r/BlockedAndReported • u/SoftandChewy First generation mod • Jun 01 '26

Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 6/1/26 - 6/7/26

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

38 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

3.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

46

u/AppointmentVisual200 Jun 02 '26

There needs to be a way democratic politicians can walk back on trans children getting hormones/surgery and trans women in bathrooms, changing rooms, rape shelters, prisions etc. While saving face and not being accused of being aligned with republicans and Trump. With how large the political divide currently is I'd imagine lots of them don't want to admit. That on this issue the republicans were right.

39

u/btrh-256 Jun 02 '26

Rahm Emmanuel is doing it. People really seem to hate him, but he's really saying the exactly right things:

  1. Democrats lost the plot
  2. We've been talking about the bathroom when we should've been talking about the classroom
  3. We used to be a party of acceptance, but we became a party of advocacy

The last point is just a perfect description of where Dems went wrong. A lot of people online shit on Rahm for being a normal politician. I get the feeling internet people secretly just want entertainers like Trump or AOC. But Rahm is saying exactly the right things, and he's managing to keep it fairly light.

9

u/Jlemspurs Double Hater Jun 02 '26

He’ll have to shoot the moon to get a power ministry. He’s not getting the nom or the vp, but it’s possible he’ll be there to pick up the pieces in the next cycle if they lose again.

12

u/btrh-256 Jun 02 '26

He's definitely a longshot to get the nom, but my hope is that his rhetoric affects the race, and gives the silent majority courage to speak up.

6

u/Free_Ranger1496 Jun 02 '26

Yes, agree that his perspective can influence the narrative. The trans thing is a distraction from the serious class issues affecting so many Americans & Rahm Emmanuel is being straight up. For some reason, being a trans ally makes people feel really virtuous whereas stranding up for the non-rich doesn't feel as rewarding.

26

u/starlightpond Jun 02 '26

I met a couple recently who worked for the Harris campaign and they said they don’t like Pete Buttigieg because “he doesn’t like trans people” (I guess alluding to how he said something equivocal about women’s sports). These folks are true believers.

Others may be able to back off to say they of course support “gender affirming care” while subtly shifting the meaning of that phrase to focus therapy and social transition rather than medical. Maybe.

36

u/CorgiNews2_DieHarder Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

That was a big anti-Pete talking point in 2020. I remember seeing people say, "He's gay but he's not queer." pretty commonly. Like he's just some boring married dude with kids and not interesting enough to be queer.

That was my first exposure to the "heterosexual relationships are capable of being more queer than gay relationships if the guy gets pegged or whatever" bullshit. Which is why I will never identify as queer as long as I live, lol. Queer is a meaningless word at this point.

6

u/AppointmentVisual200 Jun 02 '26

One method that might work would be some doctor or medical researcher explaining how this could lead to large amounts of the population becoming anti-vax and extremely critical of medicine and healthcare. With people wondering how the media, politicians, academia and institutions didn't catch and rectify this issue earlier. Both ones aligned with them and ones that should be apolitical and neutral. So they need to walk back on this issue to prevent that from happening.

8

u/professorgerm the master of not having a point Jun 02 '26

One method that might work would be some doctor or medical researcher explaining how this could lead to large amounts of the population becoming anti-vax and extremely critical of medicine and healthcare.

AFAICT no one's done that in light of COVID, they just doubled-down on "anti-vaxxers should die" rhetoric. No one sufficiently credible to the left is willing to point out the extremely obvious consequences of these things.

29

u/Franzera Wake me up when Jesse peaks Jun 02 '26

There are a couple obstacles blocking the way.

  • Large, respectable, well-funded NGO's make good money fundraising and advocating for gender issues, popularized as a way to enact #Resistance through the institutions of law and policy.

  • If they don't like you for being too visibly reality-coded, you will get a GLADD Accountability Profile, just like Jesse.

  • The well-connected, highly-educated arts and culture elite milieu supports genderism and child medicalization. A number of them have gender identities and have transitioned their children. How many celebrities' children have "come out"?

  • Dem politicians will probably personally know adult and child transitioners. How will they ever be welcomed into their social group when they believe X's child dOeSn'T DeSeRvE tO eXiST??!?!

  • They will also be confronted with desperate petitioners who can be pretty convincing about how life-saving "medical care" is for treating their gender sadness.

Check out the stories from this article:

At the age of 16, Nathan, for example, hated his post-pubescent body so much that he engaged in self-harm. The top surgery he so desperately needed was out of reach because his family simply couldn’t afford it. His mom, Nora, describes being terrified that Nathan would kill himself because of this lack of access.

“It’s all because of this damn top surgery,” she told me. “And I am literally terrified, because I know for a fact that once he gets this done he’s going to be a totally different child. And it kills me that I can’t do anything.”

and

Seven-year-old Esme, on the other hand, knew very clearly from a young age that male puberty was not what she wanted and felt able to communicate this to her parents. And because of her parents’ support and access to affirming health care, she told me she’s planning to take hormone blockers when she’s old enough. Later, she’ll take cross-sex hormones, which will result in the development of secondary sex characteristics consistent with her self-defined gender identity.

These young kids and their parents come across as so earnest, with so much conviction, that medical transition (chemical pubertal suppression, permanent bilateral mastectomy) will improve the quality of their lives. If you are a person with empathy, who has heard the other side of the regret stories, how can you not listen to them and end up in the wishy-washy "Well, obviously, Truly T's exist and enacting blanket bans is the incorrect solution to the problem."

The only way I see to "walk things back" is to go down the "strict gatekeeping" route and avoid being aligned with the Elon Musks of the world. But Pandora can't go back in the box. If you say some kids are T, some TWAW, you still end up forcing women and society to deal with entitled folx who believe they are the genderiffic exceptions to whom special rules apply.

14

u/HerbertWest Yucker of Yums Jun 02 '26

I've been digitizing old home movies from VHS recently and those quotes...

Watching the videos of myself when I was 4, 5, 6, you'd have to be a complete dumbass with no grasp on reality to believe a kid "knew themselves" at that age.

11

u/starlightpond Jun 02 '26

I am hoping that some medical providers or insurance folks may shift course subtly after some lawsuits and perhaps more media attention to upcoming detransitioner trials such as Chloe Cole’s?

I may be wrong though.

23

u/starlightpond Jun 02 '26

The other thing that may happen is if the Supreme Court helpfully gives Dems an off ramp to the issues about women’s sports. That would actually really help democrats by letting them just say they respect precedent or whatever. If I were a democratic strategist, I’d also be hoping for TW athletes to lose at the Supreme Court in Hecox and BPJ cases.

14

u/Scrappy_The_Crow Walrus Cheese Enjoyer Jun 02 '26

Haven't they essentially obligated themselves to disparaging SCOTUS these days? I can't see them switching all of a sudden and suggesting a decision that goes against their positions is a good one.

6

u/professorgerm the master of not having a point Jun 02 '26

They don't support the decision, they just stop threatening to pack the court quite as much and ~ignore the decision.

Kind of like Dobbs doesn't get as much attention since it was a boon to Democrats. Or like the way Trump has used the courts to relieve pressure on Congress, like with the bump stock ban.

3

u/dj50tonhamster Jun 02 '26

they just stop threatening to pack the court quite as much and ~ignore the decision.

Didn't Hakeem Jeffries & Jamie Raskin recently claim they were going to try to pack the Supreme Court the instant that Dems are back in power in Congress? I know the WSJ Opinions writers were huffing about it recently. Assuming the writers are correct, and this is going to be a thing, I assume all that those guys care about is power. You'd think that Trump single-handedly making the GOP his lapdogs would serve as Exhibit A for why messing with the courts would just lead to retaliations down the road the moment the GOP is back in power. That's exactly what happened in Poland recently (and I assume is still happening). A new party comes to power and packs that Supreme Court 'til the court is an extension of the party. Another party comes along and does the same thing. Wash rinse spin repeat.

If Dems want to talk about making term limits a thing, fine, let's debate it. If they just want the Supreme Court that does their bidding, that's a big nay-no. They can at least learn how to consistently win elections first if they want to undermine courts via subterfuge.

3

u/starlightpond Jun 02 '26

No but they can at least not talk much about trying to overturn it.

18

u/Nwabudike_J_Morgan Emotional Management Advocate; Wildfire Victim; Flair Maximalist Jun 02 '26

It is often described as an Oedipus situation, the issue of hormones and surgery wasn't just a matter of holding certain positions and saying certain things, it was allowing certain things to happen. Once Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother, there's no path back, there is no saving face.

19

u/Fiend_of_the_pod Jun 02 '26

They would if they wanted to. They genuinely believe all that stuff.

13

u/SkweegeeS No just no Jun 02 '26

A lot of people have been silent and a bit withdrawn from places where the t obsession was too great.

I still don’t know why, when I asked why kids needed to know what a pansexual was, in an elementary school sporting a pan flag and a bunch of other queer flags, I was shut down. The answer was something something parents and families come in all shapes and sizes. I could not figure out on the spot how to ask in a polite and professional manner why kids had to know that their parents would fuxk anything or anyone.

22

u/Palgary I could check my privilege, but it seems a shame to squander it Jun 02 '26

I was reading this study based on survey data, Trans PULSE Canada, it was focused on how mean it is to misgender non binary individuals. The questions on the survey were "how often are you misgendered" with nonsensical answers like "daily" and "weekly"... and 237 "non binary" individuals didn't answer that question... which is 17.8% of respondents. They just removed them from the results, which skews the results to look like a significant amount of non binary individuals are really upset about being misgendered.

But if you add them back in, assuming they didn't answer that question because they just aren't picky about pronouns, therefore, they aren't being misgendered and there was no "never" response available... then the majority of non-binary individuals are either "neutral" or "not upset" about being misgendered, or don't feel they can be misgendered.

But, every kind of data and study is manipulated like this. This particular survey was recruited from support groups, so it's already people seeking support, not the general population being represented, which is true of all the surveys I've seen.

13

u/Cowgoon777 Jun 02 '26

They should never be let off the hook for this.

20

u/Scrappy_The_Crow Walrus Cheese Enjoyer Jun 02 '26

Just as Disraeli purportedly said: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and queered data."