Dem Saints
@LDS_Dems10h • 18 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
Alright Democrats, time for some tough love.
I have been hesitant to post this but I think it has to be said.
There are three toxic words that cost us the election. Three words that made for bad policy and bad politics.
Those words are:
Transwomen are Women
To be clear, I believe trans people deserve to live lives of worth and dignity free from discrimination.
I believe in individual liberty and letting adults make that choice.
And that is where the conversation should be centered.
"Transwomen are Women" does the opposite.
Republicans love the phrase "transwomen are women" because it centers the debate around the definition of words, not around how we treat trans people.
It gives them the rhetorical high ground and focuses the conversation away from what actually matters.
I will admit, I was surprised by the salience of the trans issue in the 2024 election. It is such an incredibly small issue impacting almost no one that I just didn't think Americans would care.
But they did!
It is a big issue and Democrats are losing on it.
For starters, transwomen aren't women.
They just aren't.
Biologically. Genetically. At a chromosomal level, men and women will always be different and that cannot change.
Saying Transwomen are women is asking the world to pretend.
It is silly and unnecessary.
As Democrats, we cannot ask the world to take us seriously on science-driven issues like global warming and COVID-19 if we all line up behind such an obviously unscientific view that trans women are women.
The average person sees right through it and we lose credibility.
Additionally, the rhetorical pretzels those three words have twisted the Democrats into are killing us politically.
People are not going to vote for a party that prefers "birthing person" or "chest feeders".
Any Party that erases "mothers" should expect to lose.
And those words aren't just making us less persuasive, they are causing us to support really really bad policy.
There are two key and obvious examples:
Transwomen in sports and gender affirming care for minors.
Sports are built on fairness. If you take the fairness away, you no longer have a sport, you have an exhibition.
No matter how much we believe transwomen are women, their bodies disagree and the competitive advantages offered by years of testosterone can't be waived away.
The most liberal, blue blooded, Democrat will turn on you in a heartbeat if you let a transwoman--who benefitted from years of testosterone--beat their daughter unfairly in a competition.
The unfairness is so obvious and transparent that Democrats can't keep dismissing it.
The same is true for physically transitioning transkids with puberty blockers and surgery.
For starters....they are kids. There is a reason we don't let kids get married or get tattoos.
They are by nature fickle and we have an obligation to protect them from themselves.
It is not crazy or intolerant or mean or bigoted to say a child is too young to make such a life and body altering decision.
And I understand that failure to block puberty will make transition much harder later.
But the price of being wrong here is too high. They should wait.
Sadly, the idea that "transwomen are women" has wormed its way into the minds of many good intentioned, tolerant, well meaning people that they end up making an irreversible change to their kids.
And unfortunately, the science here is not on their side.
We don't actually know what the long term impact of gender affirming care is. We just don't know. It has not been studied enough. We haven't had time to develop a consensus and there is a reason other countries are starting to pull back.
The cost of being wrong is too high.
The approach moving forward for Democrats is simple: stop saying and believing that "transwomen are women"
This means:
We should invest more resources in mental healthcare for trans kids but ask them to wait for adulthood before physically transitioning.
As Democrats, we need to accept that the male body offers advantages and not fault local school districts or sporting bodies who disqualify trans athletes.
Fairness matters and we need to let them keep sports fair.
We need to stop twisting the American language into erasing womanhood. Don't be afraid of the word "mothers".
And we need to stop centering the conversation around a provably false statement because transwomen aren't women.
Transwomen are transwomen. Transmen are transmen.
They all deserve personal liberty and the freedom to live their lives how they see fit. They deserve to live lives of worth and dignity. And they need our help.
And those three words and the polices they create aren't helping.
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