US Senate bans affirming care for trans military kids

December 18, 2024 7:08 PM

Today the US Senate voted to pass a defense bill that bans coverage of gender-affirming care for the transgender children of military service members. The vote passed 85-14, with 37 Democrats joining the Republicans in supporting the bill.

"This legislation permanently bans transgender treatment for minors, prohibits critical race theory in military academies, ends the DEI bureaucracy, and combats antisemitism [sic]" - House Speaker Mike Johnson (R)

"Of course, the NDAA is not perfect. It doesn’t have everything either side would like. It includes some provisions that we Democrats would not have added and other provisions that we would want left out entirely. But of course, you need bipartisanship" - Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D)

posted by splitpeasoup (106 comments total)

and in the house, 80+ dems voted for it

when we say the democrats aren't our friends, this is what we mean
posted by secret about box at 7:12 PM on December 18 [92 favorites]

I think I’m done with the Democratic Party. Absolutely sure about that with their leadership. What vile atrocious pathetic cowards. They’ve bent the knee to fascism for their own pathetic little politically lives to go on for a few more years.

Next up, negotiations to install better ventilation screen on the cattle cars for the undesirables.

This is fucking despicable. “Bipartisan” is cover for this horror show for Schumer. I’ll celebrate his end.
posted by WatTylerJr at 7:17 PM on December 18 [47 favorites]

Predictably, the lessons the Democratic learned from their loss was not "inspire with new ideas and strong convictions," but instead that they need to tack even further into Republican-lite territory sm and throw the most vulnerable groups in this country under the bus.
posted by Panjandrum at 7:30 PM on December 18 [52 favorites]

Fuck Chuck Schumer.
posted by Gadarene at 7:52 PM on December 18 [24 favorites]

Call me naive, but I'm disappointed in Patty Murray.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:59 PM on December 18 [3 favorites]

Here's the full list of Democrats who voted in support of passing the NDAA:
Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut
Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio
Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington
Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland
Senator Tom Carper of Delaware
Senator Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania
Senator Chris Coons of Delaware
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada
Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire
Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico
Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado
Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii
Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia
Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
Senator Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico
Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut
Senator Patty Murray of Washington
Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia
Senator Alex Padilla of California
Senator Gary Petes of Michigan
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island
Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada
Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York
Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota
Senator Jon Tester of Montana
Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia
Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:00 PM on December 18 [44 favorites]

Just remember this is the lull before the storm. Shit's going to get real soon enough.
posted by y2karl at 8:03 PM on December 18 [11 favorites]

Cutting the fat from big govt..
posted by Czjewel at 8:18 PM on December 18 [2 favorites]

Echoing WatTylerJr but adding that I was already finished supporting the Democratic party... When I was younger and naive, I truly held hope for the possibility of positive change. While I can't imagine my life without my adult children, it breaks my heart that I brought them into a world where greed, hatred and ignorance overcomes compassion.
posted by Scout405 at 8:43 PM on December 18 [6 favorites]

Both of my senators voted for this shit.
posted by deadbilly at 9:04 PM on December 18 [12 favorites]

Disappointed in Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell in Washington State for this.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:55 PM on December 18 [16 favorites]

Me too, They sucked his Brains out!, me too. And I emailed them both with a link to this thread to let them know they should have voted against it.
posted by another_20_year_lurker at 11:10 PM on December 18 [4 favorites]

Sheldon Whitehouse, too? Dammit I thought he was one of the good ones.
posted by zardoz at 11:21 PM on December 18 [8 favorites]

And I emailed them both with a link to this thread to let them know they should have voted against it.

After which you’ll be solicited for campaign donations, sent a YouTube link of Kamala Harris using the same exact rhetoric again about how “people are angry” and “the fight is not over,” and Sen. Amy Klobuchar bragging that her bill to make the bald eagle the national bird has passed Congress.
posted by zooropa at 11:25 PM on December 18 [24 favorites]

We are absolutely fucking doomed
posted by june_dodecahedron at 11:28 PM on December 18 [11 favorites]

Remember not that long ago when everyone was obligated to vote for the Democrats to save trans people? Good times.
posted by june_dodecahedron at 12:36 AM on December 19 [27 favorites]

Even though I don't live in the USA, I felt I had to highlight this part of the Schumer quote: "It includes some provisions that we Democrats would not have added and other provisions that we would want left out entirely."

This is an astonishing thing to say. Not one hint of having got, or even tried, any concessions from the other side. It's just "we conceded by allowing in some things we didn't want and, oh, we also conceded by not throwing out some things that we didn't want".
posted by JSilva at 1:35 AM on December 19 [28 favorites]

The Democratic Party is such a dispiriting collection of careerists that it can be frustrating to continually speak about what they should be doing, while watching them always choose to instead continue the things that serve the careerists.

[from this FPP]
posted by chavenet at 2:07 AM on December 19 [13 favorites]

I don't like this step towards pushing any progressive parents out of the military.
posted by jellywerker at 2:57 AM on December 19 [17 favorites]

I don't like this step toward killing off trans kids.

By comparison I just don't care about the careers of their cis parents.
posted by june_dodecahedron at 3:07 AM on December 19 [29 favorites]

The Dems consultant class, fresh off of making over a billion dollars driving the presidential campaign into the ground, have come to the conclusion that they weren't the problem, it was trans people and Palestinians and immigrants. They spent maybe 48 hours doing some self-reflection, but have since spent the last month and a half infecting podcasts and editorial pages, complaining about keffiyahs and pronouns and DEI. Going after easy targets to scapegoat electoral failures and punishing them until the party deems them appropriately humbled for their treasonous acts is practically a signature move these days.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:21 AM on December 19 [32 favorites]

Just remember this is the lull before the storm. Shit's going to get real soon enough.

This may be the calm before the storm for you but for many trans people, and especially the trans kids affected by this, shit is already very real.

Both my Democratic senators voted for this. I call them and it doesn't matter. I voted for them and they won! And this is what they're doing. The commitment to "bipartisanship", a completely pointless principle, is going to keep leading us deeper into hell and boy as someone who voted for every Democrat possible while being told I was a whiny child -- including by people on this very website! -- because I wasn't happy about it I am so angry and all the angrier because I'm powerless to help these kids. I try very hard to remain positive and civil but every trans person I know is struggling at the moment and at some point I'm going to lose the ability to be polite.
posted by an octopus IRL at 4:01 AM on December 19 [40 favorites]

The Translash Podcast has had two excellent recent episodes, one about the situation at the supreme Court were they interviewed a trans lawyer, and one about finding ways to continue accessing trans medical care tips from a trans person who has been in the field for a long time.

They also mention trans organizations that you might want to support, along with discussing the work they do.

Please, if one of these senators or Reps is yours, write to them and tell them how you feel. Make it personal if you can: if you have trans friends or family let them know how it feels to have your loved ones thrown under the bus. They need to be reminded that trans people aren’t a vague idea, they are real human beings who are an important part of their constituents’ lives. The trans community isn’t going anywhere, we need to let lawmakers know that we care about them and support them and when they are harmed we are harmed. (I’m saying this while feeling utterly exhausted and beaten down, but I also know that they want us to just give up already, but I won’t.)
posted by antinomia at 4:24 AM on December 19 [13 favorites]

Democratic Senators Refuse Vote To Remove Anti-Trans Amendment From Military Budget:

Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) led efforts to remove the anti-trans language from the NDAA by introducing Amendment 3332, which aimed to strike the discriminatory provisions. The amendment garnered support from 24 of her Senate colleagues. However, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at some point requested the amendment be withdrawn, opting not to bring it to a vote unless certain of its passage. It is unclear when this took place, as recordings of the session do not depict its withdrawal, although it is likely that Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) oversaw this as he was the presiding officer of the session for this bill. Nevertheless, the amendment was swiftly withdrawn without a vote, paving the way for the NDAA to pass into law without changes to the anti-trans language.

posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 4:25 AM on December 19 [25 favorites]

To be clear - in addition to hurting kids, actions like this push level headed and open minded people out of the military. The kind of people who might question orders when deployed to put down riots of fellow citizens or something.

This is the yearly defense spending bill. I question why there always has to be a little shit in everything. It's just hateful, and wasteful, and takes more effort than just not being hateful.

The total expenditure here is probably what, a couple hundred rounds of fancy ammo? Each branch of the military pisses away many multiples of that in waste every day. Seems like a small expense to maintain the health and happiness of some of your ranks.

In this discussion, please remember that this is not the general government budget or anything. This is the military budget. It should include things that make the military better, and not include things that make the military worse. Cutting funding and therefore care to the dependants of military employees is bad for the military, not good.
posted by jellywerker at 4:34 AM on December 19 [21 favorites]

It's hard to see why we shouldn't just vote for republicans; personally, I'd rather have a person say "fuck you!" to me when he hit me in the face with a shovel than "I really care about you!" if it's the same damn shovel. It just feels more honest.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:35 AM on December 19 [15 favorites]

I wrote my senators (Casey and Fetterman) about my disappointment with them, and the same with Schumer and Gillibrand of NY, and Klobuchar and Smith of Minnesota, as "a state that I believed might be a refuge should I need it with the upcoming political climate" to express the same. I also wrote Cory Booker and Andy Kim and thanked them, as someone looking at New Jersey as a possible place to move. (NJ's state gov is pretty awesome for trans people.)

At this point, I'm almost looking at overseas as an option, trying to find a way and a place. I'm tired of the US being a shithole towards my clan, and our political class isn't doing jack nor shit. The incoming gangrenous attack administration will just make things worse.

And frankly, we need to do some major cuts to the military budget. I mean, I'd honestly love to have a "you get the salary and maintenance money and absolutely nothing else until you successfully audit and find out where all the rest of the fucking money is going"clause in the budget, and then it might happen.
posted by mephron at 4:43 AM on December 19 [8 favorites]

Also, Chuck Schumer (see his comment on this bill) and Nancy "I Don't Want AOC In A Position Where She Might Look At Us Too" Pelosi need to move on to being the consultant (or retired) class ASAP. I'm thinking that we need to involve a government cap on working there of, maybe, 70. Let's get some of these moribund antediluvians out of the Capitol and into a nice retirement home.
posted by mephron at 4:45 AM on December 19 [8 favorites]

These people are so evil it makes me deeply sad. Leave trans kids alone, IT DOESN'T AFFECT YOU.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:47 AM on December 19 [19 favorites]

Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois

So goddamn disappointed
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:48 AM on December 19 [9 favorites]

If they really want to save money, why don't they fire the people who participated in the attempted coup? Apparently they've been having military tribunals for them that result in them being let back in or remain in their positions. So we are we cutting funding for the healthcare of soldier's kids while continuing to fund the salaries of traitors.
posted by antinomia at 4:57 AM on December 19 [11 favorites]

Multigenerational project to make sure the military is as right-leaning as possible.
posted by subdee at 5:03 AM on December 19 [17 favorites]

Every step is easier than the last, every step is rationalized. For as low as the Democrats got this year, the Vichy Democrats will mange to break those records.
posted by Slackermagee at 5:18 AM on December 19 [11 favorites]

I've been thinking a lot about the "Wave Passage" from Hunter S. Thompsons's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

(here)

I fear this is where we are on trans rights. The wave broke and rolled back a while ago, and we're all just gawping at the high water mark.

I know I won't live to see fifty.
posted by june_dodecahedron at 5:19 AM on December 19 [21 favorites]

My people were Republicans because Democrats were the ones to militate against the 14th amendment.

That realigned since 1964. Now who will stand for equal protection?
posted by eustatic at 5:19 AM on December 19 [1 favorite]

Neither party
posted by Jon_Evil at 5:30 AM on December 19 [4 favorites]

Oh shit I can still be freshly disappointed. Did not realize.
posted by Shutter at 5:32 AM on December 19 [10 favorites]

Democrats when Republicans win: "Well shoot, we lost, so we better figure out how we can compromise our values and collaborate with the other side."

Republicans when Democrats win: "Well shoot, we lost, so we better figure out how we can burn everything to the ground, and make our enemies lives an absolute living hell."


Or put another way: "Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb." - Dark Helmet
posted by mrjohnmuller at 5:48 AM on December 19 [21 favorites]

The Dems consultant class, fresh off of making over a billion dollars driving the presidential campaign into the ground, have come to the conclusion that they weren't the problem, it was trans people and Palestinians and immigrants.

The part I’ve been haunted by is the thought that they may not be wrong. 6 million fewer people showed up to vote for Democrats in 2024 while Republicans gained three million and almost won the popular vote for first time in 20 years. I’d like to think that was all economic pain and Biden botching his exit timing, but I’ve also read plenty of interviews where people mentioned trans rights as one of the things they thought Democrats were working on instead of the economy, and while that is certainly unfair that doesn’t prevent it from being widely shared. I have a little exposure to the Peruvian and Venezuelan immigrant communities and literally the only political things I’ve heard them start a conversation about are the vicious smears about female athletes or bathroom panic stories which spread on WhatsApp.

This leaves me wondering whether we’re effectively talking about trans issues here like it’s gay rights circa 2008 and even marriage recognition is right around the corner, but perhaps it’s closer to the 1970s and there’s a long slog ahead because this time around the counterparts of Pat Robertson or Jimmy Swaggart are running what passes for mainstream churches and have the backing of a media network with an annual budget measured in the tens of billions. I know multiple people who are in their crosshairs and it’s a gut-punch to think that there just aren’t enough people willing to stand up for their right to exist.
posted by adamsc at 6:20 AM on December 19 [10 favorites]

Wisconsin Dems are the only ones I trust right now. Thank you Tammy Baldwin for trying.

Fuck.
posted by brook horse at 6:27 AM on December 19 [8 favorites]

Emailed Amy Klobushar's office to voice my disappointment. This was such a stupid move. If she keeps voting like this we're going to get another Michelle Bachman next time she's up for reelection.

A Democrat moving to the right doesn't win Republican votes -- they're always going to vote Republican -- it just loses support of the people that did get her elected.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:47 AM on December 19 [8 favorites]

The part I’ve been haunted by is the thought that they may not be wrong. 6 million fewer people showed up to vote for Democrats in 2024

This is exactly WHY people didn't show up to vote for democrats -- just like 2016. The far left will show up to vote for centrists just like the centrists will, because the politically minded know how important it is not to elect a republican, even if the alternative is a basically worthless centrist democrat. But normal people won't show up to vote for a basically worthless centrist democrat, because a centrist democrat is basically worthless, as this vote has illustrated yet again.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:55 AM on December 19 [14 favorites]

I’m convinced [Musk's] transphobia is very personal and profound.

And creepy, and obviously so, and his daughter is fucking great at trolling his drugged-out ass. I don't think it will be long before his efforts push things in the other direction.

Amy Klobuchar and most of the people on that list are beholden to their donors, and only incidentally their voters.

The far left will show up to vote for centrists just like the centrists will...

Pfft. No, they didn't, no, they don't, and no, they won't.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:00 AM on December 19

Musk's oldest son is now his oldest daughter.
posted by greatalleycat at 7:04 AM on December 19 [2 favorites]

President Musk told First Lady Trump not to let them pass anything

Can we please not do this? Misgendering-as-mockery strikes me as especially gross in a thread about trans kids losing essential care.

Very disappointed in this list of Senators. I donated to Warnock's campaign, so I'll write to him about it.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:15 AM on December 19 [23 favorites]

Pfft. No, they didn't, no, they don't, and no, they won't.

Can we please stop this condescension? Especially since the typical argument for Democrats moving to the right is that the support of socially conservative, center-right voters is so tenuous and fragile that they'll immediately vote Republican the moment they think things are getting the slightest bit woke.

It's hypocritical to criticize one group of voters for abandoning the party while using the same threat of abandonment as a warning for why the party needs to accommodate another group of voters.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:19 AM on December 19 [12 favorites]

Mod note: Can we please not do this? Misgendering-as-mockery strikes me as especially gross in a thread about trans kids losing essential care.

Agreed. The original comment and two other responses have been removed, this one left up to provide context.

Simply put, do not do this. Outgrown_hobnail, avoid using this type of language in the future.

MetaFilter is an open and inclusive site and presenting any gender or sex in a negative light is not wanted or condoned in any, way, shape, or form.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:21 AM on December 19 [13 favorites]

Can we please stop this condescension?

when you identify as communist, you get to condescend to anyone you like

in hindsight maybe the calculus "if I vote for the Democrats sure maybe they'll do jackshit about the genocide of Palestinians but at least they'll stick up for the trans community" wasn't valid after all
posted by ginger.beef at 7:23 AM on December 19 [5 favorites]

The far left will show up to vote for centrists just like the centrists will, because the politically minded know how important it is not to elect a republican, even if the alternative is a basically worthless centrist democrat. But normal people won't show up to vote for a basically worthless centrist democrat, because a centrist democrat is basically worthless, as this vote has illustrated yet again.

Cool, I get that you don’t them but where’s the evidence that normal people care about this issue enough to decide whether they show up? Poll after poll had the economy as a top priority (Reuters/Ipsos) even for people who identify as Democrats, and I would at least consider the possibility that it is currently a rational position for a politician to say that they’re not going to fight for an issue which only a few percent of their prospective voters prioritize. I don’t like that and I wish it were otherwise but I think it may be true that public support just isn’t there yet.
posted by adamsc at 7:24 AM on December 19 [5 favorites]

I know he won't, but Biden could veto this , right?
posted by OHenryPacey at 7:30 AM on December 19 [1 favorite]

Pfft. No, they didn't, no, they don't, and no, they won't.

It's pretty evident that leftists voted en masse for Harris in this most recent election. I don't think there's a single swing state in which the percentage of Stein voters would have tipped the scales to Harris. Stein got .5% of the vote or less in most of them, with one outlier being Michigan, which has a large Arab American community that the Democratic party decided somewhat explicitly to exclude and ignore.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 7:31 AM on December 19 [13 favorites]

Didn't we just have a post about Operation Dunkin-kirk, where not only did the Democrats campaign staff repeat the mistakes of 2016 (not getting the fucking base out to the fucking polls) they did so in every state because they thought they could convert Karen in the suburbs?

No issue save the economy mattered and even that could have been mitigated by gotv. It appears that the campaign failed in the exact same way as Clinton's 2016 campaign, but in more states. I would personally have loved to see voters repudiate the democrats stance on I/P or on policy generally but it turns out voters didn't give a shit about that and they also weren't going to magically self-motivate out to the polls in Atlanta, Philly, Detroit, and Milwaukee.
posted by Slackermagee at 7:35 AM on December 19 [5 favorites]

The far left will show up to vote for centrists just like the centrists will...

Pfft. No, they didn't, no, they don't, and no, they won't.

I mean, what makes you so sure of this? If we're just making declarations based on vibes then that doesn't seem great. "I'm incredibly far left and every leftist I know except a few in Washington DC which is as safe as possible for Democrats" may be anecdotal but it contains more evidence than this assertion.
posted by an octopus IRL at 7:35 AM on December 19 [6 favorites]

Adamsc. Then why did the Trump ‘campaign’ (ie festivals of hate’ ) decide to focus exclusively in its media … whatever….On the transitioning if it didn’t mean anything.

Anyway agreed with the above. This is going to get worse and worse.

And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe it’s not the voters fault (for staying home) when you’ve got fascist v cowards, maybe a lot of people have (sadly, depressingly) given up hope.

I’m getting there too.

I don’t know what to do except try and support the trans community, undocumented and the homeless (among other targets) ?

For the first time I think it’s time for the Democratic Party to split. The ‘centrists’ ie the cowards clearly don’t give a shit about what is right and good. They’ll cave on everything. Maybe they’ll formally sign on to project 2025 soon (they seem to support it). They’re definitely going to cave on any climate change mitigation effort.

Maybe the leadership could just support what 70% of what their fucking voters want?

Maybe there is a re-alignment after the great Trump / Musk depression? I know that nothing will change until these vile sycophants finally give up power. Prob in 35 years. The party of Feinsteins and Durbins.

Coming in 2028, Trump v Merrick Garland for the presidency. Before it gets called off that is. With the support of Schumer et all.


Now Im rambling. Sorry all. And Sorry for All.
posted by WatTylerJr at 7:38 AM on December 19 [7 favorites]

I just sent this message to Senator Van Hollen:

Subj: You threw trans children under the bus.

Senator, words cannot express my anger at your vote to pass the recent defense bill that bans coverage of gender-affirming care for the transgender children of military service members. As a trans Marylander, I trusted you to protect my rights and my safety, but it is now clear that you will, whenever it seems politically expedient, prostrate yourself at the feet of the Republicans who want me dead. You have betrayed the trans community, the state of Maryland, and our military families. How dare you. Be assured that I will work to remove you from office at the next election, assuming you and your Republican friends allow us to have one. A curse upon your name.

Or rather, I would have sent this message, except when I clicked the "submit" button the website hung for a very long time and then redirected to an error page that reads:

Sorry, a potential security risk was detected in your submitted request. The Webmaster has been alerted.

Reference ID: 18.53c83017.1734623634.af5a0f61

You can proceed to www.senate.gov.

If this problem persists, please contact the Office of the Secretary Webmaster at [e-mail].

I now get this message whenever I try to load Van Hollen's Senate site, and Firefox, Chrome and Safari all redirect to the same error page. I can only assume that I am now on a List. Oh, well. It was nice knowing you all.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:00 AM on December 19 [14 favorites]

You can reach your senator using this link.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:37 AM on December 19 [2 favorites]

Glad my senators were not on this list, but man this is ugly and yet more reason I’m not a democrat.
posted by alicebob at 8:38 AM on December 19 [1 favorite]

I’ve also read plenty of interviews where people mentioned trans rights as one of the things they thought Democrats were working on instead of the economy

Trump spent $200+ million running ads telling America that the Democratic Party is all-in for trans people to the exclusion of everybody else and the Democratic response was nothing at all, completely ceding the issue to Trump and letting his lies define the entire issue. Of course people believe Republican lies when the Democrats do nothing to counter them! This is a new frontier in Democratic political malpractice, just an absolute refusal to engage, and it is increasingly clear that the Dems are completely refusing to learn anything or change their behaviors in any way.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:44 AM on December 19 [20 favorites]

Chuck Schumer is the king of capitulating in advance. He is infuriating. I almost wept with relief when I saw that neither of my Senators (Booker & Kim, NJ) voted for this garbage. New Jersey has done a lot in the last couple of years to protect trans kids coming from other states for treatments and women coming from other states for abortion care, but there is an ever-growing MAGA contingent that I fear will stomp on these protections in the future.
posted by ceejaytee at 8:53 AM on December 19 [10 favorites]

Adamsc. Then why did the Trump ‘campaign’ (ie festivals of hate’ ) decide to focus exclusively in its media … whatever….On the transitioning if it didn’t mean anything.

I’m not saying it doesn’t mean anything, I’m saying that it doesn’t seem to motivate non-committed Democratic voters the way hatred motivates Republicans.
posted by adamsc at 8:59 AM on December 19 [1 favorite]

After some searching, cannot find anything I understand to be the final reconciled version of this bill, or even a declarative statement saying this is final or if reconciliation is complete. Too many times I've seen articles about a vote not mention that detail when it was still pertinent ....

That said, most recent version I can find is the House amendment to the Senate amendment, dated 7 December.

The text in question,

SEC. 708. PROHIBITION OF COVERAGE UNDER TRICAR
PROGRAM OF CERTAIN MEDICAL PROCE-
DURES FOR CHILDREN THAT COULD RESULT
IN STERILIZATION.

Section 1079(a) of title 10, United States Code, is
amended by adding at the end the following new para-
graph:

‘‘(20) Medical interventions for the treatment of
gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization
may not be provided to a child under the age of
18.’’.

There's absolutely more to digest, but not getting there right this moment. Would like to hear people's takes on the argument I've been presented in favor of, "Not old enough for permanent decisions" vs "Too late in development for some gender-affirming care." My initial bias is that from a medical standpoint, that argument falls very heavily towards the latter point, no matter how pertinent the former is.
posted by Enturbulated at 9:00 AM on December 19 [1 favorite]

Of course people believe Republican lies when the Democrats do nothing to counter them!

Seconding this and, also, Democrats did NOT do a lot to help trans people or even pay much lip service to the idea but the Republicans framed it this way anyway. If the Republicans are going to claim you're helping trans people whether you do or not, why not actually do it? But the Democrats don't even though as far as I can tell there's nothing to lose from an optics standpoint that hasn't already been lost, so at this point it seems like they're not helping because they don't want to.
posted by an octopus IRL at 9:04 AM on December 19 [12 favorites]

Trump spent $200+ million running ads telling America that the Democratic Party is all-in for trans people to the exclusion of everybody else and the Democratic response was nothing at all, completely ceding the issue to Trump and letting his lies define the entire issue. Of course people believe Republican lies when the Democrats do nothing to counter them! This is a new frontier in Democratic political malpractice, just an absolute refusal to engage, and it is increasingly clear that the Dems are completely refusing to learn anything or change their behaviors in any way

Tim Walz had a reasonable take with “mind your own damn business”, but there wasn’t much widespread, consistent messaging to that effect. I think the bigger problem with trans rights is that they just aren’t a winning political issue. Looking at various polls, and majorities still say that kids shouldn’t be allowed pharmaceuticals for transition, and that trans athletes shouldn’t compete outside of their biological sex. Most polling also shows that majorities support bathroom bans. It is what it is. It’s a losing political issue, and democrats can’t really engage in full throated support because of that, but also they can’t really distance themselves from it, for any number of reasons. It’s a political hot potato, and I’m not sure what they can do to start winning elections again, while continuing to support (implicitly or explicitly) an issue that the majority of the voting population is against to varying degrees. Same-sex marriage/gay rights took decades to become popular enough to be politically acceptable to be in favor of. I’m not sure what the answer is for trans rights, or if there even is an answer. Democrats may just be married to an unpopular, losing issue that they can’t backtrack from.

Preview:
I can’t figure out how to link, but I was looking at pew and Gallup polls on this.
posted by HVACDC_Bag at 9:12 AM on December 19 [4 favorites]

the thin wedge of fascism was just spiked into the rock of democracy. how many more hits before it sheers off?

How We Got to 'Your Body, My Choice' From #MeToo - "A conversation with Cynthia Miller-Idriss, director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University."

FW: The #MeToo phenomenon, in which powerful men were brought low and even jailed for sexual abuse, seems to have been a moment rather than a movement. What happened?

CMI: There’s a clear backlash against #MeToo, even in the form of men lamenting that strictures on behavior are so severe that they “can’t even flirt anymore.” That backlash is not only directed against norms against sexual harassment and assault, it’s a more generalized backlash against progress and visibility in women’s and LGBTQ+ rights and the gendered social changes that are part of the culture war. Hundreds of legislative bills have been introduced across the country targeting women’s reproductive rights or policing trans people’s health care and access to bathrooms or sports-team participation.

FW: The presidential election accelerated that backlash. Immediately after the election, we had a proliferation — both online and in middle schools and high schools — of boys and men saying, “Your body, my choice.” I heard from a woman in Chicago who said her colleague had been accosted by a young man on public transit who told her, “It took your mother 9 months to make you, it’ll take me 30 seconds to take you.”

CMI: Even elementary school boys. I got a flurry of messages from moms telling me what their daughters had been experiencing. The election absolutely cemented for some boys and young men a celebratory surge of reclaiming power and ownership over women and girls and their bodies — men are back on top.

Nick Fuentes, who’s a white supremacist, issued a tweet on election night that said, “Your body, my choice. Forever.” It has been viewed nearly 100 million times. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue tracked a 4,600% increase in the use of “Your body, my choice” and “Go back to the kitchen” on X in the 24 hours following the election. A 13-year-old girl in Maryland was in the hallway of a school and a boy said to her, “Go put on your Handmaid’s dress.” A college student was physically grabbed on her butt at a coffee shop and when she turned around, the guy said, “We can do that now.”

There are a lot of things I’m worried about with this. Normalization is one, potential violence is another.

-Trump Bros Chant 'Your Body, My Choice.' Are Women's Fears Coming True?[1,2]
-"Your Body, Their Choice": gender-based violence and the authoritarian agenda

Judith Butler: Who's Afraid of Gender?[3] - "No one is imagining the future very well. And when we try, it feels like a nightmare. The specter of fascism is often invoked on the Left, yet we are no longer sure whether that is the right name. On the one hand, the term is bandied about too easily. On the other hand, we would be wrong to think that all its possible forms have already existed and that we can call something 'fascist' only if it conforms to established models."

Maybe all this seems far from gender. But when gender is figured as a threat to humanity, civilization, “man,” and nature, when gender is likened to a nuclear catastrophe, the Ebola virus, or full-blown demonic power, then it is this escalating fear of destruction to which political actors appeal. They see the escalating fear and know that they can make use of it for their own purposes, so they escalate it even more. There is the ready and continuous fear of destruction, the source of which is difficult to name, which is solicited and spiked to fortify both religious authorities and state powers—or their strengthening alliance, as we see in Putin’s Russia, the Republican Party in the United States, and various countries in Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Africa. The displacement of this fear of destruction from its identifiable conditions of production—climate disaster, systemic racism, capitalism, carceral powers, extractivism, patriarchal social and state forms—results in the production of “cultural” figures or phantasms invested with the power to destroy the earth and the fundamental structures of human societies.

Precisely because that destruction is happening without its sources being named and checked, the fear and anxiety congeal without a proper vocabulary or analysis, and “gender” and “critical race theory” are produced and targeted as the causes of destruction. Gender is not just a matter of individual identity, but a category that describes the division of labor, the organization of states, the unequal distribution of power. Gender has never been “merely cultural” but has been cast that way by opponents who want to regard gender as a secondary concern or those who believe that cultural pathologies are responsible for social worlds breaking apart. Once identified as a cause of destruction, gender itself must be destroyed, and what follows is censorship, the de-departmentalization of gender studies and women’s studies, the stripping of rights of health care, increased pathologization, restricting spaces for public gathering, the repeal or rejection of laws that protect against discrimination, and the passing of laws that segregate, silence, and criminalize those who are trying to live their lives without fear. All those laws say: No, you will live your lives with fear, or perhaps you will not even count as a life at all.

Let us remember that the killing of women and trans, queer, bisexual, and intersex people is an actual form of destruction taking place in the world. The killing of Black women, the killing of Black queer and trans people, the killing of migrants, including queer and trans migrants—all these are destructive acts. As the numbers increase, it becomes increasingly apparent whose lives are considered dispensable, and whose lives are not. The inequality of the grievable makes itself known. Once gender, in its phantasmatic and abbreviated form, comes to include abortion rights, access to reproductive technology, sexual and gender health services, rights for trans people of any age, women’s freedom and equality, queers of color’s freedom struggles, single parenting, gay parenting, new kinship outside of heteronormative models, adoption rights, sex reassignment, gender-confirming surgery, sex education, books for young people, books for adults, and images of nudity, then it represents a wide range of political struggles that its opponents seek to shut down in their effort to restore a patriarchal order for the state, religion, and the family, an authoritarianism for the present. The only way forward is for all those targeted to gather themselves more effectively than their enemies have, to recognize their alliance, and to fight the phantasms prepared for them with a powerful and regenerative imaginary that can distinguish between the destruction of life and a collective life-affirmation defined by struggle and even irresolution.

[...]

posted by kliuless at 9:26 AM on December 19 [15 favorites]

Sent a message to Senators Warnock and Ossoff saying that they of all people know that Republicans will always attack the most vulnerable among us to win some political points and that there was absolutely no reason for them to vote for this bill to help them. Yes, Georgia is a big military state, and I guess they just feel like they have to be a reliable checkmark for every single defense bill, regardless of the awful shit it includes.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:55 AM on December 19 [5 favorites]

How many people on the side of good and right think to themselves: ok this is a bad as it's going to get? Cause I suffer from that as well. But I dont think this accelerating slide into misogynic racist homophobic fascism is going to stop. NOTHING is enough for that side. NOTHING. There is always more people to target and harm to perform.

I dont understand why non-blue state white women (and even quite a few of the blue state ones) voted for this* cause eggs cost too much**? So consign your daughters to incel breed stock status? And your granddaughters to handmaiden tale in real life?

*Men are the true problem here, but why did white women go along?

** the price of fucking eggs arent even going to go down - WTF do they think fucking Golden Toilet and his drug addled doppelgänger give a shit?
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:55 AM on December 19 [4 favorites]

adamsc - thank you for the clarification, it makes more sense to me now. Apologies for any negative implication I caused.

HDAVAC - While you may be technically right on polls, but who gives a crap. The supposed party of civil rights maybe should do the right thing and protect the most vulnerable people in our society rather than ineffectually shuffle along behind the fascists and throw those people under the bus? They lose and lose and lost when that is their (morally indefensible) strategy. They've definitely lost me.
posted by WatTylerJr at 10:00 AM on December 19 [3 favorites]

the price of fucking eggs arent even going to go down

August: "When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one."

December: "It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up."
posted by kirkaracha at 10:05 AM on December 19 [5 favorites]

WatTylerJr- I get what you’re saying, but if it’s a losing political issue that the majority of the country dislikes, what can they do to protect the most vulnerable? Being painted as the party of trans rights contributed to losing all branches of govt this go around. If they don’t have political power, there’s not much they can do. The fact of the matter is it’s just not a popular position, and it’s a serious political Catch-22. That’s just what it is, and I don’t have any good answers for it one way or another. The best way to get Dems to care about trans folks is to make the issue broadly supported, but that’s not where the majority of America is; people are right about at “cautious acceptance” and pushing much further than that alienates them. Again, I have no good answers, but it’s what all the data points to.
posted by HVACDC_Bag at 10:14 AM on December 19 [1 favorite]

Being painted as the party of trans rights contributed to losing all branches of govt this go around.

What? No it absolutely did not.

Again, I have no good answers, but it’s what all the data points to.

That is not what "all" the data points to. Different wordings of different polls from different times have told us wildly different things.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:22 AM on December 19 [12 favorites]

I’m thinking about how much military children sacrifice — and it’s not like it’s their choice, it’s the family they’re in. And now they’re being used as pawns once again.
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:23 AM on December 19 [5 favorites]

Again, I have no good answers, but it’s what all the data points to.
I agree that there are no good answers, but what the data is pointing to is clear to me: What other, more experienced trans people have been warning me about for years and I didn't want to believe is true: Cis people are not to be trusted.
(prove me wrong?) ( Please prove me wrong.)
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 10:24 AM on December 19 [13 favorites]

Glengrinof—I disagree. The messaging from the right was almost without fail painting democrats as the party that cared more about trans rights (and to a lesser degree, illegal immigrants) than economic/kitchen table issues. I don’t know what to tell you if you think that didn’t have an effect on all the losses. And you’re right; it’s not all the data, but the polls I mentioned above, along with several others, all paint a similar picture on the popularity of trans related issues. Apologies for being unclear about that, and I appreciate the correction.
posted by HVACDC_Bag at 10:32 AM on December 19 [2 favorites]

And it's fucking hopeless then because the democrats WEREN'T talking about trans rights very much at all. But people didn't listen to what they DID say, which for fucks sake included talking about grocery prices.

I am so angry all the fucking time now I cannot understand what we are supposed to do when Up is Down.
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:42 AM on December 19 [13 favorites]

But you have no evidence that the messaging worked, or even that trans-positive policies were a determinant factor for swing voters. All you have is limited polling, which as I said is nowhere near as clear or consistent. Nor does it explain why so many Democrats from blue states, especially those with legislative supermajorities, voted for this nonsense.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:42 AM on December 19 [7 favorites]

The Democrats didn't fight on trans issues. They didn't say "hey, wow, the Republicans are trying to convince you that this tiny minority are monsters in order to fool you into voting for terrible things". They didn't say "the Republicans are lying to you about trans people" or "the Republicans are taking sadistic pleasure in terrorizing and hurting people who can't easily defend themselves". They said nothing, and let the Republicans be the only ones talking. The polls reflect that reality- that the only people with access to microphones who've said much of anything about trans people are the ones screaming to the heavens that we're monsters. And the public, by and large, bases their opinions on what they hear people saying.

People keep talking like the Republicans told people that trans people are a danger to humanity who must be Dealt With and the Democrats tried to persuade the public that we're fine and equal and decent people and the public were swayed by the Republicans, but that's simply false. The Democrats, for a number of reasons that range from indifference to outright transphobic malice, let the Republicans scream venom all they wanted, without more than a whisper of pushback. They let the discourse that the public were exposed to be endless calumny and bigotry, and now they say: look, it's not me, it's the public, who I've made no attempt to persuade otherwise, who hate you.

Eventually neglect becomes indistinguishable from malice, becomes malice.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:47 AM on December 19 [29 favorites]

Call me a pessimist, but it doesn't feel like there are any good guys left. Yes, there are the isolated voices calling out shit like this but they're so marginalized that they're powerless (just ask AOC).

The Democrats moving to the right didn't work in the election so they're continuing to do so. Their inability to learn from their mistakes is beyond frustrating and it's bringing real harm.
posted by tommasz at 10:57 AM on December 19 [7 favorites]

Maybe a majority of democratic voters don't support trans rights, but then there's also this stuff about taking "critical race theory" out of military academics and dismantling the "DEI bureaucracy" and I can't imagine a majority of democratic voters are OK with that either????? Unless they've been sold republican lies about how much "critical race theory" and "DEI bureaucracy" there actually is at military academies?????

The military is very diverse, it will always be very diverse, because it recruits heavily from among the poor. This is an attempt to make sure that while the rank-and-file are diverse, the leadership / officer class will be primarily right-leaning white people. Dangerous even without the tragedy trans people's rights being stripped away as their bodies become politicized targets for the culture war.
posted by subdee at 11:00 AM on December 19 [8 favorites]

"look I personally find Mr. Hitler's views on the Jews to be distasteful and a bit much, but he's the only one talking about the economy."
posted by ginger.beef at 11:25 AM on December 19 [10 favorites]

This kind of politics is an ongoing problem for democrats who are practical and pragmatic in their approach to government. Particularly the people who really understand that the lights must be kept on.

Republicans always find these wedge issues affecting small minorities and hammer them into vital bills that affect everyone and really need to pass. The goal is 100% to cause dissension within the democratic party and disenchant the hardline single issue voters so they either switch to republicans, third parties or disengage all together.

If the democrats don't support the large budget bills then they get hammered for all of the good things in the bill that they didn't for.

There is a political reason these bills are never done as stand alone bills and it is precisely to get people upset like they are now.
posted by srboisvert at 11:31 AM on December 19 [15 favorites]

^ paid my $5 to agree with the above
posted by torokunai2 at 11:44 AM on December 19 [2 favorites]

What's hilarious is that Dems probably mostly voted because it was the military spending bill and they didn't want to be the ones refusing to fund the military.

Meantime the Republicans decided to toss out months of work to keep the government funded because President Musk and VP Trump told them to shut it all down.

Pathetic.
posted by charred husk at 11:54 AM on December 19 [9 favorites]

HVACDG,

I understand what youre saying about elections and popularity and have to get in before you can do anything good. And maybe half believed it before Nov 6th (incredibly naively). But I am so sick and tired of that argument (not you making that argument).

We have a crystal clear moral issue (trans people are fellow human beings, they deserve protection and decency goddammit) that the democratic leadership is running from away as fast as they can (with a few exceptions).

Do you really have any faith in that leadership to do anything right? Let alone morally right? Cause I no longer do. The democratic leadership has demonstrated that they are pathetic spineless cowards, concerned only with their endless sinecures. And I will not support them anymore.
posted by WatTylerJr at 12:14 PM on December 19 [7 favorites]

Both of my senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, voted for this. I've written to both, expressing my anger and disappointment, and that I hope Washington voters and history remember their betrayal of some of the most vulnerable members of our community. Now, to make sure they both get primaried by actual progressives...
posted by xedrik at 12:14 PM on December 19 [1 favorite]

I wrote Tammy Duckworth today too. For all the good it does.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:19 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

> The messaging from the right was almost without fail painting democrats as the party that cared more about trans rights (and to a lesser degree, illegal immigrants) than economic/kitchen table issues

When I saw Trump's 'they/them' attack ad watching Game 5 of the World Series it popped me right between the eyes; it's probably right up there with LBJ's "Daisy" ad.

Trump needed ~120,000 swing votes in PA, MI, and WI . . . and that ad delivered it AFAICT.
posted by torokunai2 at 1:02 PM on December 19 [5 favorites]

Glegrinof—My evidence of GOP messaging working better than Dem messaging is the election results.

WatTylerJr—I have faith that leadership will do what is A. Possible, and B. Politically expedient, while not upsetting their donor base too much. Which is why I think so much of Democratic leaning so hard into identity/culture politics was a strategic mistake, rather than leaning into economic issues. I think it’s likely that Big [Whomever] doesn’t want their politicians rousing the rabble too much, making economic populism anathema, while at the same time Dems probably thought trans rights were just as widely popular as LGB rights (they’re not; and it’s not close). So while they leaned hard into this, the GOP just kept churning economic messages (which are all bullshit, and their solutions are just the opposite of what will help, but at least they pay lip service to people losing ground year after year). Now, rightly or wrongly, Democrats are perceived to be the party of identity politics/trans rights/immigrants, while the era is calling for a party of economic populism, which the GOP has bullshit their way into being recognized as. Doesn’t matter that the GOP will actively hurt people economically; the perception (which has kind of been helped by Dems not going hard in the paint on economic issues) is reality here, at least for your average mostly uninformed voter, and I don’t know if there’s anything Dems can do to change that perception.


Torokunai2- that was exactly my reaction to that ad (which they used that format for the extremely competitive senate race in my state as well). And it was brutally effective. That ad probably single-handedly changed the course of the election.
posted by HVACDC_Bag at 1:20 PM on December 19 [1 favorite]

Sure, but now the election is over. Some of the senators who voted for this garbage were just re-elected, some of them after campaigning on pledges to protect families and LGBTQ people. (I'm looking at you, Amy Klobuchar, for whom I will never vote again.) They don't have to give a shit what's popular for another six years. They can do the right thing on princple, and so many of them didn't, and don't even seem to have wanted to.
posted by nickmark at 1:29 PM on December 19 [14 favorites]

Ffs. I expected this of Senate Democrats in the aggregate, but I'm disappointed in Murray/Cantwell on WA's votes. We were the state that *didn't* drift rightward in the most recent election. If there's anywhere that should be safe to vote ethically, it should be here. But then, that wouldn't be Murray or Cantwell's style. Time to steel myself up and cash in what I can on "Hey, I'm an (on my way out) Precinct Committee Officer in one of your bellwether districts. I played the electoralism & party-politics game. I walked my neighborhood for a set of electoral endorsements which prominently included you. The call's coming from inside the house here, you crossed a line". I'm sure it'll just be tallied & abstracted away, but ugh.

Which, something that's been churning in my mind for a while has been the concept of 'solidarity' on the Left, & coalition-building in the center. It's a very deep part of my worldview that building a sense of "us" that's as wide as possible underpins any sense of getting to a better place. And that can't shatter at the first hurdle, since that takes a lot of time and effort to build up. I can't assume everyone's already on the same page from the get-go. So there's got to be room for "Ok, there's historical division lines, & that's going to be hammered on by adversaries. But we've got to stand together, & if we haven't completed the groundwork that you can trust me on this, we've got to be able to forge ahead and show through our actions that this time'll be better".

But the ugly side, the flip-side to that is a creeping/intrusive thought of "for fuck's sake, if you're this committed to us not being able to come together, why shouldn't I root for the issues *you* care about to get torn down?". It's not great, to put it lightly. It plays into everything currently sliding off the rails. It wouldn't actually help anything, there wouldn't be a revelation of "Oh wait, we've got to band *together*".
But I've got to acknowledge it's there, because in moments like this it gets to gnawing at me. If we're playing out Prisoner's Dilemma & your would-be allies keep hitting "Defect" over and over again, at what point do you give up on trying to get to the outcome that doesn't put everyone in the hole? How often can you watch people get berated for reaching that point, because "don't you know that's worse for both of us & doesn't benefit you any?"?

Maybe it's just my own fragility. After all, I'm not the one under the hammer here. I can blend into the woodwork, & do what I can to shield those close to me, & I can act like it doesn't have to matter to me unless I choose to stand out. But maybe there's something there.
posted by CrystalDave at 2:14 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

My evidence of GOP messaging working better than Dem messaging is the election results.

From a post-election poll from by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for the HRC:

Like in previous elections, MAGA’s attacks on transgender people failed to move voters.

This election cycle, MAGA politicians spent more than $150 million on heinous, hateful ads attacking the trans community, despite a long history of failure and extensive research showing these ads fail to move voters. This new poll confirms the ineffectiveness of these attacks.

Nationally, 64% of voters recall seeing an anti-trans attack ad against Kamala Harris. But just 4%—dead last on this list— identify opposing surgeries for trans people and trans kids’ participation in sports as issues motivating them to vote. (This aligns with research Gallup found in September). In fact, when asked directly which candidate ”represents your views on transgender people,” voters pick Harris (52 to 40 percent).

Backing up this new data are results we saw across the country where pro-equality candidates and referendums won despite an onslaught of anti-trans attacks, including Sarah McBride, who will become our nation’s first ever openly transgender member of Congress, U.S Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who won a third term from Wisconsinites, and pro-reproductive freedom ballot referendums like Proposition 1 in New York.

While the attacks were once again ineffective from a political perspective, they caused tremendous harm to the transgender community already at high risk of mental health struggles and violent attacks.

Voters Believe LGBTQ+ People Should be Protected from Discrimination and that Politicians Shouldn’t Interfere with Health Care for Trans People

A 60% majority support a federal law that would make it illegal to deny services to LGBTQ+ people and would ban discrimination in employment and housing; this majority includes 57% of the non-college voters that played such an outsized role in Trump’s election. An even stronger 73% majority (60% among Republicans) argue the government should not interfere with the health care transgender people receive.

posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 2:14 PM on December 19 [19 favorites]

The NDAA, as appropriation bills institutionally do, came from the House and the Democrats didn't have the votes to remove it from their version of the bill.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/democratic-senators-transgender-care-ban-defense-bill-rcna184431
posted by torokunai2 at 2:22 PM on December 19

Good to see the spirit of the post 2001 Democrats back. I was nostalgic for the wafting stench of failure. Lets destroy every core constituency of our party and see if we can make Republicans like us.
posted by finalbroadcast at 2:22 PM on December 19 [4 favorites]

Glegrinof, you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. I’m not saying that attacks on trans people were what swayed voters. What I’m saying is that the GOP defined Democrats as a party that’s more interested in trans rights and immigrant rights than economic/kitchen table issues, and people bought it. And trans rights are not a popular enough issue for democrats to really embrace (see the pew and Gallup polls I referenced that show both a majority of people being against trans discrimination, but also large pluralities of people in favor of restricting things like bathroom usage, playing sports, and transitioning under 18). M


Trans rights are basically met with, as I said above “cautious acceptance” by the average American. When Democrats let themselves be characterized as a party that’s cares more about an issue that affects a tiny number of people rather than the actual economic hardship that basically everyone feels, they lost. It’s not a matter of the policy or what they actually ran on, it’s a matter of what the perception is to the low information voter. And like your link said, the low information voter doesn’t care much about trans rights and isn’t voting based on that. What that poll leaves out, is that the GOP very successfully painted the Democrats as a party that’s cares only cares about trans rights, whereas most people were more worried about economic realities and voted for the party that’s they perceived as being better at that, or at least the one who lied and said they could fix people’s hardships.
posted by HVACDC_Bag at 3:21 PM on December 19 [1 favorite]

Nationally, 64% of voters recall seeing an anti-trans attack ad against Kamala Harris. But just 4%—dead last on this list— identify opposing surgeries for trans people and trans kids’ participation in sports as issues motivating them to vote.
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:27 PM on December 19 [3 favorites]

"it’s a matter of what the perception is to the low no information voter"

When you sort the big table on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election#Results you'll find the 3 states Trump needed (WI, MI, PA) to be the closest races in his win column.

Harris needed 120,000 of the 8M Trump voters in these 3 states to flip their vote, and that is 1.5% of that voting population...
posted by torokunai2 at 3:34 PM on December 19

Democrats let themselves be characterized as a party that’s cares more about an issue that affects a tiny number of people rather than the actual economic hardship that basically everyone feels
"she's only as rich as the poorest of her poor,
Only as free as the padlocked prison door."
- Phil Ochs, The Power and The Glory.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 4:13 PM on December 19 [5 favorites]

We have a crystal clear moral issue (trans people are fellow human beings...

We have another crystal clear moral issue: DONALD TRUMP IS A RAPIST.

If someone is so morally bereft they'll vote for (or support in any way) a rapist, there's no lower bound to their depravity.

It's hard to accept just exactly how fucked up all these people (Including Schumer and Gillibrand) are.
posted by mikelieman at 5:39 PM on December 19 [4 favorites]

I mean that same logic can be applied to voters who support politicians who support (to the tune of billions of dollars) genocide.

Moral clarity or leadership seems to be lacking all across the political spectrum.
posted by flamk at 5:45 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

I'm not saying the democrats lost because they fail to stand up for trans issues. I'm saying the democrats lost because they don't stand up for anything.

I know it seems hard for some people to believe it, but the American people might actually respect the democratic party if it pushed back against, in this case, efforts to demonize the trans community, even if the American people by and large are iffy on their support of the trans community. The American people might respect the democratic party if the democratic party showed any backbone on anything at all, other than their absolute commitment to hippie-punching and siding with genocidal governments. Both of which, to be honest, the republicans have been at for much longer and are vastly superior at.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:28 PM on December 19 [23 favorites]

I can only assume this was part of the deal to avoid a government shutdown, which was promptly blown up by Musk (followed by Trump/Vance). If the Republicans actually shut the government down through the veto window, I hope Biden vetos this.

I don't know if Murray and Cantwell assume everything will be forgotten in 4-6 years or just plan on retiring, but I think the "Soviet of Washington" will not countenance another term for either after this, as long as there are any credible rivals that pound this issue. They both got started going after archaic stalwarts, so they aren't invincible. Let's see another generation take hold.

I really have to turn on the US Politics filter for the next few years. The worst people in the world are winning, and I don't think paying attention to the fight will help to respond. I need to look as local as possible, and find individuals to help.
posted by netowl at 11:35 PM on December 19

>part of the deal to avoid a government shutdown

No, this 2025 defense spending bill was working its way through the system all year. My not-informed take is simply the anti-DEI and anti-trans-for-military-minors items in this bill were not the fights / political capital the majority of the Democratic caucus were willing to engage to hold up the bill from going through this year.

The GOP, with Democratic caucus acquiescence, successfully turned the burner under the pot we're in another click hotter, yes. The country, and caucus, is still split on this issue, alas.
posted by torokunai2 at 6:28 AM on December 20 [1 favorite]

I HATE the term “identity politics”. It’s atrocious right wing framing of what at its heart is: protecting the most vulnerable people, POCs, and the defenseless against ravening right wing fuckers who want to sentence them to a lifetime of 3rd class citizenship and in some cases extinction. There is also the righting of gigantic historical harms.

But yea keep using identity politics.
posted by WatTylerJr at 12:48 PM on December 20 [5 favorites]

Mod note: One comment deleted as requested by the member who posted it.
posted by loup (staff) at 4:38 PM on December 20 [1 favorite]

You know I (a trans person although of course I do not speak for all of us) often think "Democrats seem to think they are entitled to my vote and have no obligation to me" and the comment above really hammers that home. My healthcare and safety are under attack and you think it's okay to sacrifice those things? "Trans issues" may be an abstract political idea for you but for some of us it's literally life and death.
posted by an octopus IRL at 7:28 PM on December 20 [4 favorites]

Trans issues are a winning issue for Republicans.

If there is a moral imperative to say that trans people are not monsters, sure, but it should not be coming out of the mouth of a Democrat when it will just erode their vote share and climate change, reproductive freedom, and the big red button are hanging in the balance. We need a third party that is not running for office to do that work. It needs to be grassroots and Hollywood and the athletic community and anyone else with a platform.

Not only is this a wildly fucking offensive comment, this strategy wouldn't actually work. The Republicans would still run anti-trans attack ads and they would still blame the fucking Democrats, because Republicans do not care about the truth. If the Democrats could actually find a spine and push back on bullshit anti-trans sentiment, that might actually help; ceding the issue to evil bigots doesn't help a goddamn thing (and is, again, wildly fucking offensive (and not only to trans people!))

Why on earth is it not incumbent on our leaders to, you know, actually lead?
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:07 PM on December 20 [1 favorite]

Mod note: One removed (basically, "politicians shouldn't / shouldn't be expected to openly support trans rights because it's a popular attack vector from the right"). Responses remain. Acknowledging that some are asking that mods not remove comments, I am nevertheless deleting and asking that people move forward with the discussion without continuing to react, otherwise indeed, it would be better to just leave it. Removing because a) it is against guidelines, and b) the conversation should be allowed to develop without being mired in and dominated by re-arguing first principles every time there's a discussion of transgender rights.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:27 PM on December 20