Thursday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, February 16, 2023
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81 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Happy Friday Eve, everyone!
@Flat Earth Luddite: Blech.
Came across this and thought I would share.
Mythbusters: Breaking Down the Myths of Military Service
10 MILITARY MYTHS THAT MYSTIFY…. The article goes on. Enjoy.
BTW, my military career was pretty benign. 20 year active duty AF (1980-2000), a fairly quiet time. And the working for the Air Force as a contractor for another 20 years bouncing around the bases in San Antonio.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before….it’s -30 again. 😐 😐 I’ve had quite enough, thanks. This is seriously one of the longest, coldest winters I’ve experienced here.
The lists of myths is good, though I think I saw marriage problems more than he saw, probably because it was Desert Storm. With that deployment we went over and there was no idea about when we would return. That uncertainty pushed a lot fo people into bad behaviors. Also, it was our first real mass deployment since Viet Nam and I think people had got complacent. Do your 20 and get a pension wasn’t meant to include actually going to war so people, especially spouses, weren’t prepared. Also, since we hadn’t had a big deployment for a long time my sense is that communication with families was pretty bad at a number of bases.
Steve
@Scott:
If I never hear “thank you for your service” again, it’ll be too soon.
@steve: I never had to experience a long deployment. Just a couple weeks at a time for exercises. And the experience is quite different depending on which service you are in.
@Mikey: I actually ran into a guy on a dating site who got mad because I didn’t “acknowledge his service properly”. Then he went on and on about how he had a mission at the southern border to protect our country’s sovereignty, and I blocked him. 😛
Ron DeSantis requested the medical records of all trans students in Florida’s public universities.
Gov. Ron DeSantis told all public universities in Florida to hand over the medical records of all trans students.
Insider has confirmed six of the 12 universities have complied with the request.
Now, college students across the state are planning a walkout to protest the governor’s request.
“At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Well, I guess we already knew the answer to that question.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/ron-desantis-requested-the-medical-records-of-all-trans-students-in-florida-s-public-universities-now-students-are-planning-a-statewide-walkout/ar-AA17zjrQ?cvid=703a6518296740668bbf61559b5c6c6b
@Jax:
My word, it’s 58 degrees here in northeastern Essex County, Mass.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
I’m sorry about this. But what do walk-outs accomplish in an academic setting? The students get out of class, and the profs get out of teaching. And life goes on.
@Flat Earth Luddite: A walkout? How about a lawsuit? Surely medical privacy laws prevail. I’m sure DeSantis doesn’t care but university employees would not care to be sued.
@Scott: Seriously, this was my reaction. He needs to be sued to high heaven. This is outrageous.
I’m beyond shocked that a single record was turned over.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
@CSK:
@Scott:
It doesn’t really matter. DeSantis could put every Trans person on a bus to Martha’s Vineyard and people would just shrug. Then tell us it’s our fault we’re freaks and deserve it. Just like The NY Times did.
This is all part and parcel of the slow beginning of the Genocide of Trans people. And no one really gives a shit.
@Jax: You can send some of it in this direction if you like. We’ve barely had any kind of winter* here at all.
* the exception being the deep freeze cold spell around x-mas. A week plus of highs in the single digits to low teens and below zero nights.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
@Jen:
I ask with all sincerity….. At what point is a person considered “a Trans student”? Is someone who has just started hormones a trans student? How about someone who identifies as a woman or man yet has no plans to ever go through the process of transitioning medically? Where would the line be?
Also, can’t believe anyone anywhere turned over medical records without a direct order from a judge. Someone needs to be sued. Quickly.
@Flat Earth Luddite: Ummmm… HIPAA anyone? Forget protesting, they need they need to sue the piss out of the state of Floriduh.
@Beth: A few of us do.
I see a lot of folks here had the same first thought I did.
From the HHS HIPAA page:
So much for suing.
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, HIPAA was my first thought. My second thought, spurred by recently doing paperwork to put my wife in a memory care facililty, was to wonder what forms giving permission to share medical information students may have signed as part of the admission process.
@OzarkHillbilly:
That could well be just elementary and secondary schools. Colleges and universities may not be required to be compliant. From what I’ve read, none of them are.
@Beth:
That is nonsense. No one (but a few loons) is out to kill trans people, they are out to make their lives miserable, but extreme defeatist rhetoric is not helpful. The trans rights movement has been a master class in how not to make political progress. Now that the 100% predictable backlash is here, what, surrender?
No, now is when the Trans rights movement maybe starts to learn basic politics. Like don’t overreach. And don’t be an asshole to allies because the reality is Trans folk are too small a minority to have any native in-group power. Stop picking meaningless fights so you can focus on what matters. And retreat from losing positions – trans athletes come to mind.
This defeatist, holocaust bullshit has my daughter – and I’m sure a hell of a lot of other trans people – in despair. This fight is not lost. This fight is not nearly lost. But it is a fight. A message must be crafted. Money must be raised. Leaders must be found. Strategy and tactics devised. It is time to change hearts and minds.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I await correction but I believe “schools” refer to elementary and high school records which are covered under Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). However, at 18, rights transfer to the individual student. College age students 18 and older are covered under HIPAA.
“Trump’s deranged death penalty musings could run into a problem: The law.”
http://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/trump-public-executions-firing-squads-rcna70751
@EddieInCA: I’m just guessing, but in reading the article it specifies the law that prohibits state employees from providing any “gender-affirming care.” So my hunch is that they’ve targeted any psychiatric or psychology services students have received, along with any possible medications that may have been requested or administered by medical facilities at the schools that
rolled over“complied” with this invasion of privacy.JFC. I am so angry.
@Scott:
The colleges and universities themselves aren’t covered by HIPAA.
@OzarkHillbilly: I would happily send some your way. You can have all the snow, too, I was out breaking out a new stackyard and feedground for the cows yesterday, and if this snow was any wetter, I wouldn’t have enough tractor. It’s almost not enough tractor, as it is! The drifts around the stackyard are as tall as the fence.
It was kinda fun breaking out the feedlines, though. The top crust of the snow breaks into big plates that skate across the top in front of the tractor. Vroom vroom, I’m an icebreaker! 😛 😛 Gotta find the fun somewhere, I guess.
@CSK: “My word, it’s 58 degrees here in northeastern Essex County, Mass.”
And 63 in midtown Manhattan…
@Jax: Good choice! [Thumb up emoji]
@Flat Earth Luddite: Wait… you’re assuming that De Santis had decency at some point in the paste. That’s a stretch in my mind.
@Jen:
If that’s the case (which sounds likely, as I’m not sure what other departments in a college would have the information–housing, maybe?), then it’s a HIPAA violation. Anyone dispensing medicine or providing care would be a covered entity (health care provider), and a case may be made that as part of the university (engaged as a business associate) that the university would be required to follow the rules also. That’s for the lawyers to hash out.
The one loophole is that HIPAA only kicks in if “they transmit any information in an electronic form in connection with a transaction for which HHS has adopted a standard.”
I expect some major legal players to step up pro-bono in this and hopefully kick some Floridian ass.
@Mu Yixiao:
Colleges and universities are not covered entities, according to this law firm.
http://www.thompsoncoburn.com/insights/blogs/regucation/post/2016/02/03/is-your-institution-of-higher-education-covered-by-hipaa-
HIPAA doesn’t apply. FERPA does.
My understanding is that the request is not for “medical records.” Rather it is for aggregated and de-identified data. Doesn’t justify the means or the ends. I just think it’s important to be accurate so as to focus one’s attention, outrage, etc.
I wish I had your confidence in the major legal players of our society and their commitment to pro bono service to our society. But we CAN take comfort in MR’s proclamation that Beth‘s fears are nonsense. I wish I HAD as much confidence in MR’s proclamations as MR does, but he has ordained, and I guess we should all breathe easier because of it.
@Michael Reynolds:
The unmitigated gaul of a cis man telling an actual trans woman that he knows better than all trans people what challenges they face, that right-wing violence directed at her is both her imagination and entirely her fault, and that she needs to shut up and start following his orders is pretty much the perfect demonstration of why most liberal “allyship” is completely worthless.
No civil rights movement has ever advanced by trying to make the powers-that-be more comfortable.
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m too lazy to dig it up, but I’ve worked with HIPAA a fair amount and I’m pretty sure there is an exception for complying with legal requests. It was intended for criminal matters, but I would imagine you could sure other state or federal requests under it.
@CSK:
404 on the article.
But… The people actually providing the medical care (psychiatric & psychological services, pharmacies) are covered*. So if these are medical records from university-provided medical providers, HIPAA is involved.
If it’s not medical records, or is medical information provide outside of the medical providers, then it’s not. Just because a doctor or pharmacist work for a university does not make them exempt from HIPAA.
So the question is: Where is this information originating from within the university?
====
* Given the caveat I stated above.
@Mimai: Then there’s a big issue with the news article, which very clearly states that what was requested were “medical records.”
The reporting is unambiguous on this:
@Michael Reynolds:
What exactly has been our overreach? That we want to not be laughed at while left dying on the side of the road?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/12/10/a-death-robbed-of-dignity-mobilizes-a-community/2ca40566-9d67-47a2-80f2-e5756b2753a6/
That we don’t want to live in terror when we use the bathroom? That a tiny percentage of us want the same athletic opportunities as our cis compatriots? That we want medical care to 1. know what the fuck they are talking about (a problem Cis women share) and 2. treat us with respect?
What did we do other than be a tiny minority ripe to be screwed over by populists and well meaning liberals like you who think that we should just accept that we are freaks and take our punches.
I’m sure it’s a fairly universal experience for minority groups facing extermination to be told that we’re overreacting. I took my son to a Notre Dame basketball game a couple weekends ago. I had my head on a swivel the entire time I was there. I a trans woman surrounded by kids was a huge fucking target. I had to ask another mom that if something happened to me if she would take care of my son. She said we were safe, I told her no. I know for a fact that more than half of the other parents wouldn’t lift a finger to protect me or my kid.
Make no mistake, this is a genocide.
https://www.yahoo.com/now/south-dakota-passes-first-law-200000769.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEUdJKZY0F7O6TWFYR6IsxOlMXS4pcY6SgwfA4BYIr0SjFzlUSes3IOR-UH_vJX9eFSiFwmMxyWy79D4vIG7iMcxSWfg3VmQuYNkkJpBnLTz70BZTTJ-dmQDRshkD1msv3FtpV4VBlCvJr4pwNZjmFGMgdpUdQ45-43rwZI19e8G
The next step is adults. They think that if they can make our lives hell and scare the shit out of us that we’ll disappear. It doesn’t work that way. I spent almost 40 miserable years trying to be a man, that was an unspeakable fucking horror. I would rather be tortured and killed than go back to that. The PTSD from experiencing a queer childhood in the 80’s and 90’s gives me the clarity to know how fucking awful it can get.
The basic fact is that with all your money, and with my considerably less, but still substantial money, your daughter is not safe in CA and I’m not safe in IL. If you don’t think this is a genocide, then your eyeballs are going to pop out of your head when the next republican president bans Trans healthcare.
Here is the memo.
@Michael Reynolds:
What was her overreach?
https://abcnews.go.com/International/teens-charged-death-transgender-tiktok-personality-brianna-ghey/story?id=97230426
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/kansas-push-to-define-sex-decried-as-erasing-transgender-people
https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d378d/anti-trans-bills-2023
https://www.advocate.com/politics/pence-transgender-pronouns
Trans kids become Trans adults if we let them.
That she was on tiktok? That she had the gall to be a Trans kid in a WILDLY transphobic society?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Gwen_Araujo
What was Gwen’s overreach? That she had the temerity to be herself? I think about Gwen constantly. Her murder terrified me more than I can explain. I carry her memory with me and will refuse to let her be forgotten.
https://www.hrc.org/news/the-cold-case-of-an-lgbtq-pioneer-marsha-p-johnson
When do you think the NYPD will deign to bother investigating her murder?
https://www.them.us/story/arkansas-legislator-trans-doctor-genitalia
We can’t even defend ourselves.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-republicans-target-transgender-youth-healthcare-legislative-push-2023-02-16/
Genocide.
@Stormy Dragon:
Bayard Rustin
@Stormy Dragon:
I know I’m going to get shit for this, but…
Of course they have. The gay rights movement is a perfect example. Probably the biggest push forward in gay rights was when it stopped being about protests and marches, and became everyday people just saying “I’m gay”; The well-dressed banker, the compassionate doctor, the friendly crossing guard, the helpful grocer. When Hollywood moved away from imagery like The Birdcage, and moved on to Will & Grace. When gays stopped being “scary”, and people started realizing that anybody could be gay–even all those people they know as “normal”–acceptance took a great leap forward. Why? Because the powers-that-be became more comfortable with the situation.
That couldn’t happen, of course, until after the protests and marches and chants of “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” Things had to get shaken up–people had to get noticed–before the movement could progress to the point that a sea-change could happen in public attitudes.
If a movement never gets past the fighting, there will never be peace and understanding.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
If true, it’s definitely worth suing to find out whether or not university medical providers are exempt from HIPAA law. Not that fascists like DeFascist have any compunction about law-breaking.
@Mu Yixiao:
Hahahaha. The gay rights movement — from the 50s to this day — has never ever stopped being about protests and marches and has always included so-called everyday people saying “I’m gay.” Which narrative invented this false dichotomy?
When was that? Lol when have queer people ever “stopped” being under attack — smeared, slandered, and fearmongered about? Transport my gay azz to that alternate reality, it sounds nice.
@Mu Yixiao:
That’s the White Cis Gay rights movement. There is a LOOOOOOOOOOONG history of White, Cis, Gay Men using other LGBTQ groups as punching bags to show how “normal” they are. Trans women and lesbians were pushed overboard constantly to advance the rights of White Cis Gay Men.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb-JIOWUw1o
@Mu Yixiao:
Also, what do you think Pride parades are?
@Jax:
Same af. I hate it here (note: this is me whining about 55-65 degree days and 45-55 degree nights in Los Angeles).
also, also,
In Will in grace you had Will, the height of straight passing gay men, played by a straight man, contrasted with a gay stereotype played by a gay man. And was a contemporary of a show that showed a Trans woman (played by a cis woman) as a joke.
@Mimai: That’s odd in itself. It states that no protected health information should be included, but what they are asking for is…health information. Even de-identified, you can’t remove health information when what you are asking for IS health information.
????
I’m also curious to see the RFI form, which apparently asks for the age of anyone helped. They are clearly on a fishing expedition.
@Beth: Yeah, I’m not getting how The Birdcage is allegedly so very thematically different from Will & Grace. But art criticism is subjective and personal. So.
Well, while it’s likely that few politicians actively want to kill trans people, it is also the case that they want to render them invisible – to have no place, no role in active, public life. To get no treatment. To have no laws that protect them. To have no money spent on them. And so on.
This, it seems to me, is a sort of political genocide, if not a literal genocide.
Now, I am inclined to think that this full-court press is a sign that we have been making headway, and this is no time to give up. I think we need to think strategically, and address issues (sub-issues?) that will gain the most traction.
I also think we need to refrain from throwing rocks at people who are on the same side of this issue. We’d like to throw rocks at people making these terrible laws and policies, but we can’t. Let’s not take it out on the people next to us. Ok?
What we need is organization, money, and some good ideas, and the will and means to execute them. I would ask that if what you have to say doesn’t fit in those categories, review your reasons for saying it.
This situation is not the making of anybody posting here. Let’s not forget that.
@Beth:
Celebrations, not protest marches.
@DK:
68% of Americans support same-sex marriage (and that average is brought down by just a couple deep-south states).
DOMA was 1996
Overturned in 2013
Obergefell was 2015
From 2004 – 2021 in-favor of same sex marriage:
18-34 from 57% to 84%
35-54 from 42% to 72%
55+ from 29% to 60%
Are we in an equality utopia? No, of course not. But things have gotten significantly better. We’ve come a long way from Rock Hudson hiding in the closet to nobody but a fringe caring that Ian McKellan is gay.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of progress.
@Jay L Gischer:
For the record, I adore Daddy Reynolds*. I believe him when he says he’s on “our” side. I believe him when he spends his hard earned fortune, not just on life’s most extravagant luxuries, but also on causes to make everyone’s lives better. I believe he’s a genuinely good person, if perhaps, a tad grumpy. I also believe he’s a hardass who needs to get rocks thrown at him and can weather the avalanche.
One thing I keep returning to post-transition is that men, particularly White Cis Men, need to be constantly asked, “what rights are you willing to give up.” Whether its queer rights, whether it’s women’s rights, men, again, particularly White Cis Men, constantly talk about giving up rights so that they can survive. Whether its women or trans people’s bodily autonomy, gay marriage, or anything else, the first thing to come out of their mouths is always, you’re pushing too hard, you’re asking for too much, you should give up that right so that you won’t be murdered/oppressed/denigrated. I constantly ask men “what rights are you willing to give up.” I rarely get answered.
Our allies should be better than our enemies and more protective of us.
@DK:
Another instance of a “gay’ couple where the straight actor plays the straight acting partner and the gay actor plays the flamboyant character. Such advancement.
@Mu Yixiao:
People were protesting because AIDS was tearing through the gay community and had handed out death sentences. And had it not been for ACT UP getting enough power to work with the CDC it’s quite possible that protease inhibitors would not been available in 1996. They essentially saved millions of lives by their protests.
I know that that death is not as significant as giving up The Birdcage in favor of Will and Grace, but hey some weird people enjoy living.
One of the obvious tells about these anti-trans dimwits who claim to somehow be on the side of the right is that they have absolutely zero familiarity of what it’s like to be on the side of right in the past.
@Beth:
Because I forgot the * and I couldn’t get an edit:
I only give cutesy, bratty nicknames to people I actually like an appreciate. I’m not going to be a brat to someone if it’s not worthwhile.
@Jay L Gischer:
Thank you.
Not all of us can be out on the front lines. But there are those of us doing what we can.
Last comment before I leave this convo:
Back in HS, I was cracking gay jokes and thinking nothing of it. Today, anyone doing so in my presence would get an ear full. Trans? Back then it was nothing but a joke to me. I was young and stupid.
Recently, I was labeling the Christmas cards for our company, and I noticed that Samantha was listed as “Samuel” (our HR program has a field for “legal name” and “preferred name”, Christmas cards use the “legal name” field).
I went down to HR and pointed it out. I also told them that Jackie was listed as James and should also be changed to reflect her gender. And that there was one more employee who’s name I didn’t know that was probably also wrong, and they should talk to someone in R&D to get it corrected.
Sam is one of our phone support techs. She’s early in transition and still has a deep voice. Every so often someone calls in and says “Sam was helping me, can I talk to him.” I reply with “She is talking with someone else right now, so I can’t put you through to her. But let whomever answers know your ticket number, and they can read what she wrote, and pick up where she left off.”
These are small things, but they’re things I can do.
I’ve learned a lot in 50+ years, changed a lot in that time. Maybe it’s not perfect, but I’d like to think I’m helping rather than hurting.
@Mu Yixiao: In much the same was as in a apartment complex one person’s ceiling is another person’s floor, one person’s gay pride march celebration is another’s gay pride march protest.
@Beth: What rights am I willing to give up? That’s easy. Yours. But then again, your issue isn’t lost on me to begin with. I would contend that St. Francis didn’t devise his prayer because others were having problems with being peacemakers and sowing love instead of hatred.
@Mu Yixiao:
I don’t know if you don’t know the history of pride or do and are trying to be cute, but this is literally a “how to start a bar fight in one sentence” response in some places.
Pride parades (originally called Gay Liberation Marches) started as a remembrance of the Stonewall riots and were originally intended as an implicit dare to local police and politicians to try and stop them.
Although they’ve certainly become a lot more sanitized and “family-friendly” in recent years…
@Michael Reynolds:
I think you are very, very wrong about this. Dehumanizing rhetoric, legal discrimination and now moving to identify them? This is what you would need if you were going to kill them en masse.
If trans folks are all “grooming out children” by merely existing, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for them to just be second class citizens. It’s the equivalent of blood libel.
And it is being preached by the leaders of one of our parties, and broadcast through their propaganda news network. This isn’t far from Rwanda, Germany and Bosnia. I’m not a fan of slippery slope arguments, but we’ve seen this slope in many places, and it is indeed slippery.
America was fine with racist internment camps in the 1940s. I see no reason to think that we are somehow immune to our worst impulses.
And it’s not just trans folks, it’s the garden variety homosexuals as well. And they will work in the Jews, because they always work in the Jews.
I am a little sad that I didn’t get an edit button. I wanted to add a “Wake Up Sheeple!” to this.
Because the sheeple really do need to wake up. And I desperately hope that I am a wildly wrong slightly paranoid guy.
@Beth:
I’m a little late to this discussion, but I believe I can lend some clarity to the HIPAA discussion.
HIPAA originally just discovered providers, i.e. Nurses, Doctors, Aides and their associated organizations -Hospitals, Clinics, etc. It was later amended to apply to people and entities that supplied equipment and systems to hospitals that handled protected information.
It definitely does not apply to others, say, a marketer collecting information on, for example, people who are pregnant or who have cancer and sharing or selling that information to anyone or everyone. In practice, this effectively means that information gathered in a clinical environment is protected, but if it is collected in a non-clinical environment is not. In the Florida case, if they asked the school administration for medical records, any clinician who provided them is in violation of HIPAA. If they asked dormitory officials for a record of anyone who checked the “Other” box on their rooming request, HIPAA does not apply.
@EddieInCA: Having pondered your question for some time now, I’ve come to the conclusion that the “how somebody gets identified” question is less significant than that the person gets identified. And that the person gets identified is more important than whether the identification is fair, accurate, useful, or has any value at all. It’s the modern version of the list of “radicals and subversives” from my childhood–growing up in a family that wasn’t Bircher, but was certainly Bircher adjacent.
It would be nice if my thought now was just hyperbole and that MR is right about these thoughts being nonsense; I’m just not sold that they are.
In terms of potential HIPAA violations, it’s all about de-identified data. And by “data” I mean Protected Health Information (PHI).
@Michael Reynolds:
It’s only defeatist if she gives up and lets herself be defeated.
That sounds simultaneously trite, condescending and blaming, but I don’t mean it that way. I suck at turning myself around and trying anyway when I see the prospect of defeat on the horizon, but I also know that it’s the only way one can succeed.
So, be an old man, go to your daughter and say “buck up, little soldier, all is not lost yet, and if hope won’t motivate ya, how about relying on spite and make their lives as miserable as possible before you take a few of them with you?”
As my father always said, “Spite is the great motivator when hope fails.”
Sen. John Fetterman checks into hospital for clinical depression treatment, his office says
@Mu Yixiao:
That’s cool. So when have gays ever stopped being fearmongered about? Haha
I wish I could name drop all the closeted A-list actors and/or pro athletes I’ve either personally hooked up with, or whose gay hookups are in my social orbit. But we don’t out people who aren’t publicly antigay.
We haven’t come nearly as far as y’all like to think. It’s just that our starting baselines are so low we think crumbs and American mediocrity is something to celebrate.
I should believe that by the 1950s most Americans opposed slavery and lynching. But it would have been very glib to lecture blacks living in the 1950s about how their complaints of the virulent racism still existing in America then was “letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
So I’m not looking for utopia. It would be a nice start for mass shootings in gay bars to end along with the political careers of those who openly smear gays as groomers and pedophiles. Instead, doing so makes you a front-runner to be elected president. Still.
Don’t overestimate progress because your starting point was garbage (for the alleged ‘greatest country in the world’), or let the good blind you to reality.
@CSK: I don’t know. What I do know is that things are not as clear cut as once I thought.
What I also know is that the school who shares my 5-6-14-18 yr old granddaughters’s med records with any Republican pervert is going to have a very, very unpleasant meeting with me.
@Scott: Thanx, and the above applies to you to, to whatever extent you might think.
@Gustopher:
I agree. Just the other day Candace Owens fully took the mask off and stated plainly that she despised all trans people and regarded them as “demonic.”
The situation on the right is escalating fast.
@Jax: Heh. I rather suspect I would be happy with just a foot over what we have gotten so far this year. And what I really want (my Mediterranean born wife would NOT agree) is a few weeks worth of below zero F night time lows and single digit highs. They don’t even have to be all at once!
Seriously, I have worked in some brutal weather (nothing like you described above, I was a union carpenter after all), below zero with winds gusting 20-30 mph, (I was also the only carpenter on the jobsite)(working for the GC) but I remember things being colder, with more snow by far than we get now. One winter during the early ’80s STL set the record for the longest period in it’s history for snow cover: 57 days (iirc)(I know, I know, big deal, right?)
But things have changed, and not for the better. My Mother died on March 21 (or maybe it was the 20th) of 2006, the first day of Spring. I remember walking out into the driveway and lighting my first cigarette in hours after watching and waiting for her to die. I lit the cig and turned my face up to the cloud covered sky and the 1st snowflakes of the year began melting on my cheeks.
@MarkedMan: I obviously don’t know. I am hoping somebody somewhere gets to slap the piss out of DeSantis’s presidential ambitions in a major way. But I am not holding my breath.
One word: Stonewall.
Are you really that naive? Has it ever occurred to you that they are in fact one and the same?
Here’s where I am coming from: You having the same rights as I is in no way is a diminution of my own.
We all get identified, as to the how, we have little choice in the matter. I never did.
@OzarkHillbilly: Sure. But some identifications are more desirable than others. Having no choice works against those identified as in categories 2-X.
@Beth: I know it may not help to say this, but I’m pissed off and scared for the trans folks I know and trans people all over this country. The lies and demonization are infuriating. I’m so sorry, and sending my love to you.
@Jen: in addition, even if the information is de-identified, when you’re talking about such a small number of students, the level of detail they are requesting would make it easy to identify the individuals.