Member-only story
Tonight’s Ban on Adult Gender Transition (Yes, 18-Year-Olds are Adults)
By executive order, the federal government will not support transition
Today, the US received a new executive order.
Folks:
“Maiming” is unspecific and implies a violent crime. “Sterilizing” is generally untrue, at least for children. “A growing number” is fact-free; if the president had numbers, he’d provide them. “Impressionable” is a gratuitous adjective before “children.” “Radical and false” is just a dismissive insult, “irreversible” means little insofar as every choice is irreversible because time doesn’t flow backward, and “dangerous” is likewise unsupported.
“Countless children,” again, suggests only that he has not bothered to count them, and he may have neglected to do so because so few trans people regret transition. Still fewer (even among those who regret their transition) consider it to have been a “horrifying tragedy.” Not all regrets are horrifying and tragic, after all.
“Vulnerable” is another gratuitous adjective before “youths.”
Everyone’s medical bills rise cumulatively throughout our lifetimes. If I pay $100 to my doctor today, my cumulative lifetime medical bills are $100 higher than they were yesterday.
Having alleged “they will never be able to conceive children of their own,” he says another problem they have is “often…tragically, sterilization.” No, not “tragically”; redundantly. This is just bad writing.
He puts “transition” in scare-quotes and diminishes it as “so-called.” He doesn’t provide a substitute term, which means the government has no word for referring to someone’s actual transition. This is a way of telling us we don’t exist.
