What to call this thread?

The pain is real

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So much for HIPAA
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Emergency Response Checklist for Parents, Guardians, and Caregivers of Trans Minors

 

Laila Ireland

The Federal Government just told me that I need to choose between my livelihood and my identity.

On Friday, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued a memo that will devastate the lives of transgender federal workers and their families. Beginning in 2026, all federal employee health plans will be barred from covering gender-affirming care—hormone therapy, surgeries, the full spectrum of medically necessary treatment that doctors and every major medical association agree saves lives. In its place, for the first time in history, a memo that mandates coverage of “faith-based counseling”—a euphemism for conversion therapy.

In one stroke, the federal government told more than 10 million employees and their families, including me, that our health, our dignity, and our very existence are expendable.

I am a transgender woman. I am a veteran. I am a military spouse. And I am a federal employee working in the Military Health System. My entire adult life has been bound up in serving this country and the people who wear its uniform. And yet, the very government I continue to serve even after service has now made me choose between my livelihood and my identity.

I know what it means to sacrifice. I deployed to combat zones as a soldier. I built my family around the rhythm of my husband’s Air Force career—the missed anniversaries, the sleepless nights, the quiet fears that accompany every deployment, and the many trials of being a military family. Now, as a federal civilian, I dedicate myself to ensuring military families get the care they need. But this policy says my family doesn’t deserve the same. That while I help deliver care to others, I must be denied it myself. This isn’t just bureaucratic cruelty—it’s personal betrayal.

The memo’s language is very blunt: “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits” will no longer be covered. That means necessary hormones. That means necessary surgery. That means care people rely on to live authentically and healthily.

What will be covered instead? “Faith-based counseling” for gender dysphoria—conversion therapy by another name. We know the truth about these practices ....

MORE>
 
"The Supreme Court is now officially considering whether to take up a case overturning marriage equality." #906
They've already dumped Roe.

Stare decisis means Katie bar the door. [a short time ago it meant: "to stand by things decided". Then C.J. Roberts got loose.

"Laila Ireland

The Federal Government just told me that I need to choose between my livelihood and my identity. ...
In one stroke, the federal government told more than 10 million employees and their families, including me, that our health, our dignity, and our very existence are expendable." #907
The civil rights arena is not new.

Previously, some oppressed went insular, and functioned partially independent from the community of their oppressors.

Will there be a day when humanitarians can shop at a Rainbow supermarket?
Buy a Prius at a Rainbow dealership? ...
 
Ok it's brilliant, and Batman would 100% support the lgbt community, but he'd still ask if the pride flag suit was available in black.

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Wikipedia Editors Can't Decide If the Minneapolis Shooter Was a Man or a Woman

after wednesday's mass shooting, editors on wikipedia descend into absurd woke debates about what they're allowed or forbidden to say about the shooter's identity
Ashley Rindsberg

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Wikipedia, search, curated trending topics, all the local content laws and moderation policies on a critical site like Reddit for example, Community Notes, the definitions of words in our online dictionaries — all together, this is something we at Pirate Wires refer to as the “information beat.” How do we learn about the world online? What policies, people, and secret information architecture shapes what we know, and how we know it? For over a year, our editor at large Ashley Rindsberg has done fantastic work here. And especially on Wikipedia.

Recently, Congress announced an investigation into Wikipedia, triggered in large part by Ashley’s October report in Pirate Wires, “
How Wikipedia’s Pro-Hamas Editors Hijacked the Israel-Palestine Narrative.” The piece tells the story of 40 anti-Israel editors — the Gang of 40 — as they make a collective 850,000 edits to 10,000 articles, completely reshaping the PIA (Palestine Israel articles) topic area.

Regardless of how you feel about the Israel-Palestine issue in particular, the importance of understanding the origin of ostensibly objective information that shapes our feelings about such issues should be obvious.

If interested in this subject generally, you can, and should, read ....
https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-editors-cant-decide-if
 
I want to explain a few things and then it might be clearer why UK trans people are upset.

In 2001 I married my wife, Sylvia.

In 2005 I started medical transition. For the state to recognise this I had to submit to standards of "care" which were humiliating, degrading and which placed me at risk of violence.

But I did it "by the book"

As I did it "by the book", the NHS agreed to reregister me as female, which makes sense because my anatomy now is.

In 2007 I had sex reassignment surgery. This had to be signed off by two mental health professionals, "by the book", and it was.

In 2008 I applied for gender recognition. This involved signing a statutory obligation, stating that I promised, BY LAW, to live fully as female for the rest of my life. As this was done, "by the book", the government promised that it would treat me as such.

Its first act as treating me as female was to annul our marriage because it was a same sex marriage and those were not allowed.

The state then reissued my birth certificate, correcting the "mistake" it had originally made when ....

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"... In 2005 I started medical transition. ... " #912
Counterpoint:
For most of human history "transition" might have meant a change of wardrobe, perhaps a different job (from cosmetician to rodeo champion) etc.

Does it make sense to put ones self through the ordeal described in #912, which seems to pivot around not the internal, personhood,
but instead the external, whether to be addressed as M'am, or Sir?

There's something else going on here.
Who or how we bang behind locked doors is a matter for consenting adults. Right?
Is subjecting ones self to all this really worth obtaining the same recognition at the $cash register as we receive on the mattress?

Clearly this decision is already made, when individuals choose to undergo / endure it.
 
Does it make sense to put ones self through the ordeal described in #912, which seems to pivot around not the internal, personhood,
but instead the external, whether to be addressed as M'am, or Sir?
The purpose is to make the outside match the inside - since you can't change the brain to match the body the only thing left is to change the body to match the brain.

Is subjecting ones self to all this really worth obtaining the same recognition at the $cash register as we receive on the mattress?
Sexual orientation is not the same as gender identity.
 
"The purpose is to make the outside match the inside - since you can't change the brain to match the body the only thing left is to change the body to match the brain." S2 #914
Correct.
And that has not changed.
What has changed is the bio-medical technology to physically manifest the transition.

But the question / issue raised by #913 goes deeper than that, questioning whether what "they" may think justifies the ordeal of completing transition.

If I as a 71 year old man were addressed at the $cash register as a woman, would I undergo transition? Or shrug it off and enjoy life with those whom I love, and those that love me?

"Sexual orientation is not the same as gender identity." S2 #914
Correct.
But any adult contemplating the benefits and disadvantages of completing transition must thereby complete the risk : benefit analysis.

IF it were a do or die, we could understand opting out of the "die" option.
But history demonstrates humans have survived / endured without biological transition for millennia.

So again the question: is facing the prospect of completing life intact really so onerous? Apparently so. But that seems to raise more questions than answers.
 
If I may append:
my older sister (with athletic history) and I had hip problems. She opted for surgical replacement, to receive an artificial hip.
I opted not to.
We've lost contact. I can't state specifically. But the stats I've read indicate 5 years after receiving an artificial hip, the health state of such recipients may not be all that much better than those that opted against it.
I opted against it, and have bicycled a thousand miles in 2025.

Part of the insight I offer here may be best communicated by those that have completed transition, and regret it.
 
Both my parents had artificial hips. My mother because she fell and broke hers, my father because his simply deteriorated.

In my mother's case it meant that she could walk - in fact played basketball with her grandson (he was five so it wasn't a strenuous game by any means) but she lived another 40 years and was still getting around. And my father could walk again - he lived for some 30 years after the operation.

And looking back to my jock days, a surprising number of the people I used to train with have had one or both knees replaced and a few have had their hips done.
 

Sophie Labelle

1d ·

“I only keep [the long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself. [...] I know I am not a woman”.

These are the words of the detransitioner shooter who cowardly opened fire on children yesterday in Minneapolis. It's right there in their manifesto.

Right-wing detransitioners who have been fighting against trans rights around the world for years now have been screaming that their narratives weren't being heard. They will find that the words of the Minneapolis shooter are eerily similar to what they've been repeating in courts and committee hearings everywhere.

What we have here is a clear case of right-wing anti-trans indoctrination.

The Minneapolis shooter was a radicalized right-wing detransitioner.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Also by Sophie

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Another case where the rules keep changing .....

I was born in the UK. Intersex not Trans technically, but as the UK doesn't recognise the existence of intersex people, close enough. After 20 years, still waiting on the Gender Recognition Panel in the UK to hear my case. Fortunately, the,Australian Capital Territory gave me a Recognised Details Certificate after reviewing my medical data. In theory, the UK GRP should follow suit, unless they change the rules again. AGAIN. On the other hand, our marriage was voided in 2004, as it was for all intersex people, and it seems the 2015 marriage equality act didn't re instate it. Centreline still has us as ....

CONTINUED
 
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