Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, October 8, 2024
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50 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Yesterday there was a good discussion on why the Democrats haven’t produced a Trump. The more I think about it though, I think that begs the question. The Republican Party didn’t produce Trump. They embraced him. The question isn’t what kind of political party creates a Trump, because there are always Trumps. Narcissistic sociopaths can be found on random street corners and most boardrooms. Predatory but charismatic conmen can be found in every sales office in the world. So the real question is how can someone like that take over a political party? What must happen to allow that to occur?
People who spend as much time in these comment sections as I do know that I think the original sin for the GOP was the decision during the 1964 Goldwater campaign to pursue the Southern Strategy and allow the racists in (but only just for this one election!) at the expense of blacks and other minorities. But I’m sure others have other, perhaps better, ideas.
You can hate on Apple all you want, but they are right to fight the US government’s pressure to install a back door to their database of our texts, emails, etc.
Just a timely reminder that Trump isn’t the only one who is seriously mentally unhinged in the GOP.
“It’s about the pro-choice ballot amendment which would restore Roe protections in Florida if it reaches a 60% threshold. As in most other states, getting to 50% isn’t that difficult. 60% is much harder. To head off even the chance that the ballot initiative might hit that challenging high bar the state of Florida is already spending a substantial amount of tax payer dollars campaigning against the initiative. Now we learn that the state is quite literally threatening jail time for the employees of stations that agree to run one of the ads for the pro-choice amendment. You heard that right – not sue under some claim of defamation but actual criminal charges.”
Source: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/desantis-threatening-jail-time-for-running-abortion-rights-ads-in-florida
@MarkedMan:
My comment which spurred that discussion wasn’t stated as clearly as I would have liked, and I think a lot of people missed the main point I was trying to make. Trump could have run for the Democratic nomination if he so chose. He’s identified as a Democrat before, donated to Democratic campaigns, schmoozed with powerful Dems like the Clintons, and expressed support for Democratic positions. But he sensed, correctly, that Dems were less likely to accept him if he ran for the presidency. He chose the GOP because he knew the party’s voters were good marks for his con game.
@Kylopod: Exactly. The Republican base was waiting for someone like Trump, and recognized him as soon as he rode down the elevator. And the Democratic base was repulsed by him, or found it hysterical. But I would posit that 50 or 60 years ago those two reactions would have been spread much more evenly through both parties. What led to that change?
@MarkedMan:
Rick Perlstein’s Reaganland makes a convincing case that Reagan’s rise helped push the party toward irrationalism and anti-science crackpottery. The following excerpt brings this out:
Reagan also once was having a private conversation with the journalist Jack Germond (or maybe it was Jules Witcover–I always mix up the two and I’m not looking it up) where he suggested the two assassination attempts against Ford might have been staged.
In short, Reagan was a kook. He managed to keep his kookiness from coming out in public too much, partly with the help of his shrewd handlers. But he was also the Republican who really helped push white evangelicals away from Dems through social issues like gay rights, abortion, and school prayer. The civil rights movement was the original cause, but it was in the late ’70s that you start to see the rise of the Moral Majority and the increasing politicization of those culture-war issues, which enabled the secular Reagan to poach those voters from the devout evangelical Carter.
Now, it’s true there’s long been a strain of kookery on the left as well. I think even back then some of it was exaggerated in popular imagination (it was Ronald and Nancy who were the ones into tarot cards), but it did exist, so you may be correct that a Trump-like huckster could have done a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party at some point. I think the partisan sorting was a process that took decades–it wasn’t overnight. Even today, I think the rightward drift of figures like RFK and Elon Musk is an indication that there’s been a further consolidation of crazy on the right, due to Covid, Jan. 6, and the push of wild conspiracy theories (with the helping hand of Russia) on social media.
@Kylopod:
@MarkedMan:
A significant reason that a Trump or for that matter, a Lenin, couldn’t capture the Dems, is how the party is constructed, an amalgam of different interest groups. A messianic politician, Huey Long or more contemporaneously Bernie, might grab the adoration of a subset of the party, but be rejected by others. That diversity protect the party.
@Kylopod:
400,000 1/3 of Covid deaths would have been prevented if the Covid vaccine had been mandated and forced on people.
Source: PoliticsGirl Leigh McGowan
Kamala is part of the Law Enforcement caste.
VP Harris: “My background is in law enforcement.”
@Not the IT Dept.: Now THAT is a first amendment violation, and squelching free speech. Compare and contrast to advertisers deciding not to pay Elon Mush-brain, or whatever other fever dream Republicans are complaining about on the regular.
@MarkedMan:
“But I would posit that 50 or 60 years ago those two reactions would have been spread much more evenly through both parties.”
I would agree with this. As parties change over time, and attract different types of voters, characteristics like this change.
I am mystified why Prof. Taylor believes this is some sort of gotcha for people who believe that someone like Trump could not have risen in the current Democratic Party.
Veep Harris is coming on The View in a minute. We’re gonna watch.
It seems several politicians are ripping off The West Wing.
I suppose it’s cheaper than hiring Sorkin or the show’s writers for political speeches.
IMO, this may be the most disgusting statement ever from Trump:
“Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States,” he added. “You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now. They left, they had 425,000 people come into our country that shouldn’t be here, that are criminals.”
I moved to FL last year, but I used to live in Columbia, MD, which is right between Baltimore and DC. Once a year I went into DC and went to the Holocaust Museum (my wife went one year but she lost too much of her family in the Holocaust and we had to leave pretty soon after we got there). One of the exhibits that always struck me was a racial chart that showed the hierarchy of different races. I always wondered what sort of warped mind that type of thing appealed to. Now I know, it’s Trump and his minions. “Bad genes” is right out of nazi dogma. The fact that there is even a single Jew in this country who supports Trump is disturbing. Maybe he’ll decide one day that is the Jews who have “bad genes”.
Weather Story:
“Milton”
https://x.com/MichaelRLowry
https://x.com/cyclonicwx
@Moosebreath: I think Dr. Taylor’s comment is targeted toward lurkers rather than true believer Democrats. Evangelicals, fundies, and Muslims aren’t the only ones who have unshakeable faith(s).
@Lucysfootball: I don’t understand why anyone moves to Florida. Between the nutball politics and the hurricane seasons deteriorating, it doesn’t seem like a good place to live.
@Kylopod: Reagan was my first president after I could vote, and I very naively believed that people would see through him, would realize what a liar and blowhard he really was, and he would go down to epic defeat. During his first term a book came out, “Ronald Reagan’s Reign of Error”which was page after page after page of the lies Reagan told (not “misstatements, because he continued to repeat them even after having been corrected”) and it was followed by two more books in the same vein. Didn’t make a damn bit of difference. The average person doesn’t care if they are being lied to as long as they like what they hear.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I am not following how your comment was a response to what I said. Can you unpack it for me?
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Health reasons, it was either this or move to someplace where we could buy citizenship. Hawaii would be only other option, and family prevented that.
The suppression of political speech by DeSantis is clearly a 1st Amendment violation. As has been noted before, this law and others that are similar in states like Texas are vague enough that they place medical providers into areas of uncertainty and they know they can be second guessed and end up in jail if a local prosector decides to go after them. So, on the facts DeSantis is wrong. There is nothing in the advertising that will be harmful to the health of people.
That said, they also top the irony/hypocrisy meter since they were one of the states that went out of their way to not only protect but also promote lies about covid.
Steve
There’s an op ed over at The Hill speculating that Trump’s shifting position on abortion him is going to cause him trouble with Evangelists. The writer blathers on about deeply held positions and how important this is to them, but I can short circuit all that: no, it will not make a difference. The anti-abortion campaign was manufactured by the Catholic Church, who desperately needed a distraction, and then picked up by Evangelicals when they realized it was a gold mine. Just one piece of proof – The editorial position of the official Southern Baptist Convention newspaper in 1973 was that Roe v. Wade was a good decision and should be considered a “strict constructionist” ruling. At the time the average evangelical wasn’t worked up about it, and they could return to that mindset in no time. Trump has nothing to worry from a supposed Evangelical backlash.
I find this discussion to contain a substantially more plausible analysis & explanation of the last decade’s world events.
Occam’s Razor is a thing.
@MarkedMan:
50 years of fertilizing the Republican base with crazy bullshit.
The investigations/conspiracy-theories of the death of Vince Foster were a prelude. The Tea Party was a prelude. Trump just stepped in and took control by being a few years ahead of the curve on the Republican descent into madness.
@Not the IT Dept.:
I’m really curious about the fallout if the vote to restore Roe is at 54% or so. Is it going to create a large group of long-term, extremely motivated voters angry about being thwarted? Will it translate into higher turnout in off year elections?
@Moosebreath: You had said
I’m merely suggesting that he’s not trying to score a “gotcha” at all. The reference to the lurkers refers to the standard “I’m not arguing with X, I’m speaking to the lurkers…”
@Lucysfootball: If living in Florida is good for your health, God be with you.
With apologies to our Floridians here, and the general population of Florida; honestly, I want that whole place fucking wrecked. Just absolutely destroyed. This is a purely emotional anger response given just how horrible FL has become for trans people and general Republican/Confederate shittery. This probably makes me a bad person. I don’t care. I’m about to have to flee my home because, partially, a bunch of old assholes in FL are so full of stupid hate that they’d rather drown than deal with actual real problems and actual real people. I am full of impotent rage.
That out of the way, I went looking for some info on the Florida insurance/reinsurance markets. I wasn’t able to find much solid info and I don’t know if that’s lazy google searches or if it’s hidden cause it’s Florida and its run by kleptocrats. Also, i’m not going to 100% vouch for these sources. I did a lil checking, and they seem legit, but the AI overview says they’re legit because they say they’re legit. Anyway.
July 2, 2024
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2024/07/02/this-indicator-floridas-property-insurance-market-sees-improvement/
A ton of Floridians are finding out/will find out that their insurance policies were expensive and pointless as insurers tell people to fuck off instead of pay and hide behind lawsuit shields. I don’t feel bad about this at all.
That’s $17 billion dollars in taxpayer back corporate socialism. Without that I’m guessing that Florida would be uninsurable. Remember that $17 billion coverage limit.
August 12, 2024
https://www.artemis.bm/news/florida-insurance-market-sees-first-reinsurance-price-decrease-in-years-floir/
Hey Daddy Reynolds, how’s my foreshadowing.
September 27, 2024
Hurricane Helene hits Florida as a Cat 4 storm. Misses Tampa by a wet fart.
October 8, 2024
https://www.artemis.bm/news/hurricane-milton-could-be-a-huge-test-for-the-entire-reinsurance-market-evercore-isi/
Oops can’t have problems with the whatever-linked securities. Not like we ever had anything like that ever happen. Noooope. Nothing to see there.
I’m innumerate, is $50 billion more than $17 billion?
October 9, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CehYA3omb5o
Learn to swim Republicans. Learn to swim and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Learn to swim through the shit and corpses and useless insurance policies.
@just nutha:
Possibly, but I read Prof. Taylor as responding to the commentators in making statements like his recent one, where he cited George Wallace, Huey Long and Andrew Jackson as cases similar to Trump.
@MarkedMan: The path from Reagan to Trump is a perfect example of the old Karl Marx quote about how history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce.
Of course our friends over at the Bulwark are going to talk about how Reagan wouldn’t recognize today’s GOP. Some of the differences are real (e.g. his views on immigration), others misunderstand the situation (yes, Reagan was anti-Russia, but only because it was Communist; he was fine propping up right-wing strongmen, as the biggest scandal of his administration revealed).
The key point to understand is the way the Reagan myth emerged in the years after he left office along with the rise of talk radio and conservative media, which presented a comic-book version of his presidency. I seriously think the average Republican actually believes he beat the USSR by saying “tear down this wall.” The actual facts of what happened are conveniently forgotten, such as the way his meeting with Gorbachev was met with outrage on the right, with Newt Gingrich comparing him to Neville Chamberlain.
The media of the ’80s were certainly complicit in normalizing and whitewashing Reagan’s faults, but he did know how to package himself in a broadly appealing way. That’s how the normies still remember him, and a key reason why many of his flaws have fallen down the memory hole. But the echo chamber of right-wing media developed a somewhat different perspective–an outsider who loudly burst onto the scene, showed up all the hoity-toity elites, and huffed and puffed and blew the Iron Curtain down. That’s how they could be receptive to a man like Trump, and utterly oblivious to how ridiculous he comes off to a majority of Americans. The fact that, far from winning wall-to-wall landslides, he loses the national vote by millions and his only chance of winning the White House is by eking out tiny margins in a handful of swing states, is irrelevant to them. They’ll just call it a landslide, claim to have the silent majority vindicating them, and allege he would be winning all 84 states if not for massive fraud.
@Gustopher:
I think it’s more likely to pass and then Desantis will start arresting drs and women for Murder. They’ll just claim that Zygotes have a 14th amendment right to life and women don’t. Nothing will change until Republicans get their faces rubbed in just how awful their policies and goals are.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Moved to FL because the kids were here. And we left OH, which has become nearly as nut ball politically. And prone to tornadoes. And the realtor said we never get tornadoes here. Of course he also said there are no critters in the canals, so it’s not like we believed him.
@charontwo: Putting up the last storm shutter. The storm track has been centered on Tampa for three days. If it stays there, we’re 50 miles off the track. We’re twenty miles from the coast so storm surge isn’t an issue. We’re evac zone D. The kids are B. The county just announced evacuation through C, so the kids will be here for a couple nights. First time they’ve evacuated C. We’ve got about 20 pounds of canned food and 20 gallons for the quite large generator. The roof is new since Ian, and supposedly rated for 120 mph.
And DeUseless isn’t taking calls about storm prep from Harris.
@Beth:
I thought you lived near Chicago. Why would you have to flee your home because of some jerks in Florida?
Forgive me for asking. I take things literally as well as seriously.
@CSK:
In Chicago. That won’t keep my family safe from Florida’s 30 electoral college votes, Moms For Liberty, or Ron DeSantis.
There’s also this:
Florida is actually less safe for trans people than Texas.
The regime in Florida also worked hand in glove with the Cass Review to help ensure both groups could do as much damage to trans people as possible. And why, once my citizenship goes though (that’s a whole fuckingnother rant), I will never vote Labour. We’ll head to Scotland and i’ll sign with the SNP immediately.
This election is existential for me personally. This election will determine if I get to stay in my home. If my family can stay safe. If I can access medically necessary medications.
I’m not sticking around to see Trump and SCOTUS ban gender affirming care for everyone and forcibly detransition us. All those suicides will be murders.
@Beth:
Please forgive me (again) if this suggestion appears to make light of your situation, because it doesn’t: Move to New England. Seriously. Practically no one here gives a damn about sex.
@CSK: What happens in Florida doesn’t stay in Florida.
I don’t have as much reason to be worried as Beth*, but I’m very wary of what a second MAGA administration would mean for LGBTQ+ folks, with the trans folks being the canary in the coal mine.
*: I’m a cis dude with a tragic lack of swish— I blend in unless I go way out of my way to point out that I’m queer. Some people mistakenly assume I’m a Republican, that’s how little swish I have.
@Gustopher:
Yeah, I know. It’s just that I’m an eighth generation New Englander on the paternal side, imbued with hundreds of years’ worth of the injunction that what people are or do is no one’s business but their own, so I find it difficult to grasp the notion that there are folks around this country who wish Beth harm because she’s trans.
I get it intellectually. I don’t get it viscerally.
@Moosebreath: Okay. You and I are making different readings, and you seem to have defended yourself against his “gotcha.”
Or not, as the case may be.
@gVOR10: My parents never offered to move anywhere I ever lived. Choosing to complain that my brother and I moved away instead. Wasn’t troubled by either their decision or complaint.
ETA: And God be with you, too.
Cissy Houston, 91, and Luis Tiant, 83, have died. Both giants in their respective fields.
@CSK:
No worries. Seriously. One of the reasons I consider myself an activist* is that most “normal” people don’t and can’t understand what it’s like to be trans or LGBT+. A lot of what I talk about here is harping on trans issues so that people can see what is happening, can get one trans experience, and hopefully gain a bit of insight into a life that is in some ways like their own, but also radically different. In a lot of ways, I’m fairly bog standard with this group. Blue collar/middle class background to, now, upper middle class with an advanced degree. Self-employed. And also, I’m visibly (and audibly) trans. I’m very femme and the surgeons did what they could with what my parents gave them, but i’m built like a fat professional women’s volleyball player. I’d stick out like a sore thumb even if I didn’t dress like a 90’s Kandi raver most of the time.
and @Gustopher: is right, what happens in FL doesn’t stay in Florida. Trans rights, women’s rights, and everyone’s healthcare rights are at risk from Republicans. You might say, well, I’m not a woman, don’t need an abortion and I don’t live in Florida, so I don’t have to worry about DeSantis’ police arresting me. But you absolutely do.
The true holding of Dobbs is that states are allowed to say that, under the Constitution, women aren’t people. You think I’m being hyperbolic?
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-emergency-abortion-texas-bf79fafceba4ab9df9df2489e5d43e72
The Supreme Court just said that State’s can dispense with the fiction of abortion exceptions and nullify Federal law if they want. Because women aren’t people.
On the docket now at SCOTUS is a case: U.S. vs. Skrmetti. This case is ostensibly about gender affirming care bans. However, what it’s really about is whether trans kids (and by extension, trans adults) are people under the 14th amendment. SCOTUS didn’t take up the parent’s or kids questions, they took up the Biden Administrations question about whether the 14th amendment gives parents and trans kids the right to necessary life saving care.
I am willing to bet money that this case is going to be as profoundly terrible as Dobbs is. With it will come bans on gender affirming care for trans adults. The second the case comes down against us, the Republicans will immediately ban all gender affirming care for trans people. Note, it will not ban gender affirming care for cis people. Cis people will continue to get all the gender affirming care they need.
vs
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/
That’s assuming that Trump doesn’t win in November. If Trump wins in November, he will simply ban gender affirming care for everyone. He’s said so. He’s probably too lazy and scattered himself, but we all know whoever he puts in charge of the FDA is going to be a handpicked Heritage fundamentalist.
I know the Conservatives here think they will be fine. But they won’t be. The reason for the poem isn’t “oh, maybe we shouldn’t kill the jews.” The point of the poem is that when they’re done with the queers, the trannys, and the Jews, and this is America, the Blacks, they’re coming for you too. You’re not Elon Musk. You’re not Peter Thiel. What happens in Florida will happen to the rest of you.
ETA: I forgot to mention this, but thank you for your gracious invite. I absolutely believe you that it’s like that there. However, in a lot of ways, Illinois is quietly way more progressive on trans rights than even California or New York. This is an intensely screwed up state, but it’s working really hard to do right by its people. But none of that will matter if Trump wins in November. Nowhere in this country will be safe for us.
*I note this because conservatives, Republicans, and Radfems like to screech that just by existing, trans people are “activists”. As if that’s automatically discrediting. I actually am an activist. Some of us gotta do the big work. I’m down here on the street just talking to people and helping other transes.
Most recent track, Tampa probably significantly north of eye:
https://x.com/MichaelRLowry/status/1843767052257112336
@Beth:
Are you referring to the poem “First they came”?
This is the most common version:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
@Beth:
You are Cassandra, sadly not beloved by Apollo.
I always liked this story. A truth-speaking prophet cursed never to be believed. That is an elegant idea.
@Beth:
Thanks very much for this lucid and comprehensive response. And by the way, if you and your family ever do decide to transplant here, I’ll throw you a welcome dinner.
@Beth: If your data is correct, and I have no reason to doubt it, roughly 800 “top surgeries” for trans men under 18, out of about 3000 of that type of surgery performed on people under 18.
That’s about 20-25%, which seems like a lot.
I don’t have a specific point other than if had you asked me to just guess I would have put it closer to 5%.
I think we need some 10-20 year longitudinal studies to make sure we are doing the right thing for the kids. I wouldn’t presume to say we should be blocking or postponing surgical care, but simply gathering enough data to confirm that it is the best care. Note: I strongly suspect it is the right care, given options now.
Medicine is educated guesswork as much as a real science. Different treatments are tried, they go in and out of fashion, etc. Particularly mental health, which this is adjacent to. We need to confirm that what we think are best practices are, and continue to be, best practices.
The anti-trans hysteria makes that much harder. Pushing things underground, denying care based on state, economic status and religion — the kids who get the care are a very distinct non representative subset of the kids who probably need the care.
Would we get similar results if we expanded access to care? I can make a case either way: the kids who get it now are the most severe cases, so they may have much worse life outcomes than average, but at the same time it may have a greater impact for them rather than that next tier of kids.
And the studies that are done these days start with weird agendas and are basically useless. Or non-representative sample sets because of how hard it is to get care, and semi-useless. The Cass study resembles a real study, until you look at it.
Anyway, I find the “I shouldn’t have to get a Covid vaccine, and no one should be able to medically transition” argument to be absurd. But, I can see how someone could try to weaponize my doubt/concerns/surprise to make me oppose letting kids get treatment, especially if I didn’t have an engineering/scientific mind. There’s always some doubt.
Anyway, if trans folks in general are the canary in the coal mine for LGBTQ+ folks, trans kids are the canary in the coal mine for the trans adults, and that canary is having problems breathing.
Also, my sandwich has finally arrived.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I would add to that the awful humidity, insects and near daily storms you can set your watch to in the summer. The water from the tap is so awful that even filtering it seems insufficient.
Not a fan from my time living there.
@Gustopher:
No, *WE* don’t need to do jack shit. The thing that pisses me off most about cis people is the galling sense of ownership they have over trans people’s bodies. Like Beth and I are supposed to come crawling to you for permission because you seem to think you deserve some sort of veto over how we treat our dysphoria.
@Kylopod:
Yup.
@Michael Reynolds:
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. I’ve wondered if the oracles back then were trans women with ADHD. Enough mental flexibility to take in weird patterns and make some guesses about things. It’s at least a bit of comfortable revisionism.
Anyway, I’ve kicked around the idea of using “Broken Oracle” if I can figure out this DJ stuff. But I gotta work with my therapist on that this week. Stormy Dragon had a fantastic insight into that.
@CSK:
That sounds awesome. I would love that.
@Gustopher:
I suspect those numbers are correct. I didn’t go digging far for them, they are pretty much what I’ve seen before. I do think you’re misreading it though. The total top surgery for cis men in 2022 was roughly 21,000. Of that 2,900 were for cis boys. Compared with roughly 200 for trans boys.
That’s such a stark difference. One of the problems I’ve been railing about is that it’s “gender affirming care” for trans people, but the same exact care is called “healthcare” for cis people. It’s the same bullshit that keeps drs and scientists thinking that women are just tiny incoherent men.
And trans adults! Any trans with a brain in their heads should agree with this. Based on my experience and watching the experience of others I think we’re pretty close to getting the basic framework right, but more and better info would be awesome.
Just today we were trying to figure out why a Dr would only prescribe Progesterone for 3 years. After that she categorically refuses to prescribe. No idea why.
One area we could really use some good solid studies is on non-binary trans people. Most of the care is centered around binary trans people. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that non-binary people have to shoehorn themselves in to a model that doesn’t work for them and can cause issues that look to cis people like detransition. If they had better tailored care and support earlier I suspect their transitions would look different. But again, if we can’t even get scientists to study cis women, good luck enbies.
Boeing doing illegal Union Information Sessions in SC
I know when I want to fix quality control problems, my first step is to ensure the labor force is as uninterested as possible in their job!
@Stormy Dragon:
There is that too. And I’d take any good quality info. The fact of the matter is we know very little about bodies that don’t belong to cis men and that is galling.
For what it’s worth, I’ve gone over Gus’s, your and my comments several times. I suspect there is very little daylight between our thoughts. Magneto was right, but we can still do better. Gus is almost there, and I’ll carry him across the line if I have to.
Aaaaaaand, I did see something that I missed before:
No. No. No. rolled up newspaper no. Being trans is absolutely no where near mental health. Especially not adjacent. This is similar to thinking Bi people don’t exist because some of them are actually gay. There are a lot of mental health issues in the trans community and the biggest source of them are cis people treating us like shit.