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Amber Puga's avatar

I am a transgender female the rhetoric coming from Donald Trump & the GOP is very threatening. Transgender individuals like myself live our lives in peace working, paying our taxes, & participating in our lives after work such as in my case going to indoor cycling classes & book clubs.

I started to transition in 2014 and I have not had any problems using the ladies rest room at restaurants & bars & ladies' dressing room at my gym. Transition was a life decision because I knew as a child that I was trans in the early 70s’.

When I leave my home every day I pray that I come home safe & not murdered because of my gender identity. I have received death threats in my life because of who I am.

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Terry Mc Kenna's avatar

Given how invisible trans women and men are (I have never know that anyone I was interacting with was trans) it is fair for people to have questions. And especially re women. As a long married man, I have occasionally received my wife's report that a man was following her in a park... or even (once) she came home after shopping and said that she thought a man was in the dressing room - this was a group dressing room in a bargain shop.

But the problem is that the GOP is not simply looking for answers (so your testimony is a great answer) instead it is looking to inflame rural red staters.

There will remain questions re lots of complex social issues. But we also need good sources for information.

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TomD's avatar

Not invisible to me. It's jarring to see a face that I would call a man's face in hair and clothing suggesting a woman. But that's what convinced me that gender disphoria is real.

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Terry Mc Kenna's avatar

I worked in NYC and event went to college there. In the late 60s - the man in a dress was as far as I knew a cross dresser. It is only more recently that I have learned that many have had surgery. (and my career in underwriting did not bring me into contact with those who were not typical business types. we had a fair number of gay men and women but none that I suspected of having been surgically changed). In the late 60s in NYC of course we saw many unusual folks - so guys who looked like Jesus christ etc.

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Helen's avatar

The right-wing is fueled by hatred. Anyone who is not exactly like them is an object of scorn and loathing. Why are they so threatened by diversity (i.e. wokeness)? It must be a horrible way to live.

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SandyG's avatar

Because it conflicts with the Bible.

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Will J. McNamee's avatar

The World's what we make it. Some only know how to break it! I'm not so sympathetic to that crowd

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Will J. McNamee's avatar

Be encouraged that not long ago Gay men and women were once publicly reviled and physically threatened, too, and with their greater pushback and unceasing efforts at recognition, these same people have gained such respect that entertainment media regularly features them kissing and displaying mutual affection.

Transexuality is kind of a late bloomer with respect to push for cultural parity, but persistence will pay off, some day, if you've got a lot of patience and fortitude. Not easy things to do

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Jeri in Tx's avatar

I am so sorry for you having to live your life always worrying about your safety, not because you pose a threat to anyone, but just because you are living your life.

It feels like the more some folks flex their freedoms the less freedom we have (see guns, women's healthcare, voting...)

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JF's avatar

They don’t believe in universal freedom, as you note. Their motto is “Freedom for ME, not THEE”.

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SandyG's avatar

Agree with that.

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BriDub's avatar

It's awful (and unacceptable) that you feel threatened. I hope you are surrounded by supporting/supportive people.

I am sorry you've found yourself in this tsunami of idiocy about trans issues. I do not understand why people can't back up and accept people who are trying to live their lives to the best of their abilities.

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SandyG's avatar

Because the Bible says, "male and female He made them." There can be no variation. That would make the Bible wrong. And they couldn't live with that.

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Tom Brown's avatar

For some reason people never seem to be put to death for eating lobster or wearing a cotton lycra mix. You'd almost think that people are picking and choosing.

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SandyG's avatar

I was at a Catholic educators conference yesterday and I heard, again, the story about Jesus being tested by the Pharisees in John 8. They said the prostitute should be stoned. That is the law. He ackowledges the law then says, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

I NEVER hear anything like that from conservative Christians.

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TomD's avatar

They are being indoctrinated that people who find themselves stuck in gender disphoria are not just trying to live their lives but are grooming others to the glamorous trans life.

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Anne's avatar

I always point out that there have been trans people around for as long as there have been segregated bathrooms (and well before, of course) and somehow trans people have always figured out what the best bathroom is for them. It's just a stupid stupid way to try and create FUD.

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Armando Guerrero's avatar

Amber, I have a trans nephew and I love him as much as I did when he was my niece. Stay strong.

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TomD's avatar

The trouble is that the Right believes you chose your trans status for kicks.

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JF's avatar

Yeah, I mean, who wouldn’t choose a life of daily danger and harrowing challenges? Join the fun! Good grief.

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Feb 23, 2023Edited
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JB's avatar

We were not surprised in any way by our gay child announcing that they were gay.

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Mary's avatar

I had a boyfriend in nursery school. We pretended to be married. But there is a continuum of gender, I think, a sliding scale. Emphasis on “think.”

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TomD's avatar

There are 22 indicia of gender.

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Dan-o's avatar

My nephew is gay, and my brother and I have talked about this very thing. We didn't choose to be hetero, we just are. There was never a question about, hmmm, let's see, what way do I want to go...?

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Feb 23, 2023Edited
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Dan-o's avatar

Ginny, you could be right about the gender fluid/bisexual relationship. I never thought about it that way.

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TomD's avatar

Once they have rejected the science around sexual preference and gender, what else are they going to make of Pride events, running rainbow flags up flag poles?

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Feb 23, 2023
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TomD's avatar

Even if they had arithmetic skills sufficient to count votes...

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sld's avatar

I just knew tans hatred would turn end game political. Predicted the intensification of hate more than two years ago. The plan is a process. Attack the low hanging fruit and move to the next enemy. Masks. Vaccines. Books. Trans. Gays. Jews. Women. Teachers. College educated. Voters. And speech itself. Of course, these may be reordered as you see fit. Makes no difference to the MAGA/Q/GOP/Nazi mob. All these (a never finite list of targets actually) are un-American. They are the defilers. And all will all go through something.

PS I too am transitioned. But I live in an abjectly MAGA community. Thus I hide. For my safety. For my very life.

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JF's avatar

It’s all very calculated by the right wing. All their targets before the trans community had defenders. Then they hit on the last vulnerable group without a constituency of defenders . . . so far. In my opinion, they don’t really care about these wedge issues, other than as tools for power. All those righteous righties have affairs (sometimes same sex), have abortions, have domestic violence, and on and on.

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Tracey Henley's avatar

Thank you for trusting us with your story, Amber.

I know -- we all know -- we've used restrooms and gyms and changing rooms with trans people without incident. Probably most of the time we weren't ever aware of it, which is as it should be, as it's none of our business.

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JMFK's avatar

In the US Constitutional Republic, in which there should be no establishment of religion, you should have "Equal protection under law" for your rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

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Feb 23, 2023
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Bob Parish (Indiana Bob)'s avatar

The founders intended the Constitution to be flexible. A jurisprudence based on original intent should consider the original intent of any law or constitutional amendment. What we get instead is a kind of fundamentalist legalism based on the assumption that the founders were prophets of a Christian God, not men trying to work out secular compromises.

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SandyG's avatar

I watched a video on the 14th Amendment last night. Historian Eric Foner, who specializes in the Civil War and the Reconstruction periods, said there is no single original intent in the 14th Amendment. It's full of compromises. The same is true of the rest of the Constitution.

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Bob Parish (Indiana Bob)'s avatar

Excellent point! This is actually a strength in my view. The Constitution is a living document subject to interpretation, but the interpretation cannot invent meaning from thin air, it needs to be rooted in what we already know about the law.

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SandyG's avatar

Thanks. Let me make another point about original intent from another historian, Joseph Ellis. He says, "Madison’s ‘original intention’ was to make all ‘original intentions’ infinitely negotiable in the future” (https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2016/09/james-madisons-rethink-constitutions-multiple-ambiguities-would-allow-it-evol/).

I have heard Ellis say that what the Framers gave us was a framework for endless argument.

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Ben - MD, VA, NE Florida.'s avatar

The original text makes no mention of rich white men. Wonder what Clarence Thomas has to say about it?

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Feb 23, 2023
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SandyG's avatar

Well said.

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