Right-wing media tried to make an Ohio ballot initiative a referendum on trans people. It failed again.
Right-wing media tried to make an Ohio ballot initiative a referendum on trans people. It failed again.
MediaMatters
Ok speaking as someone whose had bottom surgery and watched someone recover from top surgery let me just say this: if your minor child has a sex change procedure (usually implies surgery) without you knowing you aren’t involved enough. Between the several letters of recommendation, the year of hormones, the hours and hours (and over a thousand dollars) of genital hair removal over like a year, and the drives to appointments with the surgeon several times (maybe you lucked out and they’re in town, but the only bottom surgeons in Ohio are in Cleveland and Columbus). That’s all before the recovery. If you don’t notice your kid can’t lift their arms much for a month/can’t comfortably sit or get up after disappearing for a week you’re not spending enough time with them to get a full say in their life. Trust me, you can’t fucking hide recovering from gender affirming surgery. Well unless you’re that chick I know who flew a plane a few days after bottom surgery.
Truth. They want to pretend that parents are coercing their children into surgery. Not happening. Sorry you’re having to put up with this shit.
Oh absolutely, yeah the number of trans people who get disowned even now is horrifying. But stories from the 90s are next level. I once met a programmer who spent her teen years as a prostitute since she came out as trans in the early 90s and was kicked out. Turns out it’s not easy for teenagers to make enough to keep a roof over their head and buy black market hormones without selling something illegal. She had an orchiectomy at 18 in some guy’s basement.
Still today an extremely disproportionate portion of homeless youth are disowned trans kids.
I was disowned myself when I came out at 20. Fortunately one of my parents was accepting and I wasn’t thrown out, but I was housing insecure for the rest of college and I did learn what it’s like to spend a night in a car in an Ohio winter from time to time. With my supportive mom I was never pressured, just assisted in what I said I wanted.
In a lot of ways this all resembles the minimization of suffering abortion argument. It will happen, how bad do we want it to be?
This idea that children are being coerced into transitioning by parents is wild considering the massive pressure still placed by parents on trans teenagers to be cis. Sorry if this wound up on a bit of a tangent
no, they're afraid of "the wrong people" are coercing their children into surgery, because that's what they do
I moved out of my parents house and drove from Florida to Minnesota less than two weeks after top surgery. I can't say I recommend doing that. I didn't exactly tell my parents I was having top surgery, I just told them I was out of town visiting friends for a week and I think they might have found out the first time I went swimming shirtless, lol. But I was also an adult at that point and had long ago realized if I'm doing something expensive and important for myself, don't ask permission. A minor is not legally allowed to do what I did and that's probably for the best, your point still stands, lol.
this article has given me so much hope for the future of America in relation to LGBT issues.
I often get stuck thinking that LGBT people (especially the T part) are destined to be forced back in the closet thanks to the right's obsession with them. I'm so glad that these attacks are seemingly unpopular, contrary to what Republicans have been saying.
I just hope this is what's happening here in Australia too
the thing is, what we're watching is the bigot's last stand. they're getting nasty because it's now or never. their power base is dieing off and they know it, and they're hoping to stuff us back into the closet while they still have levers of power to pull.
For some reason the most pessimistic voices always get boosted the most on social media. (Well, on my corner of Akkoma/Mastodon, that is.)
While, yes, there is a large anti-trans campaign going on in the US, and yes, it's succeeding scarily often, it is failing just as often. The threat isn't from a hateful majority, it's from a minority in power. One way or another I believe it's a losing battle for the bigots. We exist and nothing they can do will change that.
I would say that excessive pessimism is a rather common problem these days
🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️ Ohio says Trans Lives Matter 🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️
Even aside from all the factual inaccuracies and nonsense about "sex changes for minors", it's important to notice this measure actually had nothing to do with gender affirming care or trans rights.
Right wing media has gotten to a point where they just fear monger and draw thin connections to drag queens or some other bullshit to get their base to vote how they want.
This is another moral panic by closeted gay conservatives and the frightened, ignorant people surrounding them.
The panics come and go, and they ruin many lives in the process.
Pretty hard for othering to be a successful strategy when your chosen bogeyman is less than 1% of the population.