[RD] LGBTQ News II

[IglooDame]

Got a problem with my sexual preferences?

No, but then again I'm not the one saying you're somewhat perverted, either.

 

[Evie]

Transness is a nice one, if perhaps a bit informal. But I like it. XD

 

[Lexicus]

Well... tell that to lesbians then? Unless I missed an update, "lesbianism" is an acceptable gender-specific version of "homosexuality" isn't it? Perhaps it isn't anymore and I genuinely did miss an update (more than possible), but I still don't think you'd accuse anyone of implying an ideology if they used the term. Unless they're prefacing it with some other word like "political".

I am once again asking you to try to understand the concept of connotation. There are actually real reasons that "transgenderism" connotes things that "lesbianism" does not.

Now, that said I think there is "trans culture" which is distinct from merely being trans ("transness"). Trans culture is being targeted for destruction as part of the general right-wing push toward trans genocide, the ideal goal for eliminationist transphobes being the destruction of the ability of trans people to understand themselves as trans as such. It is similar to attempts to destroy national identity and culture seen in other genocidal situations, distinct from the killing (whether directly or by "social murder") of individuals.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I am once again asking you to try to understand the concept of connotation. There are actually real reasons that "transgenderism" connotes things that "lesbianism" does not.

I do understand that, but my point is that it's wrong to just assume someone is talking about an "ideology" if they use the word "transgenderism", particularly in light of the absence of an equivalent such word to "homosexuality", and additionally in light of the fact that "lesbianism", another "ism", is already an accepted word for a subset of "homosexuality". To the extent that it's actually the word one might naturally form when groping for a word for that concept. But if you're going to assume a meaning based on comparison with other "isms" then there's a host of things to choose from anyway, not just one:

An ideology - c.f. communism, theism
A state of being, or characteristic - c.f. lesbianism
An aversion or hostility to the thing itself - c.f. racism, sexism
A medical condition - c.f. albinism, dwarfism

In addition, whenever I've seen people talking about trans "ideology", they just refer to it as "trans ideology" anyway. So for all these reasons I don't see it as reasonable to leap to conclusions and immediately go on the attack.

 

[IglooDame]

Well... tell that to lesbians then? Unless I missed an update, "lesbianism" is an acceptable gender-specific version of "homosexuality" isn't it? Perhaps it isn't anymore and I genuinely did miss an update (more than possible), but I still don't think you'd accuse anyone of implying an ideology if they used the term. Unless they're prefacing it with some other word like "political".

Though more to your point, "lesbianism" is gender-specific sure (I'll check the notice board later on whether we've unacceptabled it) but "transgenderism" is not; "transfeminism" would be.

What's the cisgender-specific equivalent of "heterosexuality", one wonders.

 

[Ordnael]

No, but then again I'm not the one saying you're somewhat perverted, either.

Dame, I wasn't even remotely trying to answer you...You should know by now you are alright in my book.
Truly! You know who you are, what you are, what you feel and, most of all, you are not imposing!
...
And I am not even bother with the childish attempts at riling me by the rest of the clique.
I was trying to be candid, playfull even, but it's obvious folks, yet again, decided to imply stuff I didn’t write
You all have a good one!

 

[IglooDame]

Dame, I wasn't even remotely trying to answer you...You should know by now you are alright in my book.
Truly! You know who you are, what you are, what you feel and, most of all, you are not imposing!
...
And I am not even bother with the childish attempts at riling me by the rest of the clique.
I was trying to be candid, playfull even, but it's obvious folks, yet again, decided to imply stuff I didn’t write
You all have a good one!

Apologies, I really did intend my response as poking back at you in kind, but alas I forgot the smileys.

But I really wish you'd understand, yeah some of us were getting into a bit of a running joke there about the enormous blind spot some people seem to have for lesbian and/or transgender people in history or among more distant relatives, but the joke you were making was not about that invisibility but rather about us being objectified. That one stings - I regularly get messages from men hitting on me either because having relations with a trans woman (they always assume we're all pre-op) means they're still straight (and they're technically correct) or because they have a fetish for trans women and regard me as more of a sex toy than a human being. Ironically, they don't even seem to care that I'm a lesbian and not actually interested in them in the first place. And as often as not those messages are coming from men who publicly support policies trying to make me detransition. So that's an example of why a hubba-hubba thing about lesbians from a straight guy to the lesbians is not generally going to get laughs.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Though more to your point, "lesbianism" is gender-specific sure (I'll check the notice board later on whether we've unacceptabled it) but "transgenderism" is not; "transfeminism" would be.

I'm not sure what the relevance of gender-specificness (or -ity, or -ism) is. I wasn't claiming they were synonyms, just functionally equivalent.

What's the cisgender-specific equivalent of "heterosexuality", one wonders.

Well I would say cisgenderism, but that might be confused with an ideology, so to be consistent let's go with cisness

 

[Evie]

Ideology is indeed too narrow, but I think it's fair to say that -ism is *overwhelmingly* associated with belief systems, ways of life, ideologies, religions as a broad category.

There are occasional exceptions, for a variety of reasons (labels invented by critics that were later reclaimed, more obscure interpretation of the term, etc), but it's best to keep the most common and most easily understood meaning of the suffix in mind before using it. Plus, in practice, however you meant it, transgenderism, overwhelmingly, is used in the same -ism sense as "Wokeism" (and by the same people), not in the same sense as "Lesbianism".

 

[Lexicus]

Apologies, I really did intend my response as poking back at you in kind, but alas I forgot the smileys.

But I really wish you'd understand, yeah some of us were getting into a bit of a running joke there about the enormous blind spot some people seem to have for lesbian and/or transgender people in history or among more distant relatives, but the joke you were making was not about that invisibility but rather about us being objectified. That one stings - I regularly get messages from men hitting on me either because having relations with a trans woman (they always assume we're all pre-op) means they're still straight (and they're technically correct) or because they have a fetish for trans women and regard me as more of a sex toy than a human being. Ironically, they don't even seem to care that I'm a lesbian and not actually interested in them in the first place. And as often as not those messages are coming from men who publicly support policies trying to make me detransition. So that's an example of why a hubba-hubba thing about lesbians from a straight guy to the lesbians is not generally going to get laughs.

This reminds me of when someone on twitter asked why men don't have lesbian besties the way women have male gay besties and the answers were "because most straight men fetishize and sexualize us"

 

[Manfred Belheim]

in practice, however you meant it, transgenderism, overwhelmingly, is used in the same -ism sense as "Wokeism" (and by the same people), not in the same sense as "Lesbianism".

I mean maybe you're right. Like I say, whenever I've seen anyone wanting to talk about "trans ideology", that's exactly what they call it. I can't honestly say I've seen "transgenderism" bandied around all that much in the wild.

Interestingly, a quick search on this forum alone reveals that "transgenderism" was used in the same sort of sense as "homosexuality" as little as three years ago, including by people in this very exchange who are now denouncing that usage. That isn't a particularly long time, particularly if you're not following the issue. I still have shelves I intended to put up three years ago and that feels like yesterday...

My point isn't to insist that "this word means this", or to deny that language usage can change and words can evolve different connotations, merely that it doesn't seem reasonable to assume or even insist that someone using the word doesn't mean it in the sense that you yourself would have used it precious few years ago, but must mean it in a very negative sense instead.

 

[Lexicus]

Interestingly, a quick search on this forum alone reveals that "transgenderism" was used in the same sort of sense as "homosexuality" as little as three years ago, including by people in this very exchange who are now denouncing that usage. That isn't a particularly long time, particularly if you're not following the issue. I still have shelves I intended to put up three years ago and that feels like yesterday...

Interestingly, I did a search myself and on the first page of results:

 

[thetrooper]

I’m a man of few words but let me also in this (new) thread let you know that I cheer for you guys. Especially after the clown took office.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

Maybe Mulan is a transgender as well!

Probably (not).
It's a blanket assumption that because someone assumes the role of the opposite sex, within a historical narrative, we today would call it transgenderism (really, Ms. Author? why?), because this incapability of distinguishing between someone doing so because they don't want to be noticed, and someone doing it because they do want to be...

Here's some more I'm more familiar with from the American Revolution era, who this article would probably draw the same illiterate conclusions of:

Hannah Snell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sally St. Clair - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Deborah Sampson - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

come to think of it, Wikipedia puts them and many others under the category of "wartime cross-dressers" (not "trans"!), so someone might have to take this up with Wikipedia:

Wartime cross-dressers - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Evie]

Probably (not).
It's a blanket assumption that because someone assumes the role of the opposite sex, within a historical narrative, we today would call it transgenderism (really, Ms. Author? why?), because this incapability of distinguishing between someone doing so because they don't want to be noticed, and someone doing it because they do want to be...

Here's some more I'm more familiar with from the American Revolution era, who this article would probably draw the same illiterate conclusions of:

Hannah Snell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sally St. Clair - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Deborah Sampson - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

come to think of it, Wikipedia puts them and many others under the category of "wartime cross-dressers" (not "trans"!), so someone might have to take this up with Wikipedia:

Wartime cross-dressers - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So not only using the "ism" after the entire discussion that just happened in this thread, but now you're implying that the point of transness (trans identity, etc) is to be noticed? Because let me frelling assure you, what I want is to be who I am without otherwise being noticed. I absolutely would much prefer to be just another woman in the crowd and leave it at that.

Not my fault vacuous grandstander whose idea of trans people sound suspiciously like yours keep trying to turn my existence into something noticeable.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Probably (not).
It's a blanket assumption that because someone assumes the role of the opposite sex, within a historical narrative, we today would call it transgenderism (really, Ms. Author? why?), because this incapability of distinguishing between someone doing so because they don't want to be noticed, and someone doing it because they do want to be...

Here's some more I'm more familiar with from the American Revolution era, who this article would probably draw the same illiterate conclusions of:

Hannah Snell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sally St. Clair - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Deborah Sampson - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

come to think of it, Wikipedia puts them and many others under the category of "wartime cross-dressers" (not "trans"!), so someone might have to take this up with Wikipedia:

Wartime cross-dressers - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You're doing it again, maybe you should listen to what trans people tell you about their lives and identities rather than what you imagine them to be

I absolutely do not want to be noticed, in fact being noticed as a trans person can be dangerous and very scary depending on where you are

Tired of a bunch of bad faith actors playing this pathetic game of claiming to not be homophobic or anti-trans whilst breathlessly repeating that exact rhetoric

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

So not only using the "ism" after the entire discussion that just happened in this thread, but now you're implying that the point of transness (trans identity, etc) is to be noticed? Because let me frelling assure you, what I want is to be who I am without otherwise being noticed. I absolutely would much prefer to be just another woman in the crowd and leave it at that.

Not my fault vacuous grandstander whose idea of trans people sound suspiciously like yours keep trying to turn my existence into something noticeable.

People in disguise don't want to be noticed; they might be ejected (at best) from certain jobs they're in. People not in disguise, by implication, do want to be even if it's an implied consent once they leave the house; that's not to say they grandstand. I thought it would be fairly easy to grasp.

What I thought might be appreciated is maybe exploring the underlying motives for why women became men to join some service (a monastery; or the military in my examples), other than chalking it up to "because they're trans" as some clickbait-y article would do.

If that meant stepping on your toes, well, oops forget it then

 

[Evie]

Given everything you've said about trans people to date, a comparison of real-life cross-dressing reasons with your nonsensical strawman of trans people would be bereft of any intelectual value, being that one cannot make valuable commentary on a thing they have clearly shown themselves to have no grasp of.

(And the vacuous grandstanding is done by transphobes who keep trying to force our existence into a statement. Seriously, did you really fail to grasp even that?)

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: I think this particular topic serves no further useful purpose. Let's move on, thanks.

 

[danjuno]

Utah Republicans ignore study supporting gender-affirming care for trans youth. It's research they demanded​

UTAH REPUBLICANS IGNORE STUDY SUPPORTING GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE FOR
TRANS YOUTH. IT'S RESEARCH THEY DEMANDED

Utah’s Republican leaders, who banned access to medically
recommended care for trans minors, spent more than two years demanding
proof that gender-affirming hormone therapy benefits transgender
youth. Now they have it — and they’re still refusing to budge.

A comprehensive, state-commissioned report released last week shows
that gender-affirming care leads to better mental health and lower
suicide risk among transgender minors. But instead of lifting the
state’s ban, GOP lawmakers are doubling down on a policy that
doctors, advocates, and families have long warned is putting lives at
risk.

WHAT'S IN THE REPORT

The more than 1,000-page report, conducted by the University of
Utah’s Drug Regimen Review Center and quietly posted online Monday
by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, was required by
S.B. 16 — the 2023 law that banned most gender-affirming medical
care for minors. At the time, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox called the
law a “nuanced” approach and insisted the state needed more data.
Now that the data is in, his office has gone silent.

The report eviscerates the claims Republicans used to pass the ban in
the first place.

“The conventional wisdom among non-experts has long been that there
are limited data on the use of [gender-affirming hormone therapy] in
pediatric patients,” the researchers wrote. “However, results from
our exhaustive literature searches have led us to the opposite
conclusion.” The study found over 230 primary studies involving
28,056 trans youth — “far exceeding” the evidence that typically
supports FDA approval for high-risk pediatric treatments, including
gene therapy.

“The body of evidence we have uncovered exceeds the amount of
evidence that often serves as the basis of FDA approval for many
high-risk, new drugs approved in pediatric populations in the U.S.,”
the authors added.

The report emphasized that such treatments are not given to
prepubertal children, that puberty blockers and hormones are typically
initiated only in early or mid-adolescence, and that surgeries —
especially bottom surgeries — are not recommended for minors. The
review also found no significant long-term safety concerns, and that
“regret” associated with treatment is extremely rare. In fact,
among the 32 studies examining regret, researchers found it was
“virtually nonexistent” — and when present, it was “only a
very minor proportion” of treatment discontinuation.

UTAH REPUBLICANS REJECT THEIR OWN COMMISSIONED REVIEW

The report’s release was met with no public response from Cox or
legislative leaders, _The Salt Lake Tribune _reports.

Republican state Reps. Katy Hall and Bridger Bolinder, who helped pass
the law, dismissed the findings outright in a joint statement. “The
science isn’t there,” they claimed. “The risks are real, and the
public is with us.”

State Senate President Stuart Adams echoed their skepticism. “Utah
enacted a law to safeguard the long-term health and well-being of
minors while providing time to carefully examine the evolving medical
landscape surrounding novel and irreversible procedures for minors,”
he said, according to the _Tribune_.

State Rep. Mike Kennedy, the bill’s lead sponsor and a physician,
declined to comment to the paper.

LGBTQ+ RIGHTS ADVOCATES SAY THE REPORT DISMANTLES GOP'S JUSTIFICATION
FOR CARE BANS

Chris Erchull, senior attorney at GLAD Law, told The Advocate that the
report’s conclusion is straightforward.“This is the most
comprehensive and the most recent review of all of the studies on care
that’s been provided to transgender young people over many
decades,” Erchull said. “It confirms what many providers and
families already knew — that the standards of care for young
transgender people provide benefits to their overall health and
well-being. All of these attempts to block access to care for
transgender young people have been causing harm. And any future
attempts will also cause harm.”

But the science _is_ there. The review found that youth who received
care before age 18 had better outcomes, especially around depression,
anxiety, and suicidality. Hormonal treatments were associated with
positive mental health and psychosocial functioning outcomes. "When
left untreated, individuals with gender dysphoria may experience
psychological and social harms,” the report notes.

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian
Rights, called the Utah report “by far the most detailed, thorough,
and comprehensive review of the medical evidence relating to
transgender healthcare.”

“This review shows that when the evidence is viewed objectively,
there is no serious question that this care is safe, effective, and
medically necessary for some youth,” Minter told _The Advocate_.
“The report also makes clear that if legislators are concerned about
this care, they can implement guardrails to ensure that it is being
prescribed consistently with the standards of care.”

Minter added that while the report came too late to be submitted in
the U.S. Supreme Court’s review of _United States v. Skrmetti_, it
offers “an incredibly helpful counterpoint to the incomplete and
distorted coverage of this care that has dominated the mainstream
press.”

"THE DATA SHOW OVERWHELMINGLY THAT THE PEOPLE WHO NEED THIS CARE
BENEFIT SIGNIFICANTLY FROM IT"

Erchull said the report also rebuts widespread misinformation.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that this care is easy to
access and handed out without oversight,” he said. “But the study
tells us something very important: regret rates are exceedingly low.
People may hear powerful anecdotes from individuals who felt they were
over-prescribed or misdiagnosed, and those are heartbreaking stories.
But they don’t represent the whole picture. The data show
overwhelmingly that the people who need this care benefit
significantly from it — and that medical providers are doing a good
job of ensuring the right people are receiving the right medical
care.”

Every major medical association in the United States, including the
Endocrine Society, the American Medical Association, and the American
Academy of Pediatrics, supports gender-affirming care as proven and
effective treatment.

“The findings of this report support the existing expert standard of
care and do not support the bans enacted thus far in 27 states,”
Whitman-Walker Institute executive director Kellan Baker told _The
Advocate_. “I think it says that they’re not actually interested
in science or evidence because when they can’t predetermine the
outcome of a scientific evidence review based on their political
agenda, it finds that the existing standard of care is beneficial.
These findings also contradict efforts to smuggle anti-trans
provisions into Medicaid for transgender people of all ages via the
House reconciliation bill when it was jammed through under cover of
darkness last week.”

On Thursday, Republicans in Congress passed a measure forbidding
federal funding for gender-affirming care under the Children’s
Health Insurance Program and Medicaid. The bill also eliminates
coverage for gender-affirming care under essential health benefits,
even for adults with private insurance regulated under the Affordable
Care Act.

If lawmakers in Utah lift the moratorium, the report recommends that
the health department outline strict guardrails: a certified treatment
board, licensed experts, interdisciplinary care teams, and an enhanced
informed consent process. According to _The Salt Lake Tribune_, those
recommendations are in place, but the political will is not.

Like all medical treatments, gender-affirming care is already overseen
by expert physicians and follows best practices established by the
World Professional Association for Transgender Health. They note that
receiving this kind of care is not fast.

Now, with Utah’s own evidence confirming what trans communities and
medical experts have said all along, the question is no longer whether
gender-affirming care is safe. It’s whether lawmakers will admit it
matters and that transgender youth deserve to live.

The state’s justification that the medications used aren’t
FDA-approved specifically for gender dysphoria also doesn’t hold.
The report emphasizes that off-label prescribing is both legal and
common in pediatric medicine, especially when drugs are already
approved for adults but lack industry incentives for further trials in
youth.

The law’s impact has been immediate. After the ban was enacted in
early 2023, the University of Utah closed its pediatric gender clinic.
The Tribune notes that the same year, a state-run survey found that
more than 60 percent of trans students in the state had considered
suicide, with one-quarter of students having attempted it.

Advocates warned this would happen when the law was enacted. “This
is a devastating and dangerous violation of the rights and privacy of
transgender Utahns,” said Chase Strangio, deputy director of the
American Civil Liberties Union LGBTQ & HIV Project, at the time. “We
won’t stop defending your autonomy and freedom until each and every
one of you can access the care you need.”

Naturally, after demanding the facts, they don't want to hear them!