I swear, checking the news on Monday morning gives me such a headache, y’all.
The New York Times reported this weekend that the Trump administration is considering defining transgender people out of existence, governmentally speaking.
So, to explain: There’s some argument over whether or not various protective federal laws actually protect LGBT groups. There are federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, skin color, etc., right? These laws also make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of “sex.”
“Sex” was originally meant to refer to women, but the Obama administration issued guidance that made it so “sex” applied to the gay and transgender communities, and several court rulings have upheld that interpretation.
The Trump administration is planning to walk that back. They want to define “sex” as being born either male or female biologically, as in, based on the bits you’re born with between your legs, possibly to be determined by genetic testing, which cannot, under any circumstances, be changed, forever and ever, amen. This results in taking rights away from transgender people.
This is obviously wrong and evil. I’m not being facetiousness here. At any point when an action you take might result in taking rights away from people, you need to pause and reflect on what you’re doing and why. If the “what and why” comes back with any answer less than “because the person I’m taking rights away from is actively harming other humans for no particularly good reason” then you maybe need to reconsider your actions.
And being a transgender person doesn’t hurt anyone. It really doesn’t. Republicans like to scare you with stories about, I dunno, men dressed as women so they can assault or creep on women in bathrooms or whatever BS horror story they’re passing around this week, but that’s not a thing.
Like, name me the last time you paid any real attention to the gender of the person in the bathroom stall next to you. I’ll wait.
Transgender people are just people. They should be treated like you treat any other people. They should have the rights everyone else has.
Just, just let people live, man. Life is hard enough without us wandering around making it harder on people.
There’s no immediate solution to this new assault. This isn’t a law we can have overturned. It’s just an interpretation. You can protest, you can call your congresspeople, and you should.
But the real answer to this problem comes November 6th. Vote. Vote for Democrats. They may not be perfect, but at least you can count on them to treat people like, y’know, people.
Notes & Thoughts 