Yes, this would be bad. However, this is almost certainly a showboating bill. GovTracker, whose methodology you can read about under the ‘About’ section on their website, says this bill has approximately a 0% chance of being enacted.
Added 1/23/25: Since the last time I saw this post, they also added that they estimate it only has a 1% chance of even getting out of committee.
There’s nothing wrong with, if your representative sits on one of the five different committees that this bill has been referred to, sending a message via ResistBot, calling, or shooting off an email, but I really am begging people not to get caught up in the legislative Gish Gallop that Republicans are going to subject everybody to. They are trying to wear you out. They are going to be throwing absolutely everything they can at the wall to see what sticks, and they are going to throw as many things as they can in the hopes that something slips through or that they tire everybody out.
Almost all of the bill’s cosponsors have only been in Congress since 2023; none of them has been around longer than 2017, and I had never heard of most of them. That’s not to say that people who I haven’t heard of or people who haven’t been in Congress very long can’t accomplish things, but these are not people with a lot of institutional knowledge or cachet. As far as I can tell right now, they don’t sit on any committees, either.
Added 1/23/25: Y’all. Come on, y’all.
This bill is literally just a title.
This bill has no fucking text.
You are freaking out about a literal headline with no article. There is no there there. This is a literal Nothing Bill. Come on.
You know how we say “read more than the headline”? Y’all really are gonna have to go further than that these days. The disinformation machine is gearing up, and it is here scare you and wear you down.
Do not run off after every stick Republicans throw. They are trying to wear you out. Expend your energy judiciously, and give shit like this the exact amount of energy it deserves.
I wish I knew about men like these growing up, I wish I knew that trans men could be successful after a lifetime of never seeing anyone ‘like me’ excelling in life. So here are some trans men – some that you may have heard of, some that you may not – that are successful in a range of careers. Never let being trans hold you back, never think you can’t do something, never think there is not a place for you.
Ben Barres American neurobiologist for Stanford University and advocate for women in science. Barre’s research on the interactions between glial cells and neurons changed the way that we understand the brain and opened up a whole new field of research.
Stephen Whittle Professor of equalities law. Founder of FTM Network in 1989 and Press for Change in 1992. Whittle has been heavily involved in trans activism since joining the Self Help Association for Transsexuals in 1979. His research and activism has been instrumental in ensuring the rights of trans people in the UK.
Michael D Cohen Actor, teacher and coach. Making his break in award-winning Nickelodeon sitcoms Harvey Danger and Danger Force he was the first series regular actor to publicly come out as transgender. Cohen has a BSc in cell biology and a masters degree in adult education, teaching at his own acting studio and providing workshops.
Chris Mosier American triathlete and award-winning coach. Six time member of Team USA in both duathlon and triathlon, Mosier also won two national championships in racewalking and was the first transgender athlete to qualify for the Olympic trials to compete against other members of his gender.
Yance Ford African-American film producer and director. Ford received an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and was nominated for an Oscar for his part in producing and directing the documentary Strong Island which follows the death of his brother.
Kael McKenzie Canadian judge. Serving in the Canadian Armed Forces for several years, McKenzie later attended law school and and worked as a lawyer before being appointed as a judge to the Provincial Court of Manitoba in 2015.
Shane Ortega Native American former flight engineer in the US army, former marine and professional bodybuilder. Throughout his career Ortega has served in Iraq and Afghanistan in over 400 combat missions. He has a long history of advocating for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the recent banning on transgender service members in the US army.
Drago Renteria Chicano photojournalist and deaf and LGBT activist. Renteria founded the Deaf Queer Resource and is CEO of DeafVision – a webhosting and development company run by deaf people and the founder of the National Deaf LGBTQ Archives. Renteria has been instrumental in both creating and hosting many online deaf/queer spaces online along with being heavily involved in real-world activism for decades.
Phillipe Cunningham Elected city councillor for ward 4 Minneapolis and previous special education teacher, Cunningham holds a masters degrees in Organizational Leadership & Civic Engagement and in Police Administration and is passionate about tacking inequalities in his community.
The vast majority of these men did not get puberty blockers early. I think that’s important for trans youth to know… that stupid legislation can’t stop them from being trans and transitioning well, even if the hoops are worse and take longer. (I think trans youth should be able to transition when and how they need to, but in the face of current transphobic legislation, you need to understand that even if they manage to delay you, they can’t stop you.)
Ben Barres, in fact, didn’t transition until he was 43 and already a full fledged neuroscientist in a faculty position. He chose to use his circumstances, and the differences in treatment he experienced after transitioning, to draw attention to gender discrimination in his chosen field in all directions. I’ve spoken to a number of people who knew him over the years and have never heard anyone express anything but profound affection and admiration for him as a mentor and a teacher as well as a groundbreaking scientist.
So, you know. They really can’t stop you. Sometimes in science I hear trans folks, especially transmasc folks, expressing fear that they’re somehow letting the side down by choosing to live life in the way that feels most authentic to themselves. Ben’s legacy puts the lie to that fear: in choosing to transition in 1997, very publicly — in academia your name is part of your publication record and all his previous work was obviously published under his deadname — he was able to use his particular perspective and unique experiences to advocate for others even harder than he might otherwise have been able to do.
I grit my teeth and read the entire executive order regarding trans people, and I just want to take the opportunity to remind folks not to forget intersex people. One of the rescinded documents is “Supporting Intersex Students: A Resource for Students, Families, and Educators,“ and there is a huge emphasis on legally enshrining "only two sexes.”
Yes, this affects trans people, but with the way intersex voices often get ignored in trans spaces, I just want to remind folks not to shut us out. Don’t forget us. Don’t keep talking over us. Don’t act like we aren’t on the front lines. Don’t act like this is just about you. Please.
As a perisex trans person, I would even go so far as to say that intersex people shouldn’t just be included, but need to be actively centered in this conversation. Because the legal enshrinement of two sexes might coincide with transphobia or be intended to push transphobic legal standards, but it is directly going to challenge intersex people’s fundamental right to exist. It affects all of us, but intersex folks have even fewer social & legal resources and even less understanding from the broader public, and they need us to care about them and help amplify their voices.
Oh, yeah, I 100% agree. Problem is that the last time I said something as direct as that, I lost my green flag in Shinigami Eyes and had to block multiple people who wouldn’t stop calling me a transmisogynist bigot. Sigh.
no migrant detention facilities are not auschwitz but i promise you something does not have to be auschwitz in order to be very bad. i am telling you that this comparison distracts from the point instead of galvanizing support by inviting discussion about the appropriateness of the comparison. i am telling you that there are ways to make people listen and ways to make them tune out, especially in a time like now.
like, “detention camps that are so neglected and filled with squalor that it leads to mass death” is bad enough. you don’t need to say it’s the same as “place designed to kill as many people as possible and use the ones they don’t kill as slave labor until they collapse dead”. you really don’t. they can be two separate bad things.
I started this painting about this time last year, finished it a couple months ago, and then promptly forgot to post it. WHOOPS.
Anyway. Awhile ago I was hit by the similar but opposing natures of fire towers and lighthouses, and I wanted to explore that more. Both lonely, out of the way stations worked in isolation in sometimes extreme conditions, both tasked with protecting large swathes of people they will never meet or probably even see. Yet one is about spotting light in the distance and putting it out, while the other is about turning on the light within and shining it out.
I’m doing a special run of prints of this illustration on high quality poster canvas paper, at multiple sizes and starting at just $10usd, to help with the fact that I’ve been caught in the government hiring freeze, so I’m not sure when I’ll be back to work at my day job at this point.
amhrancas 