How Trump’s Transgender-Military Ban Might Have Been Defensible

The executive order would be more defensible if rather than veering into whether transitioning ones gender identity is dishonorable and untruthful, not to mention selfish, the administration had instead focused on practical issues. A point made in passing that should have been central is the reference to “the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved.”
An argument certainly could be made (but wasn’t) that just as insulin-dependent diabetics are barred from enlisting — as insulin can’t be guaranteed to deployed troops — so, too, it would seem reasonable to bar transgender personnel dependent on the lifelong use of cross-sex hormones, as people who have physically transitioned typically are. https://stephenhenrymiller.substack.com/p/how-trumps-transgender-military-ban


Added:

Along similar lines, The Scroll’s Adam Lehrer reports:

Rob Smith, an openly gay combat veteran, argues that the removal of trans people from the military is the right move because, he says, transgender service members are non-deployable, meaning that while their treatments are covered by Veterans Affairs, they effectively can’t serve the military primarily because they require ongoing medical treatments that are not compatible with military readiness. So, while some are criticizing the removal of 8,000 service members from the military, Smith and others assert that the executive orders remove 8,000 non-deployable service members and replace them with 8,000 deployable members.

The Sermon (and who is actually putting ‘gay kids’ at risk)

Ben Appel writes about the Inaugural prayer service sermon that LGBTQ+ activists and progressive media have been celebrating:

By now, you may have heard about the sermon that Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde delivered during the inaugural prayer service…. Near the end of her sermon, Budde addressed President Trump directly. “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” she said. “There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.” …
I hadn’t planned to write about this topic until I came across a New York Times headline on Wednesday, which appeared to take a page right out of a Democratic strategist’s playbook. “Bishop Asks Trump to ‘Have Mercy’ on Immigrants and Gay Children,” the headline read. Yes, Budde did mention gay and lesbian kids as well as trans kids. But let’s not pretend that that’s the population the Democrats, the mainstream media, and LGBTQ activist organizations are constantly fretting about “protecting”: gay kids. …
We need to be very clear: President Trump’s executive order on “gender ideology extremism,” just like the Florida legislation before it, is a direct result of the total capture of our institutions by the pseudoscientific religious belief of gender ideology. If blue-haired radicals hadn’t entered schools and told kids that sex is “assigned” rather than simply observed, that the sex they feel like inside supersedes the material reality of their bodies, and that some kids don’t have a sex at all, then these measures wouldn’t even be a figment in the GOP’s imagination. …
For years now, gay people like me have been pleading with Democrats, mainstream news outlets, and activist organizations to consider the implications of affirming feminine boys and masculine girls as “transgender,” when the research (not to mention our own experiences) tells us that nearly all of these gender-dysphoric/gender-nonconforming/whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-them kids, if not socially transitioned, will grow up to be gay and choose not to medically transition. …


And this, a welcomed development:

More Americans Oppose Female-Identifying Males in Women’s Sports

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Added: The LGB Alliance USA praises President Trump’s executive order. It’s arguable if the order goes too far by not recognizing adults who transition, but there’s no question that the ludicrous over-reach by transactivists, especially regarding putting gender-nonconforming kids on the trans train and obviously bio males in women’s locker rooms and sports teams, led to this.

Even Most Democrats Oppose Medicalized Conversion Therapy for Minors

Just-released results from a New York Times/Ipsos poll show that 71% of Americans (including 54% of Democrats) believe…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Sunday, January 19, 2025


Ben Appel makes clear why big-money LGBTQ+ groups are so wrong:


And an Inauguration Day post from the LGBT Courage Coalition:


A thought from the LGB Alliance: “Some people believe girls who like football need puberty blockers and a double mastectomy. We believe they need football boots.”

A Nomination Based on Merit, Not DEI

America and the GOP have come a long way since the days when George W. Bush tried to ban same-sex marriage.

At his confirmation hearing for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent thanked “my spouse, John Freeman” and their two children, Cole and Caroline. His family sat behind him.

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Friday, January 17, 2025


Bessent was not nominated because of his sexual orientation in order to check an identity group box. He was nominated regardless of his sexual orientation, which is how it should be.

Scott Bessent explains how his dream of attending the U.S. Naval Academy and, later, his effort to join the foreign…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Saturday, January 18, 2025


Could the silence from progressive LGBTQ+ activist groups be because his appointment was based solely on merit and not mandated by DEI identity-group hierarchies?

Chuck Ross at the Washington Free Beacon reports: >>President-elect Donald Trump's pick for Treasury secretary, Scott…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Tuesday, December 17, 2024


Update:


Here’s Roll Calls breakdown of the confirmation vote.

Boys and Girls

Andrew Doyle writes: >>Of all the absurdities of the culture war, perhaps the most egregious is the normalisation of the…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Wednesday, January 15, 2025

As the Post-Millennial reports, the bill amends Title IX to read:

It shall be a violation of subsection (a) for a recipient of Federal financial assistance who operates, sponsors, or facilitates an athletic program or activity to permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls. … [Sex under the amendment] shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth. …
Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit a recipient from permitting males to train or practice with an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls so long as no female is deprived of a roster spot on a team or sport, opportunity to participate in a practice or competition, scholarship, admission to an educational institution, or any other benefit that accompanies participating in the athletic program or activity.

Odds & Ends

We’re seeing more indications that the smug, elitist, soft authoritarianism known colloquially as “woke” finally may be receding, leaving it its wake a legacy ranging from lost rights to freedom of speech and equal treatment under the law, to civil disasters, some deadly. Turns out, for instance, that replacing merit and ability as hiring and promotion metrics with identity group “equity” doesn’t work out so well.
But key constituencies on the left, including the LGBTQ+ progressives who dominant what was once the movement for gay and lesbian legal equality and social acceptance (what a quaint idea!), remain committed to the woke ideology in all its critical race and critical gender glory.

Maybe her primary goal should have been preparing the LAFD to fight fires. Adam Lehrer at The Scroll reports: >>In 2022,…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Wednesday, January 8, 2025


And this:


Added: GLAAD comes out full force against ending woke censorship at Facebook. The group has long favored silencing voices it disagrees with.

Hopes and Warnings for 2025

Andrew Doyle’s wish list for 2025 includes “a complete ban on puberty blockers” and that “we need to stop basing public…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Friday, January 3, 2025


Clearly, the fight to protect gay kids will heat up this year, with the LGBTQ+ left all-in on promoting transitioning for gender-nonconforming kids, most of whom we know would otherwise go through puberty and recognize themselves as gay. Here are a few worthwhile recent posts on this struggle.

Jesse Singal writes: >>It’s very strange to deny the possibility that social transition may alter a child’s…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Tuesday, December 31, 2024

And:

Matt Margolis writes: >>A user on X accused [J.K. Rowling] of having a “hateful focus on trans kids” and declared it…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Monday, December 30, 2024

An interesting idea:

The “Our Duty” Substack argues that “transgender ideation” is a better term than “gender dysphoria”: >> Terms like "…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Monday, December 23, 2024


And worth repeating:

Why Minors Should Not Be Put on Puberty Blockers

Ben Appel puts it on the line in this excerpt from his newsletter:


Click above for his full article, which is well worth reading.


Expect more sad stories such as this on about detransitioners who recognize they are gay, not trans:

LGBT Courage Coalition and LeAnne Owen write: >>Born in 1975, just six years after me, [detransitioner Corinna Cohn's]…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Tuesday, December 17, 2024


Relatedly, worth noting. Wesley Yang writes:

The transgender issue only affects a small handful of people directly. But it’s more important than any other cultural issue, with the widest implications. All those who scoff at my single-minded focus on it are wrong.
It touches on every aspect of American political economy and knowledge formation, every aspect of its manners and mores, every aspects of American character formation, and is the linchpin of the Therapeutic Statism that is the new secularized pseudo-theology at the foundation of institutional America’s warrant to rule.
Any understanding of this issue that does not credit its overarching importance is profoundly defective.

More on Supreme Court Skrmetti Hearing

Andrew Sullivan posted this comment regarding the Supreme Court hearing on whether a state can ban sex-change procedures…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Tuesday, December 10, 2024


Well worth listening too:

Another excellent panel discussion that includes several organizers of the Supreme Court rally against transitioning…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Tuesday, December 10, 2024


LGBTQ+ activists say this doesn’t happen:

The New York Post reports: >>Clementine Breen, now 20, filed a medical negligence lawsuit against Dr. Johanna…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Saturday, December 7, 2024


Here’s hoping.

In the U.K. Next June we'll learn if the U.S. Supreme Court will let states here in the U.S. protect gender-nonconforming gay kids by doing the same.

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Thursday, December 12, 2024


This is really so sad:

Ed Driscoll posts at Instapundit: >>ANNETTE BENING SAYS THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD ABOUT HAVING A “TRANS CHILD:” Let’s look…

Posted by IGF CultureWatch on Tuesday, December 10, 2024