Did our side win?
A post-election conversation with Ben Appel, Corinna Cohn, Jamie Reed, and Lisa Selin Davis
Ben Appel, Corinna Cohn, Jamie Reed, Lisa Selin Davis, and I talk about the recent election, how Democrats and Republicans each traffic in their own forms of post-factuality politics, and what we think the next few months will bring.
Also wanted to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!
I also didn’t vote! My first election not voting. I just couldn’t justify supporting either candidate, although, like Ben, I did feel some vindictive pleasure at the party that threw me under the bus losing so badly. I assumed Trump was going to win, and by a landslide. I actually am loving Rep Mace’s unapologetic and straight-talking style (and flashy clothes and rockstar vibe) on this issue and I think, as a woman, it’s obvious to me that it comes from a genuine place. She has made it very clear that as a survivor of rape and domestic abuse, and as a “girl mom” and graduate from the citadel (I cheered when she called herself a “feminist”- when was the last time anyone other than an Uber-liberal called themselves a feminist, publicly?) that she will defend women’s civil rights. I think we might see a resurgence in feminism- but this time from the right. And I think the answer to bathrooms is simple: female only bathrooms are a civil right. But so too can be appropriate bathrooms for trans people. Whatever happened to the push for accessible single-stall special needs bathrooms? Being a feminized guy or a masculinized woman counts as having “special needs” for changing rooms and bathrooms, surely? Surely we can advocate for that on the basis of “accessibility?”
Did you see what Mace said when that guy started shouting at her during the tech panel? She said “I love him, God loves him, AND his penis won’t be in my bathroom.” I feel like that’s the right approach going forward. It brings together a heart-strings/liberal-friendly compassion, religious/conservative-friendly compassion, and also very firm boundaries for women. The left will continue denigrating people like her, and anyone associated with Trump for a while, but I don’t think it will last much longer. The right is already becoming quite liberal, getting increasingly “cool,” and as soon as people start “coming out” as moderate/anti-woke on these issues the Dems will pivot. But I did publicly follow Mace on Instagram. People need to see or hear public support for these individuals. Those who are self-employed or who can risk being fired need to lead the charge here.
So many thoughtful things being discussed. I have two points I would like to add:
I seriously though about not voting, but ultimately I voted for Harris. This is why: I know we'd all like to have the kind of justice that Jamie talks about where doctors lose their licenses for the harms they have done, but I don't think that will happen. Licensing happens at the state level. The worst of the gender doctors are in blue states. It is very unlikely blue states are going to take the licenses away from doctors following APA, AAP, and AMA guidelines, as wrong as those guidelines are. I think we need to let go of the idea that we have to punish the wrongdoers. *We just need this to stop* And I think the only way out of this is through what I recently saw the LGBT courage coalition and Jamie write about: quiet quitting. This is not going to end with a spectacular admission of wrong and people getting punished. It's going to end with quiet changes in insurance policies, doctors and hospitals quietly dropping out of this, teenagers deciding this isn't the way to express their distress or gain an identity, and parents thinking there's a better, non-medical progressive way to support their gender nonconforming/highly distressed child/teen. We were seeing signs of this quiet quitting beginning, most importantly with a sharp decrease in medical procedures on minors in 2023. I think quiet quitting on the left would most likely continue under Harris, and I worry under Trump, the left, the ROGD kids, and the mothers transitioning their little kids will dig in even deeper on this as a way to show they are "part of the resistance" and "Trump will not stop them" and there will be more kids harmed through both medical and social transition and holding tighter to the ideology.
Which takes me to the second thought. I want to take Lisa's comment on how it's not kind to tell these kids they can change sex or choose their puberty. There's a lot of focus on the gender nonconforming child, the child who will likely grow up gay. But we're forgetting the huge number of teen girls and young women getting into this as an expression of extreme emotional distress and the large number of borderline personality traits (not disorder, but the traits so often seen in typical adolescents, autistic girls, and traumatized young people) and so much of what doctors, teachers, therapists, glitter families, the left, and all the "kind people" are doing is reinforcing this emotional distress and these borderline trait patterns (all or nothing thinking, blaming others, suicide threats, unstable identity, externalizing control) that will make life and relationships incredibly hard and unhappy for these girls AND THAT IS NOT KIND. Lisa mentions her own history with this unhappiness and instability in this talk and has written about in on her substack. Encouraging these thought and behavior patterns in these girls (and yes, some young men but this is overwhelmingly girls) is incredibly cruel.