel! It isn’t pro-Israel enough! It’s too culture canceling! It needs to offer better economic policies. Love when privileged white men lecture to Dems about throwing everyone but privileged white men under the bus.
Republicans IGNORED the concern trolling advice of the NYT Republican columnists – they did exactly the opposite and eagerly doubled down on their worst excesses – and they won. Let’s see what NYT columnist Bret Stephens was writing after Trump was defeated in 2020:
“The Conservative Movement Needs a Reckoning”, Nov. 9, 2020
“Most remarkable: Trump lost despite 56 percent of Americans saying they were better off now than they were four years ago, according to a Gallup survey from September. He lost despite Republicans gaining seats in the House, doing well at the state level and having reasonable hopes of holding the Senate. He lost despite the damage that progressive rhetoric about defunding the police and banning fracking did to some Democrats. He lost despite all the usual advantages of incumbency.
Trump lost for two main and mutually reinforcing reasons. The first is that he’s immoral — manifestly, comprehensively and unrepentantly.
The immorality didn’t just repel his political opponents. It enraged them, inspired them, drove them to the polls and gave Biden exactly the opening he needed to run on a winning message of unity and decency.
Trump’s immorality also blinded him to his opportunities. He could have mended fences with his opponents. Instead, he consistently sought to humiliate them in ways that proved self-defeating: Think of John McCain and the Obamacare repeal vote. He could have spent the past eight months as the nation’s consoler in chief, a role nearly every past president has gracefully played. Instead, he went from denier in chief, to quack doctor in chief, to false promise maker in chief — everything, that is, except the steady and compassionate figure the country desperately needed in the White House.
The second reason Trump lost is that conservatives never tried to check his immorality. They rationalized, excused, enabled and ultimately celebrated it. For Trump’s presidency to have had even a faint chance of succeeding, he needed his allies and fellow travelers to provide reality checks and expressions of disapproval, including occasions of outright revolt. What he mainly got was an echo chamber.
The process began before Trump’s election, when conservative pundits thrilled to the idea that Trump’s serial violations of moral and ethical norms were signs of strength and authenticity, as opposed to simple depravity.Just as ignorance was strength in George Orwell’s “1984,” shamelessness became virtue in Trump’s G.O.P. The strategy of moral inversion appeared to be vindicated four years ago, since none of Trump’s successive scandals prevented his victory.”
OOPS! NYT columnist Bret Stephens described as “problems” exactly what Trump and the Republicans did even MORE of in 2024.
But wise NYT columnist Bret told us Trump had to stop all that to win!
Trump was 100x worse in embracing exactly what Bret Stephens lectured Republicans they needed to run away from.
The Republican “brand” wasn’t damaged just because their leader incited a violent insurrection, caused an economic collapse, and their anti-science policies killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Probably because aside from Bret Stephens, the Republicans didn’t work hard to damage their own brand, but doubled down on exactly the things that NYT columnist said lost them the 2020 election.
Of course, if there was a left wing propaganda arm that kept telling American voters that the Republicans definitely were screwing the middle class to give money to their evil rich billionaire donors, and Fox News and the entire right wing media sphere told viewers that whether or not Republicans were screwing the middle class to enrich their evil billionaire donors is a both sides issues, with many respectable people making the case that Republicans were definitely planning to screw over the middle class, maybe Americans who were bombarded with the message “even the right wing Fox News says it’s very possible that Republicans will be screwing over you middle class voters” might actually start to believe it was true.
The 2024 concern trolling advice to Democrats to throw under the bus everyone but white straight voters is disgusting.
Just because the Republicans got the NYT and the rest of the liberal media to validate and amplify the false Republican narrative that the Democrats are the party of elites who only care about identity politics and trans people, and offer nothing to working class Americans DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE. It was never true.
I have no idea why Dems can’t stand up for what is morally right as strongly as Republicans stand up for the most corrupt, morally reprehensible positions. And I have no idea why concern trolls steeped in privilege keep lying to voters and telling voters that Dems don’t care about them, they only care about trans people and identity politics, but maybe if the Democrats finally started to offer something – anything! – to the regular voters who aren’t trans but are hurting economically, LIKE THE REPUBLICANS DO – maybe the Dems could actually win an election.
Hearing folks who are supposed to be on our side repeating ad nauseam that the Dems only care about elites and identity politics, and lecturing Dems to start caring about doing something for the people suffering economically LIKE THE REPUBLICANS DO convinces me we are soon to learn what it is like to live in a totalitarian dictatorship.
An Orwellian dictatorship, where “truth” – that Republicans care about regular people and Dems care only about elites and identity politics – is validated every day by the “liberal” media.
The “truth” in 2024 that was validated and reinforced by the so-called liberal media is that the Dems did NOTHING to help the economy work for Americans who weren’t rich. Even though it was the Republicans who did nothing but try to block every attempt of the Dems to make the economy work for people who weren’t rich.
But the narrative – even in the liberal media – was that Trump offered something for regular Americans suffering in this economy, even though in Orwellian fashion the media did not care to explain what that was. They preferred to simply repeat that voters thought Trump was offering something so therefore it was true he was! Along with always amplifying that Kamala’s economic plan was very suspect and too vague for voters to trust that Kamala cared about their economic pain the way Trump did.
I suspect there are folks here who believe there just hasn’t been enough reporting on how the Democrats are too obsessed with identity politics and trans issues and if only they would offer something that helped regular working folks who are suffering economically, they might just win a future election.
I have no doubt that will be rectified in the 500 articles in the NYT and Wash Post about that very subject in the next year.
That will definitely help the Democrat brand – reading how they don’t care about working Americans suffering in this economy while the Republicans do. That and throwing vulnerable Americans under the bus as the white elites whose opinions are most important to NYT reporters advise.
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