It's Pronounced "Creepy Old Man"
Leave The Kids Alone
My younger daughter just started her freshman year in high school and made the JV tennis team. At one of the four matches they had last week (you’ve got to cram them all in before it gets cold), she was talking to a friend about how much she disliked Trump. An older gentleman who had come to watch his granddaughter play on the opposing team decided it would be a good idea to engage my 14-year-old in a political debate. Allow me to paraphrase parts of the conversation as it was recounted to me, and please forgive the obvious gaps in the exchange. The version I got may have been the highlights reel.
Random Older Man Who Shouldn’t Be Talking To or Picking a Political Fight with My Under-Age Daughter: What don’t you like about Trump, other than his hair?
My Fabulous Razor-Sharp Well-Informed Perfectly Indoctrinated Badass Debating Blue Bubble Kid: His abortion policy.
ROMWSBTToPPaFwMUaD (pronounced “ro-maw sho-bet tor-pee po-fee wee-mud”): Trump doesn’t have an abortion policy, he left it up to the states.
MFabRazShWIPInBDBBuK (pronounced “em-fab-razz shwee-wippin b-deb double-bee-buk”): He says he’s proud of getting Roe versus Wade overturned. States shouldn’t be allowed to make laws that prevent abortion at six weeks which is before most people know their pregnant. And these laws don’t protect women’s health. Did you hear about the woman in Georgia who died? [Proceeds to explain un-expelled fetal tissue and sepsis and how this can happen with an ectopic pregnancy.]
ROMWSBPPaFwMUaD (pronounced “creepy old man”): Okay fine, what else don’t you like about him?
MFabRazShWIPInBDBBuK: Well, I care about LGBTQ+ rights, and Project 2025 wants to get rid of all of them.
ROMWSBPPaFwMUaD: Trump has nothing to do with Project 2025.
MFabRazShWIPInBDBBuK: Yes, he does, JD Vance wrote part of it. Have you read it?
The conversation went on for another minute in which he said my daughter must get her news from an unreliable sources and complained that Harris has no real policy plans. Then my daughter had to get up and play. As she walked onto the court, the random older man called after her, “I’m glad you’re not voting.” To which Em-fab-razz shwee-wippin b-deb double-bee-buk yelled back: “I’m sorry you are.”
I’m verklempt. I mean that’s the kind of comeback that always occurs to me about five minutes too late or the next morning in the shower. More importantly, though, she was (at least in her retelling) respectful. She argued real points and didn’t resort to insults or name calling, which is saying a lot given that Trumpism is the only politics she’s ever witnessed. It’s the politics of hate and distrust, but she behaved better than the adults.
She certainly behaved better than Trump who called Kamala Harris mentally impaired at a rally this weekend (and also went on about his beautiful body**). And she behaved better than ROMWSBPPaFwMUaD himself who really had no business trying to debate a high schooler. As one of my friends pointed out, “that a**hole was preying on her youth and female avoidance of confrontation. F**k him.”
I’m just sorry my daughter can’t vote next month, but she’s coming for you 2028!
Study Finds Anti-Trans Laws Increase Suicide Attempts in Young People
When states pass anti-trans laws, suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary (TGNB) kids goes up. It’s that simple. And now we have the peer-reviewed article to prove it.
The study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, found that enacting anti-trans law aimed at minors—whether that’s a law policing bathrooms or sports teams—increases the rate of suicide attempts among TGNB young people in that state by somewhere between 7 and 72%.
States have been trying to make transgender people the boogeyman ever since the Supreme Court settled the debate on gay marriage. (I’d like to say once and for all, but we now know how loosie-goosy this court is willing to be with precedents and how badly Clarence Thomas would like to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, Lawrence v. Texas, and Loving v. Virginia, despite the fact that that last one might invalidate his marriage to the Queen election denier.) The Karl Rove playbook requires a nemesis who can serve as both symbol and scapegoat when convincing disenchanted Americans to vote against their own best interests in the name of family values. When Gay went mainstream, the moral minority began demonizing transgender individuals and quickly turned their attention to kids.
This year alone, state legislators introduced 658 anti-trans bills. This was up from 174 in 2022, 85 in 2020, and just 30 in 2018. There were bathroom bills. Sports team bills. Bills preventing people from updating their birth certificates or driver’s licenses. There were bills banning gender-affirming care like puberty blockers and hormone treatments. Florida—the state that bangs the parental rights drum louder than any when it’s banning sex ed and burning books—passed a law that would take trans kids away from their parents if they received gender-affirming care. (Can you imagine having to live in fear of being taken away from your supportive parents?)
The new study focused on 2018 to 2022 during which time 48 anti-trans bills became law in 19 states. The authors surveyed 61,240 TGNB young people ages 13 to 24 from all 50 states. Participants were asked over 100 questions so researchers could start to understand their mental health and suicide risk. They were asked about thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts. They were also asked about factors known to protect trans kids such as access to care, access to affirming spaces, and LGBTQ+ representation as well as factors known to be a risk such as victimization, discrimination, and experiences with conversation therapy.
Their analysis found that self-reported suicide attempts among young people did not increase when anti-trans bills were introduced or under debate. There was, however, a statistically significant increase in suicide attempts among TGNB young people in the state if those bills passed and became law.
The analysis can’t pinpoint the reason(s) that suicide attempts rise, but the authors have some theories. (I have some theories about how hate-filled legislative debates and laws targeting already marginalized kids do damage to those at whom that hate is directed, but the authors’ theories are more civil and contain fewer expletives.)
The authors speculate that being banned from participation in sports may lead to more experiences of rejection, social isolation, and bullying. Similarly, not being allowed to get gender-affirming healthcare or update documents may “lead to less access to vital resources and create more opportunities for discrimination and harassment.” All of this increases the stress of being a minority in this society which can in turn lead to worsening mental health and increased suicide risk.
This all seems pretty f**king obvious.
I’m reminded of the time that Utah’s legislature passed a bill banning trans kids from playing on sports teams with other kids of their gender. Republican Governor Spencer Cox vetoed the bill and wrote the following explanation full of the empathy and a desire to understand that seems to have eluded most members of his party. He said:
I must admit, I am not an expert on transgenderism. I struggle to understand so much of it and the science is conflicting. When in doubt however, I always try to err on the side of kindness, mercy and compassion. I also try to get proximate and I am learning so much from our transgender community. They are great kids who face enormous struggles. Here are the numbers that have most impacted my decision: 75,000, 4, 1, 86 and 56.
· 75,000 high school kids participating in high school sports in Utah.
· 4 transgender kids playing high school sports in Utah.
· 1 transgender student playing girls sports.
· 86% of trans youth reporting suicidality.
· 56% of trans youth having attempted suicide.
Four kids and only one of them playing girls sports. That’s what all of this is about. Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships. Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day. Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly. For that reason, as much as any other, I have taken this action in the hope that we can continue to work together and find a better way. If a veto override occurs, I hope we can work to find ways to show these four kids that we love them, and they have a place in our state.
The legislature did, in fact, override his veto. And, spoiler alert, it did not go on to show trans kids any love. Less than a year later Cox signed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors into law. He said in defense, “While we understand our words will be of little comfort to those who disagree with us, we sincerely hope that we can treat our transgender families with more love and respect as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures.”
Laws like this show neither love nor respect for trans kids or their families. These bills don’t represent a genuine concern for the health and wellbeing of young people; they prey on the status of TGNB young people as “others” and vilify them to score cheap political points. It is the ultimate example of punching down, and it does real damage to real kids who are already struggling.
Georgia Judge Eviscerates Abortion Law
Here’s something to smile about, at least temporarily. A Fulton County Superior Court Judge Georgia struck down Georgia’s 6-week abortion ban on Monday in a 26-page ruling that Sex On Wednesday readers will love for its snark as much as its decision.
The case—SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective v. Georgia—started in 2022 when a group of health care providers sued the state to block the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act. Putting aside the gag-inducing name of the law, it’s important to know that it was passed in 2019 when Republican lawmakers across the country were still being held in check by a Supreme Court that still included RBG. Then Dobbs happened.
The SisterSong Collective sued to prevent this trigger law from taking effect. The Superior Court of Fulton County ruled that certain portions of the law were void because they were unconstitutional when the law was passed. The state appealed the ruling. The Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that the Superior Court was wrong; those parts of the law were not void. It sent the case back to that same lower court to be decided on its merits (as opposed to the earlier more procedural ruling).
So that’s what Judge Robert McBurney did. First, though, he took both SCOG and SCOTUS to task. In a footnote, he writes:
The fundament upon which the [Supreme Court of Georgia] majority rested its opinion—the falsely modest precept that “the Court is not the source of the Constitution’s meaning”—guaranteed the outcome but misstates judicial (and political) reality. Of course the Constitution means what it means; such circularity tells us nothing. Ultimately, the Constitution means only what the courts tell us …. In other words, the meaning of the Constitution is no more fixed than is the composition of the majority in the highest courts of the land—especially when formerly bedrock principles such as stare decisis appear to be on the wane.
Suck it Alito.
McBurney went on to decide the case on its merits and in so doing managed to clearly articulate the central issue of the abortion debate. He writes:
Gluttony and self-deprivation are both constitutionally protected lifestyles. People are free to tattoo or pierce any and every square inch of their skin. And, ordinarily, one can pursue—or refuse—medical care, elective or essential. But here, in this case and this debate, there is one more important fact—the pregnancy—that changes the constitutional analysis. At some point, the pregnancy acquires its own rights that deserve protection, protection that can conflict with the mother’s exercise of her rights. We struggle mightily—and not always peaceably—with determining when that point arrives.
He then explores the possible turning points from conception to viability. The law in question defines this turning point moment as the detection of a fetal heartbeat which he argues is “awkwardly arbitrary.” For one things, he notes, medical professionals on both sides of the debate agree that what is detected at six weeks is not a real heartbeat because fetuses don’t have anything resembling a four-chambered heart until about 17 weeks. He also argues that the state could not articulate why a four- or five-week-old unborn child’s life was not worth protection but a six-week-old’s was. In yet another footnote (always read the footnotes), he says this arbitrariness:
… only highlights the wisdom and practicality of viability as the proper separation point between a woman’s right to choose and society’s right to intervene.
And then he goes in for the kill.
Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote. Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.
… It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could—or should—force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.
… The Court finds that, until the pregnancy is viable, a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and her health remains private and protected, i.e., remains her business and her business alone.
Thank you Judge McBurney for saying what so many of us have been trying to say for years and for doing so with a lot of eloquence and a little much-needed snark. It will be such a shame when the Supreme Court of Georgia overturns this impassioned decision.
** Always read the footnotes. In yet another unhinged rant that is not getting enough attention, Trump upped his cringe factor this weekend saying that he didn’t have to run for president, he could be sunbathing on the beach instead. “You have never seen a body so beautiful,” he said talking about himself, and went on to suggest that he has a much better build that Sleepy Joe. I never, ever want to see Donald Trump naked. However, I think we might all agree to give him huge ratings on his web-cam sunbathing show if he agreed to never, ever run for office, speak in public, or post on social media again.
This is amazing! Can’t wait to vote for your daughter.