General Discussion

Last edited Fri Nov 22, 2024, 09:54 PM - Edit history (3)

Or "the loony far left/trans activists pushed Kamala to take absurd positions on trans issues - of course we shouldn't pay for surgeries for prisoners or taxpayer funding for gender reassignment surgery or 'boys' playing girls sports." Let's stop supporting any of those things if we ever want to win elections again. Why can't we focus on "real" issues that "Americans actually care about" instead of this "trans stuff".

I've heard and seen all of these opinions expressed on DU since the election.

I would hope we can all agree that:
- Trans people are people and deserve respect, dignity and the same rights as everyone else.
- Trans people deserve all the same opportunities to live rich fulfilling lives as everyone else. Where this is tricky, such as opportunities to compete in sports, let's work something fair out that still respects this principle instead of just saying "sorry trans girls - you can't play sports".
- Gender affirming care is health care, often involving life saving medical interventions. It is not cosmetic surgery.
- Trans people have a right to decide how and when they want to access that health care on the same basis that cis people access health care. This should be taxpayer funded when equivalent treatments, such as obesity or infertility treatments, for cis people are.
- Prisoners have rights to access life saving medical interventions, even though they are prisoners.
- Sometimes "rights" are in conflict but where this is the case, someone's right to exist and, for example, use a public bathroom, has to trump someone else's "right" not to feel uncomfortable.
- Trans rights are human rights. Not "the trans thing" that "we're all sick of hearing about" and "want to move on from".

Happy to have a discussion with people on specific policies. But I don't think we can "move on" from any of the statements of principle above and still call ourselves a party that values human rights and dignity. We need to hold our corner on those points instead of shying away from speaking about them because we're afraid of alienating centrists. People respect leadership, not pandering. If America isn't there yet on "the trans thing" then we need to figure out how to get them there by actually discussing it - not dodging the issue because it doesn't poll well.