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I feel like my post yesterday on the Florida GOP’s crusade against trans kids didn’t fully capture the insidiousness of the legislation known as HB1421, which was passed out of the state house’s Healthcare Regulation subcommittee yesterday on a party-line vote.
The bill not only targets trans youth, banning gender-affirming care for minors and “allow[ing] parents who oppose transition to take custody of their children from affirming parents in violation of judges orders,” as activist and writer Erin Reed notes in her Substack newsletter. It also takes aim at adults. It’s worded so broadly, as I pointed out yesterday that it could ban treatment for breast and prostate cancer.
And importantly, as Reed writes, the bill also
outright bans even private insurances from covering gender affirming care for any transgender person: …Even if a company wanted to support their transgender employees medical care, they would be forbidden by the state of Florida from doing so. This would effectively price out many transgender people from obtaining many forms of gender affirming care.
This sort of care can cost tens of thousands of dollars, not the kind of financial burden that most individuals can bear.
As Reed explains, this provision makes clear
that attacks on transgender people are not about “protecting children,” but rather about “eradicating transgenderism” as Michael Knowles put it in his recent infamous CPAC speech.
And this is not the only legislation out there targeting trans adults. As Vice documents in a piece on the new front in the GOP’s war on trans people, bills across the country restrict trans adults in various nefarious ways.
Tennessee is also trying to block insurance providers from covering gender-affirming care, while other states are explicitly trying to ban care for some adults altogether. Earlier this year Oklahoma became the first state to propose a gender-affirming care ban for people under 26, and Kansas is proposing a trans healthcare ban for people under 21. South Carolina is also attempting to ban people under 21 from accessing gender-affirming care, and would prohibit the use of public funds to cover treatment.
Earlier this month, Texas introduced its own bill that could criminalize doctors who provide gender-affirming care for people under 26. The same bill prohibits insurance companies from covering gender-affirming care for the same age group.
The writing is on the fucking wall. As Vice reports, there have been nearly 500 anti-trans bills introduced already across the country, and ten states have passed bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth. We can expect a lot more bills explicitly targeting adults to come. It’s never been about “the children.” It’s always been about eliminating trans people from public life, which some have called cultural genocide.
That, unfortunately, is not hyperbole.
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@Alan Robertshaw
That’s fascinating, and it totally makes sense since 16 is the age of consent for sex in the UK, so it’s sort of considered adulthood.
@oncewasmagnificent:
That would require me to have my own washing machine …
I can’t recall ever seeing a bottle labeled as pure sorbolene in the soaps’n’shit aisle at any of the local grocers. If it’s something that has to be special ordered or gotten at a specialty boutique then it’s out of the question, since no credit card no intercity travel.
@ lisa
Yeah. The age of maturity is a bit of a fluid concept here. As a matter of law, you’re a minor until your 18th birthday; then you’re an adult.
But for medical treatment there’s a presumption that 16 year olds have full capacity to consent. That presumption can be rebutted; but only in the same way it can for an adult; i.e. have to show lack of capacity, then the Court of Protection steps in.
We also have something called “Gillick competence”. That’s the idea that, when it comes to important personal decisions, even kids under 16 may have capacity and the maturity to make such a decision, without parental consent or even knowledge. Such decisions are dealt with on a case by case basis.
The relevant test is set out here. This is the guidance the Medical Defence Union give to medical professionals. The MDU is the body that defends claims against medics. So this is how they interpret the law.
https://www.themdu.com/guidance-and-advice/guides/gillick-competence
@surplus The woman who died of brain amoeba used straight tap water. I used distilled water because I had it anyway, but the other way to safely do a nasal rinse is to boil the water and let it cool.
@Lisa
You may also wish to consult the WPATH guidelines. This is what doctors think is the correct approach, before politicians get involved:
https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc
They want to make Trans people suffer and it is also a huge pander to their voter base and to distract from the reality of how poorly these states are doing economically and in all other markers. Billions of dollars of federal Covid money has … disappeared … across many states. Money that was supposed to go directly into the hands of citizens as well to things like updating air filtration systems in schools and workplaces. Where is it? Where did it go? Who has it? How many people even know about this? To keep people from knowing about it politicians are diverting their attention with cries of “the trans agenda is taking over” and “the woke mob wants to take away you freedom of speech and 2nd amendment rights”. These are all just distractions. Unfortunately they are willing to ruin Trans people’s lives in their attempts at distraction and evasion of responsibility.
Think about it. Politicians weren’t ever trying to stop Trans adults from accessing gender affirming healthcare all these years prior (or were they and I just don’t know it?). But now all of a sudden it’s a big deal?
Follow the money, follow the votes, follow the cover-ups. Find out what they want to hide and what they don’t want the public talking about.
@Three Cats in a Trenchcoat
Of course we won’t hear a peep from Daily Wire or Fox News about that, will we?
It makes me sad that girls under the age of 18 feel the need for such surgeries. This is the first I’m hearing about it, but it doesn’t surprise me. I remember some years ago hearing about adult women having cosmetic surgery done on their vulvas purely for “aesthetic reasons”.
Who knew there was a specific way a vulva was supposed to look?
West Virginia Republican insists boob jobs for underage teen cis-girls might be “medically necessary” and other Republicans refuse to ban them.
https://www.newsweek.com/west-virginia-republicans-vote-against-banning-breast-enlargement-teenagers-1778730
Yeah, about that…
https://twitter.com/ryanlcooper/status/1640062569082658820
They will do anything rather than give poor people the government money they are due. That’s how Brett Favre’s daughter got a new stadium with welfare funds.
Verily, there is a new vulva-themed Twitter explosion that rivals (and possibly overshadows) the epic mansplaining event a couple years ago. Only this time, it’s TERFsplaining about real vulva anatomy.
AAAAAAAAGH!!
No GOPper should be allowed to use the phrase “protecting the children” again until they have a serious policy proposal to put an end to shit like this:
https://www.alternet.org/six-declared-tennessee-shooting/
You GOP fuckers can have your first and second amendment rights back after you’ve solved this, or at least gotten the fuck out of the way. :/
@Surplus to Requirements:
“Your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights.”
— Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, 2014, in response to the parents of the students who were injured or killed in the Isla Vista massacre.
Well, this is really going to suck. After a bunch of confused and inconsistent reports of the shooter’s age and gender, it appears that he was a 28-year-old trans man, not a “teenage girl” like the earliest reports claimed.
This is coming on the heels of Kayleigh Scott’s suicide and Tucker Carlson’s declaration that trans people shouldn’t be allowed to have guns.
Tucker Carlson said that? Has he heard about the 2nd amendment and how carrying gun is freedom and all that? Where’s the NRA when you need them?
But they’re fine with unregistered guns in the hands of psychopaths.
Goddess above, I’m so. damn. tired.
Speaking of drag, sad news just now. Paul O’Grady has just died. Brits will now who he is; but for those who don’t he was a popular drag performer here. And also a great animal lover.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/mar/29/paul-ogrady-presenter-and-comedian-dies-aged-67
Darcelle, the ruling drag queen of Portland, Oregon for 60 years also just died. Less than a week ago. A drag icon if ever there was one. I met her many times, of course, being an activist in Portland you could hardly help it since she was active in EVERYTHING, but I can’t claim the honour of being her friend. I was just one of many people she met enough times to remember fondly and call by a first name. Ironically my most vivid memories of her were times when I was walking in my neighbourhood and passed her house while she was gardening. She was always ready with a kind word for any passersby.
She did reach 92 years old, though, so nothing to regret. She did a lot, saw a lot of change, gave away more than any city could ever give back.
Cheers to Darcelle.
Paul O’Grady was only 67, a shocking loss.
@Snowberry: We’ll have to keep repeating the fact that even though this shooter was a trans guy (as far as I am aware), that proves absolutely nothing. That is still statistically insignificant in comparison to the amount of cis white male shooters, and says less about trans men than those cis shooters do about cis men.
They won’t listen. They’ll keep yelling their talking points. It will indeed suck. Please take care of yourselves, both mental and physical health-wise.
My conspiracy hamster is spinning.
They will frame this as, “Trans people are severely mentally ill and they need extensive psychiatric help (possibly institutionalization), not gender affirming care, otherwise we can count on more murder sprees at their hands across the country, and world”.
Not missing a beat Matt Walsh is already framing this as, “Trans man murders Christian children.”
Getting the Christosphere even more riled up than they already are. “The Trans are out to murder Jesus’s children now! Drag Queen Story Hour wasn’t enough! Grooming wasn’t enough! They want our kids’ blood!”
Then something about “end times”.
Here are Beau of the Fifth Column’s thoughts on an unusual aspect of the Nashville shooting—and it’s not the aspect the media have stressed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-h3eM3QTQk
“What–in anything I have ever put out–led you to believe that I would help you scapegoat a group?”
@Love is all we need
Yeah I saw that coming. The right loves to accuse others of ‘politicizing’ tragedies in order to promote a ‘agenda’ . but of course its ok when they do it to further attack a group of people they want to exterminate .
If the shooter targeted the school because they made his life hell when he was a student there, then him being trans might have everything to do with the tragedy. Of course I’m not suggesting any amount of abuse ever justifies murder, but with all the guns and hatred around, this kind of thing is inevitable. It’s worth noting that he bought 7!! semi-automatic weapons after his parents told the authorities he shouldn’t be trusted with any, so the only thing that is absolutely clear is that lax gun laws kill children.