Debate on Gender Identity and Medicalization

Gender ideology, as defined as the belief system

that we are

all assigned a sex at birth and need to go

through a journey of our own to find a gender identity that is

separate from that sex, is the very

ideological belief system that is reinforcing the

stereotypes its most fervent ideologues claim

to be dissolving.

For example, a man who dresses a little bit more

femininely, you know, he's wearing makeup, he puts on nail polish,

a dress, maybe his wrist a little bit more limp, he

is breaking the common understanding of what it means to be a man.

And anybody with half a brain or any sense of decency would say to

themselves, "Go be you. God bless." The common

understandings of what it means to be a man and a woman are often

wrong, cruel, suppressive of a very creative

spirit in us all that leads to the people the likes of

which this

world so desperately needs.

And then that man calls himself a woman,

and he is the one reinforcing those very

negative stereotypes, as if being a woman is

a feeling, a feeling of being feminine that

can be distilled into something that anybody

can achieve. As if being a man

is just a feeling that anybody can achieve when

distilled.

This is dangerously wrong. And let me read you a quote

from a woman named Kara Dansky,

former lawyer for the ACLU,

derived as the pejorative word TERF,

someone who we are told we shouldn't listen to, who says very

presciently, quote, "Women have had to fight for our rights

for

thousands of years, all over the world, and for hundreds

of years in this country, because we have been discriminated against

and excluded from public civil

society, from the educational arena, from the legal

arena, from numerous arenas on the

basis of sex.

And many of us who support these movements are not about to turn around and

pretend that sex is not a meaningful

legal and physical category." And I'm

not either, Kara. Because as soon as we say

that being a man is no more than a feeling that anybody can achieve, as soon as we

say that being a woman is no more than a feeling that anybody

can achieve, those strict legal

definitions, the basis of which

these sex-based rights that are

the protections from horrific discrimination the world has

seen,

don't mean anything.

They are dissolved. Because the law is

only as good as its definitions. And if definitions mean no

more than what we feel, then they don't mean

anything. Language doesn't mean anything.

And the law no longer means anything.

My other

gripe beyond sex-based spaces that

has caused

the teeny bits of controversy that I have experienced over the course of

my last four years in the statehouse

has been standing up against the belief that we are all born in

the wrong body and need to medicalize ourselves

in order to achieve who we truly are.

Children being told this

is most importantly the issue.

Because when you listen to people like John Skinner, Claire

Abernathy, Prishma Mosley, and the many others who are labeled as

detransitioners,

but are really just young people who have had their

bodies destroyed, their endocrine systems

damaged, their sexual function left

destroyed. I mean,

let me collect myself before I get too upset or graphic.

These people make you realize

what are we supporting?

And when in the legislature looking at the legislation

and having to make a strict up or down decision on the issue,

one that I never had to make. Before it was just, yeah, let people

be people. What does it actually truly matter?

And then you have to make the decision.

And if you're making a good decision, you listen to all.

And that includes these people who we've been told, don't listen to them.

They're nothing more than hateful conservatives.

They're nothing more than actors. They're nothing more than liars.

If that is what you truly believe after having heard the testimony of John Skinner

and Claire Abernathy and Prishma and so many others,

then I question your sense of reality.

I could not allow myself hearing

these brave testimonies of these people who could so

easily have found themselves hidden in their shell of

regret, of pain, of horror that is on

their body. Instead saying, no, I'm going to go out

and brave my entire soul to the world to make sure that no one

else gets to the point that I'm at right now.

And say to them, oh, not going to listen to you.

No, I'm listening. Don't worry. I'm listening.

If nobody else is, I am. And so many others truly

actually are. They're just afraid to stand up because of

the fervent nature of those who have continued to shut this

conversation down as no more than a distraction.

Does it sound distracting to you to keep kids out of a life of being a

patient? Does it sound distracting to you to tell

people

that you are reinforcing the sex-based

stereotypes that you claim to be dissolving by saying that people need to

achieve these stereotypes through medical interventions?

No, that's not a distraction. That's one of many

policy conversations in a legislature that needs to walk, chew

gum, pat its head, rub its tummy all at the same time.

Got it?

Folks,

anybody who tells you you are born in the wrong

body and you need to medicalize yourself with drugs and

surgery that are going to put you on a life of being a patient is a

charlatan who is lying to you.

You are born in the right body. Everybody

has their right body and nobody needs

drugs, surgery, and other lies and fantasies in

order to achieve who they truly are as a human being in this

society. And I yearn for a world where that

is the liberal movement that stands up for the health,

well-being, and truth of this society.

And that is what I'm fighting for if I return to the legislature.

And I make no qualms or apologies for standing up with the

brave

souls and women and men who have fought for and are

continuing to fight for the sex-based spaces and rights in

our world and against those who would tell

children to medicalize themselves in order to achieve who they truly are.

Because who you truly are is now.