Texas Court Blocks Gender Police - For Now

Note to readers:  

Your Head Trucker is a gay man, happy with his male body (though not particularly with the shape it's in at this late age); transgenderism is a very different thing, and I prefer to leave it to transgender people to speak for themselves out of their own experiences, rather than presuming to speak for them.  The same goes for lesbians and bisexuals, and all the other colors of the rainbow.  For that reason, I do not accept for myself the LGBTQI-XYZ-whatever label, which wrongly confuses several important but separate issues.  I'm just plain gay, and that's good, and that's all there is to it.  Your mileage may vary.

I will also note that according to the best research now available, transgender people are relatively few, only .3% to .6% of the adult American population - that's 3 to 6 people out of a thousand.  (Gays and lesbians are 3% of the population, or about 3 out of a hundred, which means they are about ten times more numerous than trans people.)  By a simple arithmetical operation, then, it would seem that 99.9% of the population are happy with their birth gender.  Or in other words, they are simply human beings - male and female, as it was in the beginning.  It's the exception that proves the rule.

Thus, the fashionable urge to divide the world into "cisgender" and "transgender", or even worse, to hold up "gender-neutral" as a benchmark for everyone, seems to me very much the tail wagging the dog - "cis" is an utterly needless label for me.  Others may disagree, of course.  And certainly transgender people - those who are not merely "me-too" attention-seeking wannabe-cool-kids - like the risible 20% in a recent poll, fake news if ever there was any - deserve to be true to themselves and free to be who they really are.  But not to rewrite the English language, or hold a kind of permanent veto over the 99.9%, which would only cause great resentment.  

The fabric of a liberal democracy can stretch to include many different kinds of people - but stretch it too far, and it will rip.  In some ways, it already has.

It has taken more than 50 years and much struggle for the enlightened part of society to come to terms with the concept of innate - not "chosen" - homosexuality, and it will take more time for us all to truly understand the trans experience.  Enlightenment rarely happens all at once; like a flower, it must grow and develop step by step.

However, this particular case is deeply disturbing to me, not only because it is in Texas, but also because it strikes at the heart of democratic principles and the American ideals of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- not to mention the "free and full development of personality" enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  

The attack is not even based on a state law, but merely the governor's edict - his whim - a prime example of dictatorial persecution, completely unconstitutional.  The sooner the courts strike down this filthy fascist attack on Texas children and parents, the better.

 

When the gender police come for your kid:  read this chilling interview with the Briggle family highlighted in the above video.  

FYI, Denton is a city in North Central Texas, 

part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

A Texas judge today blocked Texas child-abuse authorities from investigating parents of transgender children or removing those children from their homes pursuant to an order by Republican Governor Greg Abbott and a non-binding opinion issued by Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom I posted about earlier this week.  The judge set a trial date of July 11 to hear the case.  The Texas Tribune reports:

State District Judge Amy Clark Meachum ruled Friday that providing gender-affirming care is not a reason for the state to investigate a family for child abuse, and halted all such investigations. 

The statewide injunction will remain in effect until “this court, and potentially the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of Texas” hear the case, Meachum said.

Meachum said there is a “substantial likelihood” that lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal will prevail in getting Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive for such investigations permanently overturned, calling his actions “beyond the scope of his duty and unconstitutional.”

Vox interviewed a Houston dad earlier this week.  Excerpt:

“It’s just who they are, so we support them,” said Claudio, the father of a trans teen in Houston, who is being referred to by a pseudonym to protect his family’s privacy. “Getting tarred with the label of ‘child abuser’ for doing that is demoralizing and obviously pretty horrible.” . . .

"It’s been pretty scary. It’s been the cause of some internal family division. My wife and my kid are more defiant. 'We should fight this. This is where we live and this is the time to take a stand.' I’m a lot more of a scaredy-cat and just want to move to a different state where my children’s future is not in doubt.

My wife immediately caught on to the fact that this was a non-binding opinion from the AG that basically cascaded through the governor to child protective services. She thought at the beginning that nothing would actually happen and that it was political posturing more than anything that would have consequences, while I was pretty scared. There was a lot of anger and dispute about it. We had our differences there. 

I think to some extent we’ve both been validated. The ACLU and Lambda Legal strongly state that it is in fact a non-binding opinion and has no real weight and they’re contesting it in court. We’re watching the court cases hanging off the edge of our seat, of course. But at the same time, child protective services has started investigations, famously this one of their own employees, which has super ugly overtones. 

There is part of me that is just scared that the gender police is going to come knocking on my door. We’re scared, and we’re frustrated and we’re very sad that this is happening in our home. . . .

But I don’t know how much risk we’re going to be willing to take, so at some point, we might decide to cut our losses and pick up and leave [Texas]. We don’t want to, but my family left Europe after World War II, after they were [targeted] by the Nazis, and that’s a lesson that gets etched in your brain pretty strongly even through generations. Persecution scares you extra.

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Being Gay in Ukraine

Pride march in Kyiv, June 2019.  Click to enlarge.

It just occurred to me to look into this subject.  Here are few videos, and I may add more as I find them.

1. From the Voice of America, posted February 12, 2021 - two weeks before Russia invaded:

 

 2. Yuri, a gay Ukrainian man, talks about life as a gay man in Ukraine - posted in July 2016:

 

3.  In January 2019, the BBC reported on this gay Ukrainian army veteran:

 4. Two Ukrainian young men got married in Denmark - posted in June 2019:

 

News articles:

• The Atlantic Council, a non-partisan group, reported on June 24, 2021, that while still far behind the rest of the Western world, Ukraine has made modest progress on recognizing LGBTQI rights in recent years.

• The journal Foreign Policy reported on February 18, 2022, that U. S. intelligence has said that Russia has drawn up detailed target lists of Ukrainians to be arrested or killed, including journalists, religious and ethnic minorities, and LGBTQI+ people.

• CBS News reported on February 24, 2022, that gays and lesbians fear persecution by the Russian invaders.

• The Daily Beast has an article on Ukraine's gay combat volunteers, posted February 28, 2022.

• And for the record, your Head Trucker posted this photo of a vicious attack on the leader of Kiev Pride in 2012:

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Obama in Orlando: In America, Everybody Counts, Including the Gays

The President and Vice-President leave flowers at a memorial to the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando.

The President and Vice-President visited Orlando today to meet with survivors and families of the dead. Here is an excerpt from the speech President Obama gave before returning to Washington:

Here in Orlando, we are reminded not only of our obligations as a country to be resolute against terrorists, we are reminded not only of the need for us to implement smarter policies to prevent mass shootings, we're also reminded of what unites us as Americans, and that what unites us is far stronger than the hate and the terror of those who target us.

For so many people here who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, the Pulse Nightclub has always been a safe haven, a place to sing and dance, and most importantly, to be who you truly are -- including for so many people whose families are originally from Puerto Rico. Sunday morning, that sanctuary was violated in the worst way imaginable. So whatever the motivations of the killer, whatever influences led him down the path of violence and terror, whatever propaganda he was consuming from ISIL and al Qaeda, this was an act of terrorism but it was also an act of hate. This was an attack on the LGBT community. Americans were targeted because we’re a country that has learned to welcome everyone, no matter who you are or who you love. And hatred towards people because of sexual orientation, regardless of where it comes from, is a betrayal of what’s best in us.

Joe and I were talking on the way over here -- you can't make up the world into “us” and “them,” and denigrate and express hatred towards groups because of the color of their skin, or their faith, or their sexual orientation, and not feed something very dangerous in this world.

So if there was ever a moment for all of us to reflect and reaffirm our most basic beliefs that everybody counts and everybody has dignity, now is the time. It's a good time for all of us to reflect on how we treat each other, and to insist on respect and equality for every human being.

We have to end discrimination and violence against our brothers and sisters who are in the LGBT community -- here at home and around the world, especially in countries where they are routinely persecuted. We have to challenge the oppression of women, wherever it occurs -- here or overseas. There’s only “us” -- Americans.

Here in Orlando, in the men and women taken from us, those who loved them, we see some of the true character of this country -- the best of humanity coming roaring back; the love and the compassion and the fierce resolve that will carry us through not just through this atrocity, but through whatever difficult times may confront us.

It’s our pluralism and our respect for each other -- including a young man who said to a friend, he was “super proud” to be Latino. It’s our love of country -- the patriotism of an Army reservist who was known as “an amazing officer.” It’s our unity -- the outpouring of love that so many across our country have shown to our fellow Americans who are LGBT, a display of solidarity that might have been unimaginable even a few years ago.

Full text here.

92 Percent of LGBT Americans Support Marriage Equality

This week, sensationalistic headlines around the country have been proclaiming the shocking news that there are gays who don't support marriage equality. Ho-hum. Ya know, fellas, there has never, ever been a poll taken that produced results of 100 percent for or against anything: there's always a few oppositional personalities who will take the minority view of things. Sometimes they are right, too.

 But in point of fact, here is how the Pew poll - which actually seems to be a combination of two surveys taken in 2013 and 2014 (I can't find the raw data on their site) - breaks down:

Click to enlarge.

I suppose the 7 percent of LGBT's opposed are those well-hidden "best friends" of the anti-gay crowd who love to proclaim that their gay friends don't support marriage equality.

This 2013 Pew survey of LGBT's provides more data if you're interested - though bear in mind always that these figures do not come from the mouth of God, but are subject to interpretation and variation. One little point, though, intrigues your Head Trucker: the whole transgender thing has become quite a cause celebre in the last few years, but Pew says:

Although there is limited data on the size of the transgender population, it is estimated that 0.3% of all American adults are transgender.

Which is what your Head Trucker thought: the ratio of trans people to gays is about the same as the ratio of gays to the general population (i.e., somewhere around 3 percent).

Pew also found that the division between party boys and sensible people is about what your Head Trucker thought - fifty-fifty:

And since we're talking statistics, there's another Pew report you might like to look at, with some interesting details on the changing generations in the general population:

I can't keep all these new-fangled generations straight, can you?  But here's a handy cheat sheet: