Transgendered People are People

Transgender People are People

They deserve respect and life-saving treatment

 

The self-appointed guardians of their unique brand of morality are at it again on this page and in front of the West Bend School Board, not to mention in the legislatures of states controlled by alt-right fanatics. Their targets have moved from people of color who have the temerity of fighting back to the LBGTQI community, especially those struggling with gender identity. 

 

Not having a legitimate set of goals for governance that advance our society and make the world a better place, all these “morality police” have left in the tank is the energy to spread hate and division.

 

Mark Belling’s recent column here takes out after folks who are dealing with real issues in their personal lives around a disconnect between their genitalia and what their brain tells them their body should look like. Gender Dysphoria is not some made up fantasy to enable men to compete in women’s sports or use women’s bathrooms. It is a scientifically recognized medical condition that can be successfully treated, bringing congruence to a debilitating, suicide producing mind-body disconnect. Biblical opposition to non-binary gender fluidity has no place in the discussion. It merely offers imaginary support for one’s own misguided belief system. 

 

Science tells us that humans do not fall neatly into a binary construct that makes us either male or female. Gender takes many forms in addition to the biblical Adam and Eve. Some are born with ambiguous genitalia making it impossible to assign gender at birth. 

 

Genetics does not provide the answer either. According to medical professionals like Dr. Joe McCreight, the usual XX and XY chromosomes for females and males do not always result in the usual outcome. Sometimes an XY (male) baby is born with normal external female genitals. The problem does not usually become apparent until puberty when menstruation does not start. Physical examination then will find a vagina that ends in a blank pouch, no uterus, and undescended testes. 

 

Dr. McCreight and others correctly point to studies that trace these differences to the brain as well. Men and women’s brains are different. Brain development is impacted by sex hormones. Parts of male brains grow larger than female brains as a result. Scans of transgender women’s brains (genetic/anatomic men who identify as women) show they are more like non-transgendered women than men.

 

The disconnect of Gender Dysphoria often begins in childhood and can lead to depression, distress, and suicide if left untreated. Treatment includes a thorough medical and psychological evaluation and psychotherapy. Hormones can be administered to delay puberty until decisions can be made about surgical interventions. These are reversable. Sex change operations are rarely done on children, except to deal with ambiguous genitalia. 

 

These scientific facts are well known, easy to find and can be used to erase the stigma associated with gender fluidity. They seem not to matter to Belling or to those who complain that educating our children about these and other real-world issues should not take place in public schools. 

 

Bill Schultz, who just lost his race to join the West Bend School Board, recently spoke during the public comment section of a Board meeting. He read excerpts from the 57 Bus, a book about a boy wearing a skirt who was attacked on a bus while on his way to school. Schultz demanded that the book be removed from a school reading list because it was propaganda designed to encourage kids to change their gender. His ignorance on the subject is palpable but aligns perfectly with alt-right legislators around the country who are passing legislation to deny trans people the gender affirming treatments that can help save their lives. 

 

The Montana legislature just censured and punished an openly transgendered member of its Assembly who dared to criticize a bill that would prohibit gender affirming care by telling them “blood would be on their hands” if it passed. Close to 500 anti-trans bills have been passed this year according to the American Civil Liberties Union which is actively opposing them in court. 

 

Contrary to Belling, Schultz and their rest of their lot, many non-trans people join with the trans community to defend their right to seek and receive the healthcare they need and deserve and to educate all of us on their reality. Intolerance and discrimination like theirs have no place in the discourse in a civilized society.

Conservatives Lost

 Conservatives Lost 

Issues and Character Matter

 

With much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments “Conservative” pundits on this page and on other opinion pages are lamenting their recent electoral losses to liberals. They blame GOP leaders on lackluster campaigns and flawed messaging. They miss the boat.

 

Daniel Kelly took a shellacking in his second defeat running for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Kelly lost by a larger margin than any other conservative in a statewide race in recent memory. Kelly lost because he was a flawed candidate with excess baggage and choose the wrong side of issues that matter to voters from the center to the left and young to old. 

 

Kelly’s speech to supporters on election night showed his flawed character. Instead of a gracious concession and congratulations to his opponent, he chose to take the lowest of roads with personal attacks on the victor and doomsaying predictions on what is to come from the new liberal majority on the Court. 

 

Kelly’s affiliation with anti-abortion and pro-gun movements turned off the thousands of new Gen Z voters who grew up with a right to abortion and reproductive healthcare while getting the wits scared out of them during active shooter drills in their public schools. They and those who fought for access to abortions and freely available contraception in the 1970s were not willing to roll back the clock to favor an abortion ban enacted in 1849. 

 

Wisconsin’s legislative and congressional district maps are the most gerrymandered in the country and Kelly’s affiliation with the GOP that gave us those maps did not help his cause. 

 

Kelly’s embrace of the “Big Lie” and his involvement in the fake elector scheme in Wisconsin turned off even more voters who have come to realize that the former occupant of the White House is headed for a huge fall for his multiple alleged illegal electoral and business transgressions.

 

Justice-elect Janet Protasiewicz won her huge margin with a race that highlighted her beliefs that women should have the right to control their own reproductive healthcare, that Wisconsin’s district maps are “rigged”and we need stricter gun control laws. 

 

In the special election in Wisconsin’s eighth Senate district, Dan Knodl should have won handily in a heavily gerrymandered district designed to favor GOP candidates. Jodi Habush Sinykin came within two points of winning that race based upon her campaign which highlighted women’s reproductive healthcare rights. It was only the construct of the district boundaries that tilted the outcome to Knodl. 

 

Locally, the only contested judicial race in Washington County was easily won by the incumbent Judge Ryan Hetzel who was appointed to fill a vacant seat by Gov. Tony Evers. His opponent was more deeply flawed than Daniel Kelly. Russell Jones’ checkered history and lack of connection to our community could not be saved by his self-proclaimed “Conservative” position. Jones’ lack of respect for local norms did not help his cause. 

 

West Bend’s school board race echoed the same themes. The three “Conservative” candidates used canned messaging with little substance and lots of popular buzzwords that no longer fool anyone who can think for themselves. The three “S” folks left damaging trails of their true beliefs on social media sites which were easily shared on Benders for Better Public Education, a local Facebook group I started years ago to help improve West Bend’s public schools. Even in their losses, two of the three choose to mimic Daniel Kelly’s lack of character by attacking the winners on social media and in public comments.

 

The three winners for West Bend School Board are all centrist professionals who ran campaigns supporting the institution of public education and those who teach the community’s children. They understand what needs to be done to help public education fulfill its role in our community and are ready to work with the other centrists on the board to ensure quality public schools.

 

These elections show that the “Conservative” star is dimming across Wisconsin and even here in one of the reddest counties in the state. The GOP and those who they are trying to elect have chosen a platform of a past that no longer exists and which more and more voters are seeing for what it is and is not. As more and more younger voters continue to turn out, and they will, elections will continue to be won more on the issues that matter to them than on the labels candidates they adopt to mask character failings.

 

How Many More

 How Many More Have to Die?

End Easy Access to Guns

 

With the killing spree in a Nashville church school this past week, the United States has experienced 130 mass shootings this year according to the Gun Violence Archive. That’s more than one a day since the beginning of the year. Over 10,000 people have died so far this year from gun violence. The leading cause of death among young people in America is gun violence. 

 

How many more have to die or be injured by guns before we as a society do something meaningful to stop the carnage?

 

There are a lot of contributing factors to our gun violence problem. The one constant that runs through them all is the easy access to lethal firearms. 

 

America is not the only country with mental illness, domestic violence, violent video games or hate filled conspiracy theorists. Our gun homicide rate is 26 percent higher than other “advanced” countries that share these same characteristics. The only significant difference between us and the rest of those countries is our obsession with and easy access to lethal weaponry. 

 

Japan has all but eliminated gun deaths. With a population of over 127 million, Japan rarely has more than ten gun deaths per year. It has a long list of tests people who want a gun must pass before they can buy one. They must attend an all-day class, pass a written test, achieve a 95% accuracy rate on a shooting range, pass both a mental health evaluation and a background check which includes criminal records and interviews with friends and family. They can only buy shotguns and air rifles, not handguns, and must recertify every three years. Japan also limits the number of guns that can be sold and the number of stores that can sell them. When a gun owner dies, the family must surrender the owner’s guns. 

 

Clearly, not all of these measures would be allowed in America given current interpretations of the Second Amendment, but the idea behind them has much to commend them. 

 

Everytown for Gun Safety tells us that those states with weaker gun laws and higher rates of gun ownership have higher rates of mass shootings. There are other sobering statistics about mass shootings the organization shares. 1 in three mass shooters are legally prohibited from possessing guns when they use them to kill and maim. In 56% of the mass shootings, the shooter exhibited dangerous warning signs beforehand. When assault style weapons are used in a mass shooting six times as many are shot. Over half of mass shootings are domestic violence related. 

 

Everytown has proposed a series of measures than will certainly go a long way towards reducing our gun violence problems. 

 

First and the easiest would be to implement universal background checks for all gun sales. Now only sales from licensed gun dealers are subject to background checks. Gun show and other private sales do not require these checks. 

 

Extreme Risk or Red Flag laws would make it easier to confiscate guns from people who are experiencing a mental health or medical crisis. These provisions require a court order after a hearing before guns are removed and the guns can be returned after the crisis is resolved. 

 

Firearm possession should be restricted for people with dangerous histories of violence or self-harm even when criminal convictions are not obtained. Hate crimes must be added to background checks. 

 

Assault style firearms, both semi and, potentially, full automatic firing, must be banned completely along with high capacity magazines and bump stocks which can enable more rapid fire semi-automatic functioning. Silencers must remain prohibited. 

 

President Biden renewed his call for Congress to pass many of these measures after the killings in Nashville. We know Congress refuses to take up these more effective measures after passing much more limited gun law reforms last year. Some in Congress are willing to take up the banner and move on serious reform. The Senate Chaplin, Barry Black, recently offered the following prayer opening a session in that chamber.

 

“Lord, when babies die at a church school, it is time for us to move beyond thoughts and prayers. Remind our lawmakers of the words of Edmund Burke: ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.’ ” 

 

To counter the financial pressure from NRA and local wannabe Second Amendment lobbyists, we need to flood our representatives with messaging demanding serious gun law reforms. Until our laws are changed many more children will not live to finish their education or reach their full potential due to gun related trauma in their schools. 

 

We have reached the point where you cannot be “pro-life” and work against serious reform of our gun ownership laws. We need to bring an end to “active-shooter” drills and the actions of those who cause them to be needed. 

 

Thoughts and prayers are of no use to dead and injured children.