Don’t Ban Healthcare

 Gender Affirming Healthcare Bans Hurt People

 

Despite compelling scientific evidence to the contrary, Wisconsin Republican Legislators, including our own Senator Duey Strobel (R-Saukville) and GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), have introduced a new bill banning gender affirming care for people under the age of 18. The bill targets medical professionals who provide this kind of care with license removal. 

 

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services offers helpful definitions.

 

“A person who is transgender does not conform with gender norms for their biological sex assigned at birth. These norms include:

• Gender identities
• Expressions
• Behaviors

“Being transgender looks different for everyone. For example, some people might:

• Change their bodies with hormones or surgery. Doing so helps align their physical body with their gender identity.
• Express gender in less permanent ways. This includes through clothing, hair, makeup, pronoun usage, and other behaviors.
• Choose not to alter their external appearance at all.

“Ultimately, transgender people want to be treated with respect. They also want to be treated in a way that aligns with their self-identify.”

“Sexual orientation—the sex of people someone is attracted to. Transgender people may identify as heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian.

“Gender identity—how a person understands their own gender.”

The University of Wisconsin Health Clinic offers comprehensive gender affirming care as do many major healthcare systems serving Wisconsin residents.

 

Republican controlled legislatures across the country continue to put forward bills reducing gender transition services in the face of judicial decisions striking down the bans once they become law. Those who take an oath to support the Constitution should not pass laws that violate the constitutionally protected rights to due process and equal protection of the laws of patients.

 

Democratic legislators and LBGTQI advocacy groups were quick to condemn thislatest GOP intrusion into private medical decisions by parents and children. 

 

The Wisconsin Democratic legislative LBGTQ+ caucus issued the following statement in response to the bill. 

 

“Once again, Republicans are interfering with private medical decisions that belong in the hands of patients and their doctors — not politicians.” 

 

“Every major medical organization – including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the American Psychological Association – attests that gender-affirming care is safe, medically necessary, and saves lives.

 

“This latest bill demonstrates abject cruelty from Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature. A 2022 national survey by the Trevor Project found that 86% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported negative impacts to their mental health from anti-trans bills.

 

“We remain committed to protecting our LGBTQ+ youth in Wisconsin and will continue to be a voice for the LGBTQ+ community throughout our state. We will continue to fight to ensure that this bill – and any future legislation that harms LGBTQ+ Wisconsinites – will never become law in Wisconsin.”

 

Based upon a prior veto, Governor Evers will likely veto the bill if it comes to his desk. Earlier this year, Evers vetoed a state budget provision that would have blocked state citizens from receiving Medicaid coverage for certain gender affirming healthcare services.

 

Litigation to block laws banning gender affirming care for youth continues in federal courts in several states. Federal judges blocked similar bans in Arkansas, Montana, Alabama, and Florida. Similar cases are pending in Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, and other states.

 

Given the opposition to these bills and their shaky legal footing, the only apparent reason they keep coming up is to gin up the faltering base of GOP voters ahead of upcoming elections. 

 

It is time for the GOP to stop creating divisive issues that hurt people who need quality healthcare to live. Those given the responsibility for governing all of us need to pay attention to the needs of all of us, not just those who think like them. 

 

It is time to put aside unfounded prejudices about gender and accept that not all of us fall neatly into a binary model. Gender fluidity is real and here to stay. Our legislators need to pass laws that provide quality health care to all and not laws which harm people in need. 

Politics of Destruction

 Politics of Destruction and Power

 

The GOP politics of destruction continues apace here and in the nation’s capital. 

 

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) continues to try and find a path to overturn the last Supreme Court election by threatening to impeach the winner, Justice Janet Protasiewicz, for perfectly proper comments she made on the campaign trail.

 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, under heavy pressure from the Freedom Caucus, launched an impeachment inquiry looking for something that might be grounds to impeach President Biden. 

 

These shenanigans have nothing to do with actual governance in Wisconsin or the country and everything to do with dismantling our democracy in the pursuit of political power.

 

Wisconsin has some of the most gerrymandered legislative districts of any state in the nation. By every legitimate measure, Republicans have drawn districts to prevent any meaningful challenges to incumbent legislators and maintain their grip on legislative power even when a majority of Wisconsin voters elect Democrats in statewide contests. Justice Protasiewicz told it like it is during her campaign, stating her belief that Wisconsin’s legislative district maps are “rigged.” 

 

Wisconsin non-partisan election rules allow candidates to tell voters about their values and beliefs. They do not allow candidates for judicial office to tell voters how they will rule on a particular case or issue. Justice Protasiewicz never crossed that line during her campaign. 

 

Even if she did cross that line, it would not be grounds for impeachment under Wisconsin’s Constitution. Before a Wisconsin public official can be impeached, they must have done something corrupt or committed a crime or misdemeanor. Campaign statements don’t meet either standard. 

 

Recognizing he was on very thin ice with impeachment threats, Speaker Vos pivoted to suggest legislation allowing the non-partisan Legislative Reference Bureau to draw new legislative maps that would then be subject to an up or down vote by the sitting legislature. If voted down, the maps would then be drawn again by GOP legislators like those who drew the gerrymandered maps in the first place. Governor Evers rightly condemned the plan as “bogus” and indicated he would veto any bill with those provisions if it hit his desk. 

 

If Vos wanted an impartial group to draw new legislative district maps, there are many ways to get that done, but that would threaten GOP legislative dominance and is a non-starter with his members in their very safe seats. 

 

Meanwhile in the nation’s capital, the GOP controlled House of Representatives is faced with another showdown over keeping the government open and functioning. 

 

Under the deal struck during the last showdown, the government was given funds to keep the lights on which will run out again at the end of this month. The hard right Freedom Caucus believes that McCarthy sold them down the river last time and won’t have it again. They have threatened to withhold approval of any new spending agreement unless McCarthy holds firm to their various demands that would cripple the government anyway. McCarthy holds his position as Speaker subject to any single member being able to call for his replacement. Freedom Caucus member Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) has indicated that unless McCarthy agrees to their demands he will make that call and force a vote on McCarthy’s ouster as Speaker every day.

 

To try and placate the Freedom Caucus, McCarthy reversed course and announced the opening of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden without calling for a vote by the House.  GOP efforts to turn up impeachable evidence of Biden’s alleged corruption over the past nine months have unearthed absolutely nothing to connect the President to his son’s questionable business dealings or anything else of note. 

 

The impeachment smokescreen won’t last long or satisfy the Freedom Caucus whose sole legislative agenda appears to be the destruction of the institutions of government. The spending bills, necessary to keep the government operating, still face an uncertain future as does McCarthy as House Speaker. 

 

Republicans have not begun to grasp that a majority of Americans are fed up with their power grabs and obstructionism when there are real problems and issues which impact our everyday lives that need national and statewide attention. None of the current crop of GOP presidential hopefuls seems able to extricate themselves from the former occupant of the White House and his authoritarian populism.

 

As GOP Utah Senator Mitt Romney noted in announcing he won’t be running for re-election in 2025, it is time for a new younger generation of conservatives to step up and offer constructive solutions to the issues of our time. I expect some will but not until the current GOP finishes digging its own grave in the relentless pursuit of power. 

Celebrate Labor

Celebrate Labor

    Every Day

 

This weekend we celebrate organized labor recognizing the benefits unions have given all of us since they started organizing.

 

We have unions to thank for a five-day work week, time and a half for overtime and double time on holidays. We thank unions for workplace safety, representation during grievance procedures, anti-discrimination employment laws, laws limiting or banning child labor, living wage laws, parental and family leave, domestic partner benefits, employer paid pension and health benefits, minimum wages, farm labor laws, workers compensation benefits, unemployment insurance, equal pay laws, Social Security, sick leave, paid vacation, and the ability to force change by walking off the job.

 

Even if you work in a non-union shop, you probably have some of these protections and benefits because your employer recognizes that his competitor down the street offers them and will lose workers to the competition if he fails to follow suit. 

 

It was not always like this. The Labor Movement started in earnest in the 1920s and 30s and came into its own after World War II as GIs came home to a booming economy. Early efforts to unionize workers was met with fierce resistance in many industries, including the use of armed strike breakers. Men and women died to gain the right to strike which started the process of leveling the playing field in the workplace. 

 

The movement has seen its ups and downs over the decades. The Red scares and communist influences are a thing of the past. Organized crime has been rooted out of major unions like the Teamsters. In recent years as new segments of the workplace are becoming unionized, more and more in service industries and retail establishments are flexing their work withholding muscle to get employers to share the wealth labor produces. It is not surprising that a majority of Americans in recent polls support unions and the right to organize and strike. 

 

Some might say that Labor overplayed its hand in the public sector by aligning with Democrats. When Republicans gained control of states historically favorable to unions and began to scale back collective bargaining rights, we saw new laws like our own Act 10 under then Governor Scott Walker’s administration. Act 10 crippled public sector union strength in Wisconsin and Wisconsin’s economy paid the price. 

 

Public sector workplace morale is at an all-time low. Teachers have felt the gut punch most dramatically as their ability to have a significant say in the conditions of their employment has all but vanished. With bans on strikes in public sector employment in place, many feel powerless to change their lot. Many are leaving those public sector jobs for more secure and lucrative private sector employment. Those that have stayed find their income reduced, their workloads increased and their ability to bargain strictly limited. It does not have to be this way.

 

As Democrats beat back gerrymandered electoral districts and regain control of courts and legislatures, a better balance will hopefully emerge making those public sector jobs attractive once more. The alliances are in place and are slowly becoming reactivated. 

 

This is not to say that organized labor is perfect. In the early days of the emerging movement, efforts were made to get organizers to work on more than wages and working conditions. There were some, like my grandfather, who saw the need for organized labor to get involved with the whole family by promoting and supporting progressive education for workers’ children. Progressive unions like the International Ladies Garment Workers, the Pullman Porters Union and others supported progressive education efforts aimed at teaching students about the benefits of organizing. These fell by the wayside as the American Federation of Labor merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations to become the AFL-CIO and focused organizing efforts on workplace issues. 

 

Current unions are gaining concessions never thought possible with recent strike votes. UPS drivers won significant pay increases, better benefits, and air conditioning in new trucks without having to walk out. Baristas in Starbucks stores across the nation are standing up and getting recognized in the face of union busting efforts by management. Screen writers, actors, and others in entertainment work have been on the line for several months. They are supported by non-striking union members who refuse to cross the picket lines and are making contributions to strike funds so striking workers can feed their families. Time will tell, but as more shows cannot finish filming for lack of scripts or actors to portray the characters those scripts describe, the producers will have to come up with a better division of the wealth the shows produce. 

 

In the end, organized labor is the greatest force ever devised to secure an equitable division of the wealth their labor creates. All it takes is a willingness to say enough is enough and stand up like Norma Rae with a simple sign that says “Union.”