The impact of Turek’s proposal would be profoundly harmful for transgender people.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/54506028

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/politics/p/1270828/iowa-dem-josh-turek-releases-anti-trans-ad-calling-for-a-federal-funding-ban-on-trans-care

On Saturday, Oct. 24, Josh Turek, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, released a new ad targeting transgender people—perhaps the worst anti-transgender ad of the entire election cycle to come from a Democrat. The ad begins with Turek talking about his disability and the importance of not discriminating, before immediately turning to adopt discriminatory policies toward transgender people. One such policy is a sports ban, a position sadly becoming increasingly common among high-profile Democrats in competitive races, and one that alone would have made this yet another newsworthy anti-trans ad. But Turek then goes further, advocating for a new policy: a proposal to ban federally funded gender-affirming care in the United States, one that would impact a substantial number of transgender people and make their care difficult to impossible to receive.

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.today
    0·
    10 days ago

    Hypothetically, would this DOJ even bother investigating the assassination of a Democrat? Asking for a hypothetical friend.

    • goferking (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      8 days ago

      Hypothetically, would this DOJ even bother investigating the assassination of a Democrat? Asking for a hypothetical friend.

      Honestly whatever the answer is will undoubtedly be considered against lemmy worlds tos by mods or admins

  • Granbo's Holy Hotrod@lemmy.world
    0·
    10 days ago

    100% he feels weird about his chub when watching peg porn - now he wants us to feel bad too. I am convinced this is always the issue with anyone who is on this side of history.

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
    0·
    9 days ago

    Something, something how Democratic centrists aren’t Republican-lite.

    Fucking be better you shitty Democrats and stop making excuses for complete moral failings on being “the best we can do” in a asshole red state and abandoning your core voters for some Iowa Republican or “Independent” vote that, let’s be honest, never going to vote for a Democrat in any way to begin with.

  • Hegar@fedia.io
    0·
    10 days ago

    The depressing thing i fear is that polling on trans rights must be bad enough that some dems feel this is a position that benefits them. Newsom seems to think it benefits him, slimy amoral scumbag that he is.

    The dems don’t want to accept any responsiblity for the perception that they’re not meaningfully different from fascists, but they also want to throw trans people to the wolves when they’re already one of the most murdered groups in society.

    • Mulligrubs@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      I don’t know what the polls say on this issue, but if the Democrats throw trans people to the wolves, it’s because their “donors” said to; polling is only relevant if Amazon agrees.

      For example, polls show support for term limits is 83%; it doesn’t matter, because Meta doesn’t want term limits. I could list ten issues with over 80% support from all Americans; they’ve wanted these very basic no-brainer things for DECADES.

      Just like labor discovered long ago, Democrats (or Rs, bOtH sIdEs, etc) will abandon any issue for enough “donations”.

      • Hegar@fedia.io
        0·
        10 days ago

        There was a massive study from princeton over a decade ago showing that since the end of the civil rights era, not a single piece of public policy reflected public opinion.

        The conclusion was that there is no evidence that the US is a democracy, and it explicitly said we’ve functionally been an oligarchy since the 70s.

    • Cherries@lemmy.world
      0·
      10 days ago

      It’s just consultants. The audience and constituents that are being listened to are just consultants. Most people don’t give a fuck about trans people cuz they are such a tiny minority. Neoliberal consultants have seen the success of conservative culture war narratives and have adopted the, “can’t beat 'em, join 'em” strategy because they don’t want to do the actual work beating culture war narratives would require, which is pushing progressive policies.

  • Nouvellalia@lemmy.world
    0·
    10 days ago

    Sitting in that chair, playing someone who understands discrimination and fairness because you can’t walk or please a woman, and using the way other people perceive you to say:

    “Really it’s the trans women who are oppressing the cis women. The trans women are oppressing all of us with skyrocketing insurance rates, and by making us look at them.”

    Is disgusting, cowardly, and shows us that Josh Turek’s biggest disability, is the fetid rot of a person he is.

    • CTDummy@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      “Really it’s the trans women who are oppressing the cis women. The trans women are oppressing all of us with skyrocketing insurance rates, and by making us look at them.”

      “Wheel chair bound people are oppressing able bodied people with skyrocketing building cost due to mandating ramps and elevators thanks to the ADA; and by making us look at them.” Incredible someone can’t see this same warped logic applied to them.

  • neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    Paraphrasing from elsewhere…

    Here are some thoughtful questions I’d like to see the US Senate-hopeful from Iowa, Josh Turek, receive during this campaign season:

    • Would he shake the hand of a person who is HIV-positive? Would he use the same toilet after them?

    • What does he think about gay couples adopting children?

    • What does he think about public schools employing homosexual men as teachers?

    These are all bad faith questions, loyalty tests, that were once lobbed at politicians. Their effectiveness relied on the inaccurate and undeniably cruel presumptions that gay people are inherently unclean or unfit to care for children.

    For a while this worked. Fearful of abandonment by a prejudiced constituency, would-be leaders hemmed and hawed and furrowed their brows at these kinds of questions. At best, they would find strategic ways to dodge them. At worst, they would give in to laziness, play along with those cruel presumptions and pander to a popular false narrative.

    Eventually all of those narrative were found to be false, cynically constructed to prey upon fears against those who can not help but look and act different than the majority. It took the bravery of millions of people, risking their livelihoods and relationships, sharing their inner lives and living their truths to shatter those falsehoods. It took a lot more than a single child’s insight to prove that emperor was wearing no clothes.

    And here we go again. Another time, another false narrative: segregating transgender girls is fair and right.

    This may feel like it makes sense, just as it may feel risky to use the same toilet seat as a person with a life-impacting sexually transmitted infection. But in both cases, two important facts cut them down to size: a) they’re both completely false, and b) the scenarios presented aren’t happening often enough for any of it to matter in the first place. They’re veiled attempts to codify prejudice into law, plain and simple.

    Please instruct Senate-hopeful Turek that his party is not the one that does that.