The impact of Turek’s proposal would be profoundly harmful for transgender people.

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/politics/p/1270828/iowa-dem-josh-turek-releases-anti-trans-ad-calling-for-a-federal-funding-ban-on-trans-care

On Saturday, Oct. 24, Josh Turek, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, released a new ad targeting transgender people—perhaps the worst anti-transgender ad of the entire election cycle to come from a Democrat. The ad begins with Turek talking about his disability and the importance of not discriminating, before immediately turning to adopt discriminatory policies toward transgender people. One such policy is a sports ban, a position sadly becoming increasingly common among high-profile Democrats in competitive races, and one that alone would have made this yet another newsworthy anti-trans ad. But Turek then goes further, advocating for a new policy: a proposal to ban federally funded gender-affirming care in the United States, one that would impact a substantial number of transgender people and make their care difficult to impossible to receive.

  • neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    14 hours ago

    Paraphrasing from elsewhere…

    Here are some thoughtful questions I’d like to see the US Senate-hopeful from Iowa, Josh Turek, receive during this campaign season:

    • Would he shake the hand of a person who is HIV-positive? Would he use the same toilet after them?

    • What does he think about gay couples adopting children?

    • What does he think about public schools employing homosexual men as teachers?

    These are all bad faith questions, loyalty tests, that were once lobbed at politicians. Their effectiveness relied on the inaccurate and undeniably cruel presumptions that gay people are inherently unclean or unfit to care for children.

    For a while this worked. Fearful of abandonment by a prejudiced constituency, would-be leaders hemmed and hawed and furrowed their brows at these kinds of questions. At best, they would find strategic ways to dodge them. At worst, they would give in to laziness, play along with those cruel presumptions and pander to a popular false narrative.

    Eventually all of those narrative were found to be false, cynically constructed to prey upon fears against those who can not help but look and act different than the majority. It took the bravery of millions of people, risking their livelihoods and relationships, sharing their inner lives and living their truths to shatter those falsehoods. It took a lot more than a single child’s insight to prove that emperor was wearing no clothes.

    And here we go again. Another time, another false narrative: segregating transgender girls is fair and right.

    This may feel like it makes sense, just as it may feel risky to use the same toilet seat as a person with a life-impacting sexually transmitted infection. But in both cases, two important facts cut them down to size: a) they’re both completely false, and b) the scenarios presented aren’t happening often enough for any of it to matter in the first place. They’re veiled attempts to codify prejudice into law, plain and simple.

    Please instruct Senate-hopeful Turek that his party is not the one that does that.