On reproduction - M. Gessen in NYT:
‘In the wake of an election in which Donald Trump stoked fear about trans people — as in the much-discussed ad that warned “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you” — Democrats are now debating how much the issue of trans rights hurt them and how fast they should retreat from it. Which is remarkable, because throughout her brief campaign, Kamala Harris was all but silent on the subject. It’s not clear how much further Democrats could actually retreat.’
(…)
‘Of course, young people make all kinds of decisions they may later regret. But opponents of trans rights argue that there is an area in which the consequences can be nothing short of catastrophic, and that area is reproduction. Whether the focus is gender-affirming care, sports teams or bathrooms, the mission is, invariably, to protect women and girls from trans people. Two stars of the campaign to limit access to care are Chloe Cole in the United States and Keira Bell in the United Kingdom, girls who transitioned to being boys and later detransitioned to being young women. Both of them have repeatedly expressed fear that the treatment they received as teenagers could have rendered them infertile. It may or may not have; the long-term effects of puberty blockers followed by hormone therapy aren’t well known, though many trans men who started hormone treatment as adults have been able to get pregnant.’
(…)
‘I am trans and I am a parent of three children, one of whom I carried. Their existence, and my relationships with each of them, are essential to my understanding of life itself. I also have many friends (none of them trans, as it happens) who never had children. I occasionally envy their freedom. They may occasionally envy me my sprawling family. In neither case is the feeling of regret — if it can even be called that — significant or particularly long-lasting. It is, rather, an awareness that life is a series of choices, all of which are made with incomplete information.’
(…)
‘I have spent some time reporting on the global movement for “traditional values,” or for “natural family,” or against “gender ideology.” I have heard its natalist message and understood its barely hidden subtext: White heterosexual cisgender people should have as many babies as possible, not just for their own sake but for the benefit of their Christian nations. I have also seen how this movement acts when it is in power, as it is in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
First, that government banned all adoptions by U.S. citizens. Then it banned what it called “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors,” not unlike our so-called Don’t Say Gay laws. Then Russia outlawed adoption by people who are in same-sex couples. Then it banned medical and legal transition, and dissolved the marriages of people who had transitioned already. Next it banned any public mention of homosexuality. More recently it declared the “international L.G.B.T. movement” an extremist organization, effectively outlawing queer people and displays of queerness. And this month, the lower house of Russia’s parliament passed a law outlawing public communication (“propaganda”) that might be seen as promoting childlessness.
For more than a decade, Putin has made procreation a focus of his political rhetoric — much as JD Vance has in the last few years.’
(…)
‘Trump’s and Vance’s politics are coherent, and their legislative agenda is clear: Roll back trans rights, lesbian and gay rights, reproductive rights and women’s rights, all in the name of making America great, straight and white again. It’s entirely possible that Harris’s evasions on the issue of trans rights helped cost her the trust of voters, and by extension the election. But the price trans Americans will likely pay if we are abandoned by the Democratic Party as a small and unpopular constituency may be much higher.’
Read the article here.
Yes, the right people should reproduce, the wrong people should die without children, sometimes die as quickly possible.
That’s’ nothing new.
But the fact remains that the Dems appears to be on the losing side in this particular culture war.
Fair enough, they appear to be on the losing side in many others wars as well.
No political party in the West is going to win an election by stating that asylum seekers should not be turned into scape goats.
The same thing can be said about trans.
That doesn’t mean that trans people or asylum seekers should be abandoned.
Just saying that when relatively minor issues – there are not that many asylum seekers, the problem is also a narrative that turned out to be very effective for the extreme-right -become major battle fields, the progressives are losing the battle. For the moment at least.