It’s a similar rhetorical tactic with youth gender medicine. Yes we’d like to have better evidence, but everything we have so far shows that youth transition is a very effective treatment for a very serious problem. The obvious conclusion is not to restrict it, but expand it and study it more. /3
The obvious conclusion of this research to anyone with a brain was that yes being a single parent is hard, it’s better to have two adults (hell probably 3 or 4) splitting the responsibilities of looking after children. But the science was absolutely twisted to claim gay marriage harms children. /2
And then there is the matter of youth transition. Marriage inherently leaves kids out. No one is fighting for the right of a 13-yea. old to get married to a man or a woman (well, almost no one). But puberty happens to children, which makes this a more difficult political and philosophical problem.
Lakshya Jain’s claims here are so obviously wrong to anybody who actually remembers the gay marriage debate. Opponents would always tout studies showing straight marriages produce better outcomes for kids, while no evidence existed for gay marriages (because they hadn’t been studied). /1
I’m still undecided, btw. I’d want to see polling showing that Mills’ age isn’t too much of a liability to beat Collins in order to move me firmly into her camp. But Platner is one liability after another. /2
Aside from this likely not being true, the idea that Bluesky users are eager to be de facto supporting Chuck Schumer’s handpicked candidate is wild. Most people on this site would otherwise want to give Platner every benefit of the doubt. But Nazi tattoos are actually a problem. /1
The thing is that unlike Twitter in its heyday, most people who do social media professionally do not understand BlueSky. Knowing what’s going to perform well here requires spending time with actual leftists who feel incredibly disheartened with liberals and liberal institutions right now.
I also don’t think there’s a world where Davidson wouldn’t have caved to Trump if his vote actually mattered, meaning there was no path, even with perfect party discipline. Massie maybe would’ve held out, but I’ll believe that kind of spine from a Republican when I see it.
In all for challenging the defectors in primaries. This vote was a win, so much as you can get one these days. Everybody is now on the record on this unpopular war, and will have to answer to their constituents, regardless of political party.
At his next White House visit, can Mamdani please convince Trump to sign a law saying that minors can have access to GAC with express written approval of their parents?
The next Democratic Administration needs to create so many adminsitrative hurdles that it would be nearly impossible for a Republican president to revoke our passports or other documents.
never, ever, ever, ever accept "how will you pay for it?" as an argument against social programs.
If medical authorities have a rigorous way of distinguishing effeminate boys from transgender kids—or of distinguishing transgender kids from proto-gay kids—they aren’t saying. I have met a number of detransitioned gay men who tried to live as women for a time because they and their families were so averse to homosexuality. According to a 2019 report in The Times of London, staffers at Britain’s foremost gender-identity clinic joked darkly that, as a result of the facility’s work, “there would be no gay people left.” A statement last month by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons noted that there is no validated way to assess whether a child’s gender distress will persist over time or disappear without medical intervention. A lack of good research and recordkeeping means that we may never know how many patients who would have been considered effeminate gay boys not so long ago have undergone medical treatments for gender dysphoria.
Once again folks, it's important to remember that it's just a lot cheaper and easier for cis gay men to have their dicks surgically removed than it is for them to leave their homophobic families (that definitely aren't also transphobic, LOL) and move to a gay-friendly city.
Apropos of nothing, I’m thinking about the time Katie Herzog insisted in an interview that all of her roommates “suddenly” transitioning was evidence of a social contagion and not that she’s a shitty person that clearly none of them wanted to come out to.
Ben’s argument makes total sense if you just ignore that most parents who eventually affirm their trans daughters try really hard initially to treat them as “just effeminate boys”, but refuse name and pronoun changes until their child is too clinically depressed to function, or even suicidal.
Oof. That last one…
I don’t live in Texas, but this story almost feels like Jasmine Crockett is personally invested in getting my vote.
Matt is correct. Merrick Garland dithered for 18 months on charging Trump over Jan 6 because of the Sunrise Movement
No argument from me that it’s a rotten institution. But right now I’ll take whatever good journalism sneaks through, somehow.
Err sorry Lex McMenamin
I mean, this one is literally from two days ago. They also just hired Lex McKinnemen.
Complicated, because Guardian’s US team has been really good on trans issues. UK has been dogshit.
If not for the second Comey letter, Ross and Kander might’ve even pulled it off.
Not if she carried McGinty and Feingold in on her coattails like she was supposed to.
Not a great move to not comment on this. “Reviewing all options available, will have something in the next couple of weeks, and we actually mean it unlike when Trump says it,” would’ve been fine.
Also, while I agree with the sentiment about not having to fix everything, have we fixed literally a single thing with the criminal legal system since 2021? It pisses me off that we’ve abandoned any efforts on that while saying let’s use it to solve problems.
Confused about the policy aim. Nobody ever driving after consuming even a single drink that evening, or making .05 the limit. The former requires a monumental culture shift that this law won’t fix. The latter, I’d start with breathalyzers and informational signage in every bar.
The smokescreen they have for this is, “Well most of them don’t assess like the Dutch do.” Which, if you listen to that awful NYT Podcast it should raise questions about the Dutch assessment process like, “Why the fuck did they grill the parents for an entire day on whether their kid was molested?”
Sorry, no, I don’t think after 2020 it’s batshit to point out that an otherwise good law with good aims is still going to expand the reach of a criminal justice system that is still racist and still ruins lives. Maybe the tradeoff is worth it. I can be convinced of that.
This isn’t the only area where progressive blind spots happen. Gun laws targeted at individuals (not at sellers or manufacturers) also disproportionately result in marginalized people being prosecuted. Maybe the tradeoff is worth it. But I don’t think it ought to be ignored.
And if I’m being honest, I think most progressives would generally agree with that sentiment here. But we have a particular blind spot for DUI because there are plenty of non-marginalized who do it, and it pisses us off that they won’t just take the bus or an uber. /2
