Your blogger has a wide choice to write about in this moment of the Musk/Trump coup against the United States of America. What to highlight. ..?
Smart people -- correctly I think -- say the most egregious violation of what all Americans expect from our government -- supposedly ruling by and for the people -- is a billionaire's lawless intrusion on government databases. And, probably, that's a right instinct. But it is not something I know much about. Go to Don Moynihan for this.
Here I'll often focus on the injuries Trump's coup is doing to migrants. Immigration restrictionists wish to forget that people have always got around.
In any subject area, I'll bring up instances where I have something to share out of my life experience and study that I think more people should know about.
And I promise to chronicle, to the best of my ability, these monsters' assault on the humanity of people whose realities to do not conform to their myopic gender expectations -- transpeople, binary people, uppity women all round, the weirdos!
Chris Geidner is a legal commentator who writes Law Dork. He reports a conversation with Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU's LGBTQ & HIV Project. They are both already engaged in litigation seeking to preserve the rights and dignity of transpeople against the onslaught.
LAW DORK: At one point, Minter really summed up the discussion: “We're under attack in a very terrifying way, but we do still have a lot of power, and how this story comes out does depend to a great degree on what we do right now.”
... basically what we've had is a series of executive orders in the first two weeks of the Trump administration that started right from January 20 with the executive order defining — purporting to define — sex for the federal government, but, as we'll discuss, that also contained several other provisions that led to fallout across agencies. ... There has already been significant litigation and even some court orders pulling back on some of this.
SHANNON MINTER: ... this is an attempt to brutalize, humiliate and crush a tiny minority group [so] as to desensitize everyone. And I'll just say, if they can do this to transgender people, they can do it to you or to anyone, and they're already doing that. They're already coming after many other groups....
CHASE STRANGIO: ... we're fighting this on the front of the states and the federal government, with huge implications for individual constitutional rights protected under the Reconstruction amendments, but also what the separation of powers will continue to look like.
LAW DORK: ... How are you all dealing, in advocacy organizations, with trying to talk with organizations and entities that have been providing care — not just in the medical care context, but anybody. As the education EO ripples out, as these funding questions ripple out, how are how are you talking with people about what they should be doing, what they can be doing, what they need to be doing right now? ...
STRANGIO: So, I would say sort of two main things: Trying to remind people that these executive orders are not self executing. President Trump on his own did not change the law. It did not become illegal to treat transgender people under the age of 19 when he signed that order on January 28 and, especially with the education EO, it's very important for people to understand, these are directives to federal agencies that in no way change people's legal obligations, and, in fact, as the California Department of Education rightfully came out and said, does nothing — the President doesn't have that authority. So we're trying to remind institutions and individuals of that fact.
... I'm curious, Shannon, as well, how you're helping people understand the difference between an executive order and what their legal obligations actually are.
MINTER: ... I mean, you've captured it beautifully. And I think we should remember, most hospitals and clinics are continuing to provide care, but some, as you said, are complying in advance out based on fear and intimidation. I think it's just very important that we recognize, they're not the bad guys here. We've got to remember to keep the focus on where the trouble is coming from him. This is the president. ... he's doing it — just because he can get away with that, because transgender people are such a vulnerable minority.
... But the real goal is to just do away with all checks and balances, to take power away from Congress, take power away from the Supreme Court, make Trump and Musk just be the unchecked rulers of our universe.
... They're saying they're not going to have any events celebrating MLK Day, and look at what's going on with the CDC where they're removing massive amounts of public health information from the website, everything about transgender people, but a lot of stuff just about women. At this point, acknowledging the existence of women as half the population in this country has been labeled as an unlawful DEI activity....
STRANGIO: To that, you can see how there's this very strategic move to cast human beings as ideologies. You see transgender people become gender ideology, and then that ideology can be attacked and eradicated in their mind. Of course, we as transgender people are going to continue to exist, in the same way they talk about individuals as DEI hires, as if they're not just using that as some code word for people of color or for women or for disabled people, and then weaponizing all of this language with very serious, material consequences.
... I don't want people to wake up three months from now and realize, "Wow, we should have stood up right on the first two weeks when they were attacking trans people, because now all of a sudden, I can't get my birth control, or my doctor doesn't know how to advise my child on adolescent health," and that's really where we're headed. ...
You can listen to the whole interview on YouTube.
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