Caitlyn Jenner and why a trans person would vote for Cruz

[Ben in LA]

Two articles I found interesting.

"The reason that the vast majority of transgender people DON'T vote for Republicans is they instinctively realize the assumptions required to conclude that living as a transgender person in an America run by Cruz and the FRC is better than living in one run by a Democratic President are completely unrealistic. The odds of a Democratic President personally destroying America that utterly with their policies is roughly the same as your grandmother becoming a roadie for Nine Inch Nails.

The odds of Ted Cruz following through with the FRC's plan for transgender people in America are nearly 100%, however."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tannehill/why-a-trans-person-would_b_9390900.html
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The former Olympian said: “[The Democratic Debate] is the last place I want to be.”

Of the struggle for trans rights, she said: “We need both sides… if we’re unfortunate enough to get Hillary as our next President, we need her on our side.

“Although she won’t be… she couldn’t care less about women. She only cares about herself.”

When asked exactly which Republican candidates would help trans people, she claims: “All of them. They don’t hate gays or trans people.

“They are more ‘I want a thriving economy so every trans person has a job’.”

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/03/07/caitlyn-jenner-claims-republicans-will-do-more-for-transgender-rights-than-hillary-clinton/?utm_source=MOBFB
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Discuss. Quite a few of the ladies over the weekend sure did.

[broncofan]

The Republicans have not historically been friends of the lgbt community. There are good reasons for assuming that Republicans would treat transgender individuals with the same respect they have historically treated gay men. It is only because the Supreme Court has said that sodomy laws are unconstitutional that states are not allowed to lock up gay men for being in a relationship and presumably violating them. Some of these laws are still on the books but are only enforced in cases of forcible sodomy and therefore are essentially treated as anti-rape statutes that cover non-vaginal forced intercourse. Both Scalia and Thomas wrote dissents in Lawrence v. Texas and they were both Republican nominees who were expressing their view that people are entitled to be morally repulsed by homosexuality and to want to make sex between gay men illegal.

Republicans fought tooth and nail in many states to ban gay marriage even going as far as to try to amend state constitutions to not only make it illegal, but to provide a constitutional barrier to making it legal.

Anyhow, there are good reasons that the intolerance Republicans have historically shown to gay men and women would also be expressed when considering the rights of the transgender community. It is right now a current fad among conservative commentators to fight for their right to call mtf transsexuals "sir" because they are suddenly pro-science and believe we should pay strict and literal attention to a person's chromosomal sex.

So, in conclusion, Caitlin Jenner is ignoring the interests of individuals who are similarly situated by supporting Republican candidates. She may have other compelling reasons to but she is wrong to indicate Republicans have not been anti-gay.

[volkov2006]

There is plenty evidence to show that the Republican party is against transgender rights.

http://www.advocate.com/transgender/2016/2/25/republican-national-committee-endorses-anti-trans-bathroom-bills

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee has endorsed the anti-transgender bathroom bills across the country, pretty much telling everyone the republican party is anti-transgender.

Ted Cruz himself has a good amount of evangelical christian pastors who have made very hideous suggestions about what we as the United States should do to the LGBT community. One said we should put the LGBT in camps, another said to put us on islands to be isolated, and another still has said that we should just execute them. These are men who are within the highest circle of supporters for Cruz.

Caitlyn Jenner is still in the bubble of a rich, privileged, white person with the rights that money gives her. She does not understand the struggle of actual transgender or LGBT people at large. I myself have not been able to find a job for about a year, others have been fired for being who they are, and many other types of discrimination that she will probably never have to face.

[nitron]

Ms Jenner , she is a human being. People vote there political bias, a bias that comes to her and all of us, naturally . Can a religious zealot be convert to atheism?

[hippifried]

Yes.

[AshlynCreamher]

Huffington post is filled with angry fascist opinions, rarely ever do they use accurate quotes. business Insider, breitbart & infowars are much better and reputable.

The one who calls himself 'Ted' is a no-good backstabbing liar' he even lies about his name 'Ted' which is somehow short for Rafael Edwardo Cruz (Canadian who isn't a national born citizen), bought and paid for by the 'business establishment', 'big oil' and yes wallstreet them selves have contributed, the Republican establishment doesn't even like 'Ted' threatening to throw the election.

Caitlyn Jenner some how becomes Barbra Walters 'person of the year' and was never interviewed, all of this happens after she gets a 'get out of jail free card' from reckless driving killing 1. Political Correctness at work here? I'm just relieved that she didn't Endorse our Donald. #America1st

[seenowiam]

Sanctimonious stone throwers...

The words "Conservative" and "Republican" have been hijacked by the likes of Cruz, Crazy Glenn Beck, Rush Limpdick and a thousand other sanctimonious, pompous ass, pretending to be religious, bigots.

That's one reason they dislike Trump so much. Trump is like a normal person in his "live and let live" attitude. All Trump wants to do is clean up the mess these A-holes made of our country in everything from wasting, blood, lives and money in starting stupid wars to this latest bullshit about bathrooms.

Trans or not, frankly I don't know why any fair minded, rational person would ever vote for "TED" or anyone who ever uses the two words that makes me sick "True-Conservative".

If someone ever utters in your presence the words "True-Conservative" take my advice and walk quietly but quickly away.

http://wonkette.com/583519/ted-cruzs-college-years-portrait-of-a-young-ahole

[trish]

Trump is anything but normal. He's not even 'like a normal person. "Let and let live" is about as far from his agenda as you can get (think of the wall, or even keeping the nuclear option open in Europe and the Middle East). People say they like him because he says what he thinks. When you think what Trump thinks you're not really thinking. What he does is repeat the shit other people say to each other usually under their breath because they're ashamed. Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Newt Gingrich and the whole load of them over the past decade spoke to the nation's bigots and racists in dog whistles. The only difference is Trump uses a bull-horn. But we do agree on one thing, neither of us understands why any fair minded, rational person would ever vote for 'TED'. I'm guessing the answer is that there just aren't that many fair minded, rational people in the base of the Republican party, including those who are voting for Trump.

[hippifried]

A Cruz back to Canada.

"& another one bites the dust..."

The Republican Party is devoid of sane leaders. & the few that come close are showing their true color, yellow. If Trump the Usurper gets the job, ... Uh... Let me think about my prognostications here... I'll get back after consulting the oracle of the magic 8 ball over @ the ouija palace.

[zerrrr]

At the same time the area where I live is heavily blue (PA) and boy you would have a hard time telling the red from the blue. Democratically controlled, rural, and heavily bigoted. They screwed me over almost ten years ago when I applied for unemployment giving me the wrong information. Never vote for another Democrat back here again.

Heavily blue and filled with child molesting coaches and priests.

After being around the world and living in a few different countries it opens your eyes.

The narrative the media plays is what they are paid to tell. You can see it in how they massage the stories on television.

My favorite was 'Cruz meets with Republican establishment leaders today. Now lets go to a Trump rally where he is speaking to thousands.' Very subtle but easy to spot.

We have literally become a country that pays more attention to memes than actual facts.

Reporting used to be a job. Now articles are written by computer programs where you input some keywords, a couple of quotes, and boom the article is spun out to fifty blogs in an hour. 300 words or less is preferred because we have a short attention span.

Cruz is a Tea Party guy from Texas who came into Congress wanting to shake up the establishment. Then he became the one person to save them from Trump. Pretty ironic.

The sad part is the Internet and media have become so extremist that no matter what one side does it will be spun to appeal to the loons and crazies.

[diddyboponTOP]

Bruce will soon be Bruce again
He is greatly conflicted with his transition
No need to call Him Caitlin that didn't work out for him

[SarahG]

So, in conclusion, Caitlin Jenner is ignoring the interests of individuals who are similarly situated by supporting Republican candidates. She may have other compelling reasons to but she is wrong to indicate Republicans have not been anti-gay.

However if we slightly twist this scenario around a bit... say by replacing the words "republican" with "conservative," and "gay" with "trans," things get a little more complicated.

Historically the right side of the political spectrum has always been fairly consistently anti-gay, but their position on trans has been complicated.

The German sexologists were from the liberal side of the political spectrum, and were interested in researching anything that had to do with human sexuality no matter how socially taboo. When the Nazis took over, they immediately shut down the field of sexology by killing or exiling its researchers, burning all their books, and shuttering their institutions. But then something strange happens: They commandeer the field of sexology and redirect it to align with their broader political agenda.

Essentially the premise is as follows: It is impossible to change someone's orientation, but with enough scientific research they might be able to "cure" homosexuality by turning gays into members of the opposite sex. SRS, a surgical procedure developed by the liberal sexologists, is seen as a viable option to put this idea into practice. The Nazis then pour a ton of R&D into hormonal therapies, and eventually move on to organ transplants with the ultimate goal of eventually being able to take gays and turn them into fertile members of the opposite sex.

This is a nightmare for non-trans gay people, but not necessarily one for people who are trans who now have access to free treatments, new ground breaking treatments that did not exist and would not have existed earlier, and government acceptance of their identity (i.e. marriage, bathroom rights, matching gender roles in the eyes of the law etc).

South Africa continued following this train of thought, only they realized that the Nazi obsession with producing fertile women was too complicated for them to succeed with, and not a particularly important end-goal anyhow. So they ditched the whole idea of organ transplants... too many problems, such as patient deaths, did not work very well, etc.

In SA they had mandatory conscription of males. We're talking recent history now, such as the 1970s-1980s. They used this to try to discover male gays in their population, one generation at a time. Army officers would be instructed to try to find gays under their leadership to turn in, and those ensnared would be forced to report to a special military hospital unit that would force them to transition, whether they wanted to or not. Those who are forced to transition are then seen as women by their regime in the eyes of the law. When the conservative regime lost control of the country, many of these doctors fled in order to avoid persecution. One notorious doctor fled from SA to avoid being tried for crimes against humanity.

Want to guess where he went? It wasn't an ultra-right regime in the middle east, asia or elsewhere. But to good old liberal Canada, who granted him a license to practice medicine and allowed him to continue to push his strange views on unsuspecting patients who did not know his past. He was eventually caught red handed sexually assaulting one of his patients, not that this prevented the APA from using him to help write the sexual disorder section of the DSM5! The APA is notoriously conservative, and so this is not so surprising when taken into that context.

During this same era Iran took the same approach that SA did. Khomeini (the Shah of Iran) was very insistent that trans people were their transistioned-to sex, and was fully in support of transition & legal/social recognition. The country follows this premise to today, and if we were to judge a society merely over whether it helps people afford transition, funds further treatment options, and recognizes their identity... then Iran is miles ahead of the United States and many European Countries.

Of course, it would still be a nightmare to live there, given that gays are forced to transition against their will, trans people who do not want to fully transition must do so, and life as a woman in Iran is not all that pleasant with special police units that exist just to harass you if they think you are not follow your gender role strictly enough.

It has been suggested in anthropology that the reason for homophobia in our culture is not because of people being disturbed by two people of the same sex having sex- but of the mere thought of people abandoning their gender roles. From this the conservative premise being described above might make sense: As it reaffirms the importance of these gender roles, and acts to force people into them when they stray.

Then when one considers that on the left side of the spectrum is the equally strange premise that gender roles do not exist (or that if they exist: they should be artificially abolished), and you can see why someone who wants to transition & follow those gender roles might be tempted to turn to the right. I do not hold such a view, but am speculating on why someone like Jenner might think the GOP is better.

[trish]

Interesting post. Thanks Sarah. You point to two sources of homophobia: societal disgust with the idea of two persons of the same sex engaging in sexual play and also fear of the disintegration of gender roles. My experience is that in our culture both of these factors apply, but the first more so than the second (despite the ‘suggestions’ of some anthropologists). I know many men (mostly older) who are almost sickened by the thought of two men having sex (although they may be turned-on by depictions of hot lesbian sex). Although many Christians will say that safety is their primary concern, I think it is their abhorrence with the whole notion transgender men and women that drives their religio-political stand against transgender people using the restrooms of their choice.

I do take exception to the characterization that the “left side of the spectrum” believes “gender roles do not exist...” It is true that some feminists argue that gender roles are artificial, hold women back and probably should be abolished. But this is not a general tenant of feminism - whether liberal or conservative. It is certainly not a generally held position of modern liberalism. To be fair, neither is the notion that the domain of gender identity is a continuum - although it does find more acceptance with left than the right.

It’s fairly clear the country as a whole is moving toward the idea that we should accept people with hitherto unconventional gender identities and sexual orientations. There are still those in power (Mike Pence for one) who insist on throwing up political roadblocks. If you truly think the government (State or Federal) shouldn’t obstruct your freedom to be who you really are, know that there are are quite number of Republican governors and legislators (again, State and Federal) who currently stand against you.

[SarahG]

Although many Christians will say that safety is their primary concern, I think it is their abhorrence with the whole notion transgender men and women that drives their religio-political stand against transgender people using the restrooms of their choice.

I agree with you completely. The bathroom issue boils down to... I think this is disgusting, therefor I must use the law to criminalize it and prevent it from happening.

It is a long standing tradition for societies, including ours, to ban things based merely on this premise of "disgust."

Consider... Why can't I donate my body to necrophilia? If you think about the world through the lens of human rights, where what one can do (and inversely: cannot do) is based off of this idea of consent. Bestiality for example is immoral under the argument that it is animal abuse, since the animal cannot consent to it. Pedophilia, for example, is immoral under the argument that it is child abuse since they cannot consent to it. With necrophilia comes a similar argument that the dead do not consent to having their bodies exhumed & fucked by strangers.

But if it were that simple, I should be able to leave my corpse to a necrophilia in my will and that should satisfy the consent requirements. What's not to like about the premise? They get what they want, and I get to go to my deathbed knowing I'll get laid even after I am gone.

Chances are few lawmakers would agree this argument has merit. Necrophilia is disgusting, there go the laws against it must be maintained.



I do take exception to the characterization that the “left side of the spectrum” believes “gender roles do not exist...” It is true that some feminists argue that gender roles are artificial, hold women back and probably should be abolished.

There are easily more people on the left who believe this premise, then there are people on the right who follow the Nazis' view of transexuality.

Do all people on the right follow the Nazis' view of transexuality? Do all people on the left believe gender roles don't/shouldn't exist? Of course not.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=SarahG;1706261].
Essentially the premise is as follows: It is impossible to change someone's orientation, but with enough scientific research they might be able to "cure" homosexuality by turning gays into members of the opposite sex. SRS, a surgical procedure developed by the liberal sexologists, is seen as a viable option to put this idea into practice. The Nazis then pour a ton of R&D into hormonal therapies, and eventually move on to organ transplants with the ultimate goal of eventually being able to take gays and turn them into fertile members of the opposite sex.
--I am not sure that even Nazi doctors thought they could create a fertile woman out of a male-to-female transexual as this would mean creating a womb. But there is a documented case of a M2F transexual who was allowed to become a foster mother, in this link-
https://valkyricvisionary.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/transsexuality-in-the-third-reich/

During this same era Iran took the same approach that SA did. Khomeini (the Shah of Iran) was very insistent that trans people were their transistioned-to sex, and was fully in support of transition & legal/social recognition. The country follows this premise to today, and if we were to judge a society merely over whether it helps people afford transition, funds further treatment options, and recognizes their identity... then Iran is miles ahead of the United States and many European Countries.
--The Ayatollah Khomeini was not the Shah of Iran, Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic in 1979 following the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty that had ruled since 1921.

[SarahG]

--I am not sure that even Nazi doctors thought they could create a fertile woman out of a male-to-female transexual as this would mean creating a womb.

The idea of fertile women was the long term goal, they did not know at the time whether it would be feasible or not.

The furthest they got along these lines were organ transplants.... ovaries or testes depending on the situation.

They even tried doubling and tripling up on these organ transplants in an attempt to boost sex hormone levels thinking more ovaries would mean more estrogen production. There was a concentration camp victim in the literature who had something like six ovaries implanted at once as part of these experiments. They knew enough to where they knew an abnormally large dose of sex hormones would be needed for someone to change their secondary sex characteristics. Simply having normal estrogen levels wouldn't do. But they didn't know how to go about it. Perhaps they would not have even attempted this line of thinking if HRT pharmaceuticals were as widespread off the shelf as they would be a few decades later.

Regardless what they found was a lot of problems with organ rejection and premature death. They had so many problems that the SA regime did not even bother trying to advance the idea and figured it was more trouble than it was worth.

[nitron]

Hippifried....."Yes".
Me..............How likely is that? Look at it this way. What if there will always be a group of people who just will not share your point of view ,on vital as well as trivial matters? Do you fight, do you agree to disagree?(but what if it's a vital problem)?

[nitron]

This I think ,is a huge problem. For example , how tolerant should liberals,(assuming most here) , be? Should you allow an influx of hard core Conservatives into your country, considering how long it took for our community to have garnered the right's and benefits we enjoy now?

[nitron]

Do you separate?If your opponent is unwilling to even compromise. I worry about influx of people who are spaciously conservative in there morality.The whole of the West.It troubles me because it's a great waste of effort and suffering. I think the greatest danger facing the West and Liberals in particular, is there inability to recognize Human Nature. In particular , political /social/religious bias's. How tolerant should we be towards the intolerant? I think we have reached a point were some ugly questions have to be asked.

[trish]

Do you separate?If your opponent is unwilling to even compromise. I worry about influx of people who are spaciously conservative in there morality.The whole of the West.It troubles me because it's a great waste of effort and suffering. I think the greatest danger facing the West and Liberals in particular, is there inability to recognize Human Nature. In particular , political /social/religious bias's. How tolerant should we be towards the intolerant? I think we have reached a point were some ugly questions have to be asked.Do we separate what from what? If my opponent is unwilling to compromise, then...what? What does it mean for someone to be spaciously conservative in their morality and where are these spacious conservatives coming from? The whole of the West what? You think westerners and liberals in particular do not recognize political and religious biases, even though they're political enough to identify as liberal and are cognizant enough of the opposition to the diversity of the views around them that they are led to remind us of our First Amendment obligations. So ask your ugly question already.

[nitron]

My apologies, what I meant was specifically, not spaciously. And , maybe there should be a country , say ,were only atheists and agnostics exist in a democracy.This world is full of countries that are tolerant of different religions, and some countries, that favor certain religions over others. But to my knowledge, (aside North Korea, Cuba, China, all of which not Democratic), none exist. I feel that the best part of the "WEST", it's tolerance, it's democracy, it's reason, are best preserved in such a state. And that country might be able to advance into greater levels of human development unchained by religious superstition and intolerance. Sure , you will still have Political differences based on Left vs Right, economic and cultural differences, but at least the more hardcore dogmatism that is spawned from religion, could be avoided. What do you folk's think?