The biggest stupidest euphemism is ‘denying health care for trans people’. Like a doctor would refused to treat a strep throat for a trans person or take out an jnflamed appendix. Really these activists have so corrupted our language. That’s all part of the plan
Lisa: I’ve been wondering to what extent the old NYT style guide to which you referred in a comment on the previous post would get us back to where we need to be. If so, would it be worth using elements of the old NYT style guide to build yours (crediting the source), wherever possible?
Yes, the whole framing of "transition" as "health care" or "medicine" is a foundational part of the problem. It shouldn't exist for minors or young adults at all. And for older adults, it's not health care by any stretch. It's (at best) cosmetic and (at worst) physically and emotionally/mentally harmful, and it definitely shouldn't be covered by taxpayers.
Indeed. It’s a medical scandal it’s not healthcare. And if anyone doubts it, look at what a mess that Jazz Jennings is. A physical and emotional disaster.
I encourage folks here who have D candidates and electeds to write to or call them, cite to the paragraph Lisa notes in the Leonhardt article and let them know you agree that this is a weakness for Ds on which it would be wise to change their posture. You might also note that Leonhardt links to Pamela Paul’s superb piece on the Cass Review, and encourage your candidates and electeds to read that too. Let’s take every opportunity like this from now until the election to let our D candidates and electeds know our views.
Hi, all: if this is useful to anyone in creating your own letter/email/talking points, please feel free to use/copy the below as a basis for communicating to Harris, the DNC, etc. and 2024 Democratic candidates for office:
I am writing as a longtime, generally progressive, Democrat who would like to offer Kamala Harris and the entire Democratic Party my full-throated support this November. To achieve that, however, there is one thing on which the Democratic Party must change course. In his New York Times piece of July 23, 2024, “The Harris Campaign Begins,” David Leonhardt pointed to the area of my particular concern:
“U.S. liberals have adopted some positions on gender issues that are out of the mainstream. Doctors in Europe, for example, believe the scientific evidence doesn’t support gender transition hormone treatment for many children. Most Americans agree — while also opposing discrimination against trans people. Many prominent Democrats are well to the public’s left on this subject.”
The Democrats are losing longtime Democratic voters over the issue Leonhardt notes, along with other important issues related to the erosion of sex-based rights and boundaries of women and girls. Below I detail 5 issue areas for the Democratic Party’s consideration, together with recommended approaches and citations to resources.
Medical and Surgical Interventions for Minors with Sex- and Gender-Based Confusion
Issue: It has been widely noted that the profile of minors presenting to gender clinics, here and abroad, has vastly changed in recent years. This is resulting in many minors with complex psychosocial issues receiving medical and surgical interventions that are not appropriate to their needs.
Proposed Democratic Position: Pause provision of such care to minors (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries) pending completion of a national systematic review. Models for such reviews include those that have been done in England (the Cass Review), Finland, and other European countries.
Resources: The Cass Review, https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/; Pamela Paul’s article in the New York Times on the Cass Review, “Why Is the U.S. Still Pretending We Know Gender-Affirming Care Works?”, to which Leonhardt links in his article.
Title IX Athletics
Issue: Biological girls and women are losing opportunities as the result of an increasing number of biological males competing in girls’ and women’s sports.
Proposed Democratic Position: Reserve girls’ and women’s sports only for biological girls and women and offer an “open” category in which anyone at all can compete, no matter how they self-identify.
Resources: Martina Navratilova and Kim Shasby Jones, who have researched, written, and spoken extensively on this, can point you to many useful resources.
K-12 Schools
Issue: Children are being introduced to ideas and concepts within the rubric of gender identity that do not comport with their developmental stages and that encourage dissociation from their biology.
Proposed Democratic Position: Put a moratorium on all legislation, regulatory, and public policy efforts that promote gender identity concepts in K-12 school materials, activities, and curricula. Allow individual schools/school districts and parents, without pressure to conform to any specific model, to ascertain the best way forward for their schools.
Health Care, Public Health, and Other Data Collection
Issue: Differences between the sexes are an important factor for analysis in many areas social and health scientists address. These include, for example, demography, physical and mental health, crime, education, and employment. It is critical to retain biological sex as a data point for all such purposes.
Proposed Democratic Position: Wherever biological sex is pertinent, data collection will include biological sex as a separate and distinct data point.
Resource: “Why Do We Need Data on Sex?”, by Alice Sullivan, Kath Murray, and Lisa Mackenzie, in Sex and Gender, A Contemporary Reader.
Federal Equality Act (H.R. 15 and S. 5 118th Congress)
Issue: If the federal Equality Act passes as currently written, gender identity, under which biological males can self-identify as women, has the potential to supersede sex for all formerly sex-based rights and single-sex spaces (including, as examples, women’s prisons, hospital wards, refuges for women from domestic violence, public changing rooms, and public toilets).
Proposed Democratic Position: Rather than, as now proposed, defining “sex” to include “gender identity,” amend the proposed legislation to add “gender identity” as a separate protected category, alongside “sex” and the other existing protected categories.
It's good to see that "All the news that's fit to print" allows in a nugget of truth now and then.
It's a slam-dunk for most people to support fairness in sports. Also, acknowledging that the US is way out of step with medical guidelines of Europe when it comes to "gender medicine." That is verifiable news.
Will the NYT acknowledge that there are many liberals that don't agree with medicating youth, that we want single-sex spaces, etc.? No, feminists are not being used by the right-wing.
Will the NYT acknowledge that there is a schism between LGB and TQ? That this acronym is not a monolith?
I am one of those awful unbelievers (in trans). Acknowledge us. We don't believe in the gender faith. I believe people deserve paragraphs of words--not labels. We all have different personalities, interests, influences. Let's allow for the natural expression of human diversity.
And not for nothing, but this really helps me with an argument I had with my husband, in which I suggested that the Dems would do much better if they reversed course on the whole trans thing, acknowledging that mistakes have been made, apologizing, and stating that we need to do better by a vulnerable group of people (those who question or suffer distress related to their sex - not "transgender kids," who don't exist), and by women. My husband thought this would not be good strategy. It seems the NYT agrees with me, maybe not about the apology, but at least about changing course on this issue. I sure hope Harris listens!!!
Well said! I'm ready to vote Republican for the first time in my life due to the extreme politics of the Democrats particularly on gender/trans issues.
David Leonhardt and Pamela Paul have long struck me as two of the more reasonable voices at the NYT. I’m taking the fact that they haven’t been forced out yet (or resigned in frustration) a hopeful sign that the tide may be turning on woke/progressive overreach. Touch wood.
I don't have a lot of confidence Harris will pivot to the middle on transgender youth and/or transgender youth medicine. Harris has family members and friends that are TQ advocates and/or actively transitioning a child. As we know from trends related to support of TQ youth culture and transgender medicine, leaders (corporate, gov't, etc) are less inclined to speak out about concerns related to youth gender sex-trait modification (contrary to fully supporting gender-atypical children in any expression) if one has a personal connection to or influenced from a personal relationship. I hope I'm wrong about this... .but we are in a "child-led" culture on the Left, of which Harris has been/will be influenced... sad to say!
I hope someone has sent Kara Dansky’s book on this to Kamala Harris. I hope she knows most Dems are very close to a centrist position on the need to change the dialog on “affirmative” care.
A few months ago I read an article in Scientific American about “gender affirming care” that was so unscientific it was laughable. Of course my first thought was, Scientific American isn’t as intellectual as it used to be. Do they back up the Flat Earth Society? Now I know that just like the NYT, it’s politics, not truth, not science.
The American Medical Association stands firm with their position on all of the medicalization of transgender treatment, and the Academy of Pediatrics claims children should be taking so called puberty blockers, hormones and surgery as early as possible.
The second in command at HHS is a trans woman Richard/Rachel Levine who corrected the WPATH guidelines for treatment, but acknowledged that WPATH protocols are not “medical”.
The Dems are still saying medicalization saves people, including children, from suicide. There was nothing to substantiate that claim a few years ago, and most of what Democrats keep repeating is out of date, from at least five years ago when this issue was beginning to go mainstream. Scare tactics are political too.
I am no longer a Democrat because of this issue. It has made me question everything, because if they think and say things like this, what else are they absolutely wrong about?
The biggest stupidest euphemism is ‘denying health care for trans people’. Like a doctor would refused to treat a strep throat for a trans person or take out an jnflamed appendix. Really these activists have so corrupted our language. That’s all part of the plan
I agree! Gonna put that in a "common misconceptions" area of the style guide!
Lisa: I’ve been wondering to what extent the old NYT style guide to which you referred in a comment on the previous post would get us back to where we need to be. If so, would it be worth using elements of the old NYT style guide to build yours (crediting the source), wherever possible?
Likewise, the use of “removed protections for LGBTQ”—not mentioning that it’s about returning to sex-based rights and essential safeguarding.
Yes, the whole framing of "transition" as "health care" or "medicine" is a foundational part of the problem. It shouldn't exist for minors or young adults at all. And for older adults, it's not health care by any stretch. It's (at best) cosmetic and (at worst) physically and emotionally/mentally harmful, and it definitely shouldn't be covered by taxpayers.
Indeed. It’s a medical scandal it’s not healthcare. And if anyone doubts it, look at what a mess that Jazz Jennings is. A physical and emotional disaster.
I encourage folks here who have D candidates and electeds to write to or call them, cite to the paragraph Lisa notes in the Leonhardt article and let them know you agree that this is a weakness for Ds on which it would be wise to change their posture. You might also note that Leonhardt links to Pamela Paul’s superb piece on the Cass Review, and encourage your candidates and electeds to read that too. Let’s take every opportunity like this from now until the election to let our D candidates and electeds know our views.
Hi, all: if this is useful to anyone in creating your own letter/email/talking points, please feel free to use/copy the below as a basis for communicating to Harris, the DNC, etc. and 2024 Democratic candidates for office:
I am writing as a longtime, generally progressive, Democrat who would like to offer Kamala Harris and the entire Democratic Party my full-throated support this November. To achieve that, however, there is one thing on which the Democratic Party must change course. In his New York Times piece of July 23, 2024, “The Harris Campaign Begins,” David Leonhardt pointed to the area of my particular concern:
“U.S. liberals have adopted some positions on gender issues that are out of the mainstream. Doctors in Europe, for example, believe the scientific evidence doesn’t support gender transition hormone treatment for many children. Most Americans agree — while also opposing discrimination against trans people. Many prominent Democrats are well to the public’s left on this subject.”
The Democrats are losing longtime Democratic voters over the issue Leonhardt notes, along with other important issues related to the erosion of sex-based rights and boundaries of women and girls. Below I detail 5 issue areas for the Democratic Party’s consideration, together with recommended approaches and citations to resources.
Medical and Surgical Interventions for Minors with Sex- and Gender-Based Confusion
Issue: It has been widely noted that the profile of minors presenting to gender clinics, here and abroad, has vastly changed in recent years. This is resulting in many minors with complex psychosocial issues receiving medical and surgical interventions that are not appropriate to their needs.
Proposed Democratic Position: Pause provision of such care to minors (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries) pending completion of a national systematic review. Models for such reviews include those that have been done in England (the Cass Review), Finland, and other European countries.
Resources: The Cass Review, https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/; Pamela Paul’s article in the New York Times on the Cass Review, “Why Is the U.S. Still Pretending We Know Gender-Affirming Care Works?”, to which Leonhardt links in his article.
Title IX Athletics
Issue: Biological girls and women are losing opportunities as the result of an increasing number of biological males competing in girls’ and women’s sports.
Proposed Democratic Position: Reserve girls’ and women’s sports only for biological girls and women and offer an “open” category in which anyone at all can compete, no matter how they self-identify.
Resources: Martina Navratilova and Kim Shasby Jones, who have researched, written, and spoken extensively on this, can point you to many useful resources.
K-12 Schools
Issue: Children are being introduced to ideas and concepts within the rubric of gender identity that do not comport with their developmental stages and that encourage dissociation from their biology.
Proposed Democratic Position: Put a moratorium on all legislation, regulatory, and public policy efforts that promote gender identity concepts in K-12 school materials, activities, and curricula. Allow individual schools/school districts and parents, without pressure to conform to any specific model, to ascertain the best way forward for their schools.
Resource: Sex Matters is an excellent resource on this issue (and many others): https://sex-matters.org/posts/publications/sex-and-gender-model-policy-for-schools/
Health Care, Public Health, and Other Data Collection
Issue: Differences between the sexes are an important factor for analysis in many areas social and health scientists address. These include, for example, demography, physical and mental health, crime, education, and employment. It is critical to retain biological sex as a data point for all such purposes.
Proposed Democratic Position: Wherever biological sex is pertinent, data collection will include biological sex as a separate and distinct data point.
Resource: “Why Do We Need Data on Sex?”, by Alice Sullivan, Kath Murray, and Lisa Mackenzie, in Sex and Gender, A Contemporary Reader.
Federal Equality Act (H.R. 15 and S. 5 118th Congress)
Issue: If the federal Equality Act passes as currently written, gender identity, under which biological males can self-identify as women, has the potential to supersede sex for all formerly sex-based rights and single-sex spaces (including, as examples, women’s prisons, hospital wards, refuges for women from domestic violence, public changing rooms, and public toilets).
Proposed Democratic Position: Rather than, as now proposed, defining “sex” to include “gender identity,” amend the proposed legislation to add “gender identity” as a separate protected category, alongside “sex” and the other existing protected categories.
Resource: “Sex, Gender, and Equality in the United States: Confusion, Conflict, and Consequences,” by Callie H. Burt, in Sex and Gender, A Contemporary Reader. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/qy4bqn4cftqwv5iav77yi/Burt_2024_Chapter-9-EA.pdf?rlkey=xcpve9naiwqfh942ebwcfl9f1&e=1&dl=0
I ask you to please take this seriously and change course. A Democratic victory in November may well depend on it.
Thank you for your consideration.
It's good to see that "All the news that's fit to print" allows in a nugget of truth now and then.
It's a slam-dunk for most people to support fairness in sports. Also, acknowledging that the US is way out of step with medical guidelines of Europe when it comes to "gender medicine." That is verifiable news.
Will the NYT acknowledge that there are many liberals that don't agree with medicating youth, that we want single-sex spaces, etc.? No, feminists are not being used by the right-wing.
Will the NYT acknowledge that there is a schism between LGB and TQ? That this acronym is not a monolith?
I am one of those awful unbelievers (in trans). Acknowledge us. We don't believe in the gender faith. I believe people deserve paragraphs of words--not labels. We all have different personalities, interests, influences. Let's allow for the natural expression of human diversity.
Thank you, Lisa!
And not for nothing, but this really helps me with an argument I had with my husband, in which I suggested that the Dems would do much better if they reversed course on the whole trans thing, acknowledging that mistakes have been made, apologizing, and stating that we need to do better by a vulnerable group of people (those who question or suffer distress related to their sex - not "transgender kids," who don't exist), and by women. My husband thought this would not be good strategy. It seems the NYT agrees with me, maybe not about the apology, but at least about changing course on this issue. I sure hope Harris listens!!!
Well said! I'm ready to vote Republican for the first time in my life due to the extreme politics of the Democrats particularly on gender/trans issues.
David Leonhardt and Pamela Paul have long struck me as two of the more reasonable voices at the NYT. I’m taking the fact that they haven’t been forced out yet (or resigned in frustration) a hopeful sign that the tide may be turning on woke/progressive overreach. Touch wood.
I don't have a lot of confidence Harris will pivot to the middle on transgender youth and/or transgender youth medicine. Harris has family members and friends that are TQ advocates and/or actively transitioning a child. As we know from trends related to support of TQ youth culture and transgender medicine, leaders (corporate, gov't, etc) are less inclined to speak out about concerns related to youth gender sex-trait modification (contrary to fully supporting gender-atypical children in any expression) if one has a personal connection to or influenced from a personal relationship. I hope I'm wrong about this... .but we are in a "child-led" culture on the Left, of which Harris has been/will be influenced... sad to say!
I hope someone has sent Kara Dansky’s book on this to Kamala Harris. I hope she knows most Dems are very close to a centrist position on the need to change the dialog on “affirmative” care.
A few months ago I read an article in Scientific American about “gender affirming care” that was so unscientific it was laughable. Of course my first thought was, Scientific American isn’t as intellectual as it used to be. Do they back up the Flat Earth Society? Now I know that just like the NYT, it’s politics, not truth, not science.
The American Medical Association stands firm with their position on all of the medicalization of transgender treatment, and the Academy of Pediatrics claims children should be taking so called puberty blockers, hormones and surgery as early as possible.
The second in command at HHS is a trans woman Richard/Rachel Levine who corrected the WPATH guidelines for treatment, but acknowledged that WPATH protocols are not “medical”.
The Dems are still saying medicalization saves people, including children, from suicide. There was nothing to substantiate that claim a few years ago, and most of what Democrats keep repeating is out of date, from at least five years ago when this issue was beginning to go mainstream. Scare tactics are political too.
I am no longer a Democrat because of this issue. It has made me question everything, because if they think and say things like this, what else are they absolutely wrong about?
Famous trans-activist Erin Reed was unhappy with that paragraph.....
https://x.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1815878903334121942
Let the "hippie-punching" commence. (That's what the Democratic left flank calls it when Democrats criticize their left flank.)