I’ve seen a depressing trend of Democratic politicians embracing anti trans talking points and compromising gender affirming care for young people. This is extremely concerning as states and the federal government are undermining access to care now more than ever. Democrats standing by trans people has far more dire consequences now than ever, yet we’re being treated as politically disposable by people who used to campaign on lgbtq issues like Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg.
I can’t say I’m surprised. Liberal papers like the New York Times has been uncritically promoting unscientific transphobia for years that claims alternatives exist to gender affirming care. My guess is that people see a person transitioning as an unfortunate thing, desperately wishing there was another way. They ignore the fact that gender affirming care is both the best treatment for dysphoria, and one of the most successful treatments for any mental condition ever discovered.
To put it simply, making gender affirming care harder to obtain for kids will kill many of them. Kids being kept from care by their parents already drives people to suicide, and a slimy politician preventing supportive parents from helping their kids will do the same. Every time I see people claim these guys are our best shot at beating fascism, I die inside. I have no doubt that they’ll eventually axe care for all adults like everyone who was originally “worried about fairness in sports” is currently pushing for. The only way they won’t is if we make it a costly issue for them.
This is why first-past-the-post needs to be replaced with the single transferable vote. The rules were originally designed by the rich for the rich.
If you believe that’s where your energy is best spent, I wish you success. It’s probably a matter of planting trees whose shade you’ll never sit in, but there are healthy alternatives we can promote.
Starting a third party in a FPTP system? That’s just suicide.
There is another way: run for office as a Democrat and be the change you want to see in the party. What Bernie and AOC did. We need a few dozen more of them, and things will actually start moving.
mamdani is the first of these and the democratic party won’t even endorse him; what makes you think they’ll behave any different for others?
It worked in Canada, India and the UK.
What the tea party did. What MAGA did. What Mandami is doing.
Changing the existing party is what works. Demolishing it does not.
We can only hope Elon starts his third party he’s threatened a couple times.
The Republican party replaced the Whig party and the Bull Moose party came close.