Pamela Paul: Americans Want Common Sense on Trans Issues

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In the wake of the election, NY Times columnist Pamela Paul has written about the issue of trans identity and the approach most Americans would like society to take. She notes that the GOP spent a lot of money airing ads on this issue in the final weeks of the election. It wasn’t a leading issue for anyone but it seems to have played a role in the outcome anyway.

Why did Trump and his allies devote so much attention and resources to something that seemingly affects a small number of people compared with top voter concerns like immigration, the economy, crime, abortion and democracy? Maybe because it worked…

…as those of us who opposed Trump lick our wounds and take stock, it’s worth considering why these ads and rally cries resonated.

It is not because most Americans are bigots or haters or anti-L.G.B.T.Q. people. But many voters, including liberals and Democrats, disagree with positions Harris and the Democratic Party have taken on transgender issues. Polls show that most voters, while largely supportive of existing legal rights and protections for transgender people, have complicated views on other policies that fall under the umbrella of what’s commonly referred to as trans rights…

In recent years, the concepts of gender identity and the possibility of being born in the wrong body have been introduced as early as elementary school. But a Washington Post poll found that 77 percent of Americans do not want teachers discussing these ideas in kindergarten through third grade and more than half oppose trans identity being talked about even in middle school.

The Democratic Party’s platform includes a pledge to defend gender-affirming care for minors.

Paul’s column concludes, “Democrats and everyone else who support transgender rights should embrace a common-sense approach from their government, their schools, their mental health care workers and their doctors.”

That’s good advice but as of now, Democrats have put themselves firmly on the wrong side of an 80-20 issue, one not supported by scientific evidence. On the other hand, Republicans have put themselves on the side of the majority of adults who do not believe first graders should be told they could grow up to be a boy or a girl without regard to their actual sex.

Paul is staking out a position which, despite being perfectly reasonable, is likely to attract criticism from the far left. And yet even she is downplaying this a bit. Here’s a graph showing results of a poll taken by the Washington Post. You can find it in the link above about what parents want taught in schools.

What she doesn’t mention is that the first line that reads “Kindergarten to third grade” describes the contents of a bill passed in Florida and signed by Gov. DeSantis which the media referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. That was clever marketing by the left/media but as you can see the contents of the bill are overwhelmingly popular. In fact, the graph suggests the “Don’t Say Gay” would a) be popular nationwide and b) probably didn’t go far enough. Had Florida expanded that bill to 4th and 5th grade, support for it still would have been more than 2:1. Also, note that this is a survey of US adults. I suspect the number of people calling this inappropriate would be much higher if the survey was limited to parents.

Readers are in near-unanimous agreement with this column. They are tired of being called bigots by the left.

A lot of people, and especially parents, had a “moment” when they saw Lia Thomas.  Here was a woman, who has a height and build that a biological woman would never achieve – and also competed on the men’s team two years prior – shattering Ivy League records.  People’s daughters were finishing 2nd or 3rd behind a woman who has only been a woman for two years.

People who were even just a tad uncomfortable with this were called bigots and transphobes and all sorts of names.  If you do this, may people will be quiet to protect their social standing.  But they will wait until their voices can be heard – at the ballot box.

Part of the column is about what Trump might do in office on this issue. It seems Trump has a new fan from the other side of the aisle:

Started reading the article and the first thing that really struck me is that I, as a traditional Democrat, agree very much with what Trump is vocalizing in this. And it’s a shame that Democrats have become so beholden to special interest groups that the agenda was co-opted by this.

From a medical researcher:

As a researcher who has spent 40 years in medical research (clinical trials, NIH reviews, statistical analysis of medical data), I have looked at the studies. They are genuinely terrible. Not only do they lose track of 30-40% of patients (good studies lose track of 1-2%), but the outcome measures are terrible, and avoid the kind of physiological evaluations which are the basis of safety evaluations (bone density, sexual function). In the NY Times last week, a prominent trans researcher, Joanna Olson-Kennedy, defended her decision to NOT publish research. From this researcher: “she said the findings might fuel the kind of political attacks that have led to bans of the youth gender treatments in more than 20 states, one of which will soon be considered by the Supreme Court.” 

This form of “care” should be banned, not only for youth, but for all ages. It is quackery and done by the Trans Medical Industrial Complex because there are huge financial rewards for the physicians.

From a female college athlete:

I voted for Kamala and support self determination for trans adults.  But as a former female division 1 shot putter I am astonished that anyone can make the claim that a person going through male puberty has no advantage over female athletes in sports like mine.  A 14 year old boy without training could throw the shot farther than I could as a collegiate athlete.  This sort of denial of reality gave me pause.  Fairness in sports is essential.

Democrats maintain control of parents through implied threats and fear.

In my child’s school kids as young as 4 are coming out as “trans” and being encouraged to change their pronouns. The teachers read them books about how they can be any gender they want yet biological sex isn’t mentioned once–and few if any of these kids even know what biological sex is. 

When we started to raise questions about whether this approach makes sense it became clear that if we pushed too hard we might be labeled as “transphobes” and at risk of being ostracized in our community and possibly cancelled. 

I am a lifelong Democrat who for decades considered myself a progressive. Unfortunately, the left has completely lost the thread on this issue and it doesn’t surprise me that the fascists have made electoral hay out of it. We can support the rights of the tiny number of people who are truly trans without insisting that biological sex isn’t real and without encouraging school kids to reject their own bodies before they’ve even completed adolescence.

It just goes on like this for hundreds more comments. Democrats are losing on this issue and not just with Republicans.