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Post by dradtke on Aug 9, 2024 9:30:45 GMT -5
Some people are being really weird about this necessary and important help for girls. No, they're questioning why anyone would think it is important and necessary for boys. You tell us why anyone would think that. It's the Trump campaign that is making that point. You're way more in tune with their thinking than I am. It's the water you swim in. |
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Post by epaul on Aug 9, 2024 10:48:39 GMT -5
Look, when I first heard about this, I thought WTF? What the hell is going on! I think that about a lot of things nowadays. Just one more for the list. And I unloaded a bit while playing gin rummy with my daughter, Anna, a middle school math teacher. "Anna, what the hell is going on with all this Trans stuff and pronoun abuse."
We talked for several games. I got most of my "What the hell is going on?" out right away and pretty soon just shut up and listened. And I was impressed as hell, once again, at just how warm, perceptive, articulate, kind, and sensible my daughter was. Must have come from Charlene.
The gist I got out it, other than how proud I was of the person my daughter had grown to become, was that apparently Trans kids weren't invented by Democrats, they are there and the schools are doing their level best to accommodate all their kids. And they have a wild crazy mix of kids with a wild mix of homes and non-homes, parents and non-parents (far too many non-parents).
And some of these kids are doing great, some are doing ok, and some have real problems and aren't doing well at all. And others float between all the possibilities from week to week. And the school is trying its best to accommodate all of them. And as a teacher, Anna cares about all her kids and is doing her level best to understand how to best help them do well in her class and, and because she is who she is, to feel good about themselves in the process. (and it is a stressful job)
But the least of what she does, the least of the accommodations to make, and the easiest, is to address the kid the way they ask to be addressed. It is such a little thing to ask and so easy to do, and it matters... sometimes just a little for only a short time, but other times, it can mean a lot to someone, more than you might be able to understand, definitely more than I can understand.
And her school does have some bathrooms that are set aside for menstruators and they are equipped with tampons and such. The schools are just trying to accommodate the needs of their students, all their students, the best they can within the limits of what they are able to do. The schools deal with the kids the world sends them, or in Anna's case, Fargo.
I still don't know what the hell is going on, but there are good people doing their best to understand and deal with the crazy mix of mixed up kids they see every day of the school year.
As for Trans kids, all I know is that politicians don't know a damn thing about Trans kids. And preachers don't know a damn thing about Trans kids. All politicians and preachers can do is listen to the parents who have Trans kids and the doctors and clinicians who have worked with Trans kids. And, most importantly, the Trans community itself.
Some politicians and preachers do listen. Many don't. They know it all without listening or learning.
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Post by epaul on Aug 9, 2024 11:15:04 GMT -5
My bottom line is, I don't understand, and I don't have to. Which is good, because I really don't understand.
But, I have an inkling that it isn't that there is all kinds of strange to me new stuff showing up in the world, but rather, the strange and new to me has always been there, been with us in the world, they've just been stuck away in closets and suffered in shadows. And now, more and more is being allowed, are being allowed, into the sunlight.
There aren't more trans kids, it's just something that was cruelly hidden is gradually becoming unhidden.
And again, I don't know what to do. And I know for double damn sure the politicians and preachers don't either. But there are parents and people who are working to understand and accommodate the people they are trying to help and work with.
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Post by Cornflake on Aug 9, 2024 11:28:49 GMT -5
"There aren't more trans kids, it's just something that was cruelly hidden is gradually becoming unhidden."
I once attended a presentation on the subject of transgender kids at a meeting of administrators and board members of our state's school districts. An older lady who was a retired principal commented that they'd always had such kids and they'd always dealt with it. It was never a problem until some parents decided to make an issue out of it, she said.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Aug 9, 2024 12:10:55 GMT -5
If you didn't have a problem until some politician told you that you had a terrifying problem, you may not have a problem at all.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 20,473 
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Post by Dub on Aug 9, 2024 12:23:14 GMT -5
If you didn't have a problem until some politician or preacher told you that you had a terrifying problem, you may not have a problem at all. Fixed it for you. |
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Post by billhammond on Aug 9, 2024 12:24:34 GMT -5
Now this (Strib excerpt):
As Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz vaulted to the national ticket this week as Kamala Harris’ running mate, a curious claim started circulating on social media: that the Democrat had recently redesigned the state’s flag to look like the Somali National Flag.
The claim, which has also been promoted in recent days by conservative podcast host Joe Rogan, originates with misinformation that first appeared late last year as a 13-member commission was in the midst of a major redesign of the Minnesota flag and seal.
“Kamala Harris’s VP choice, Tim Walz, is the governor who just changed the Minnesota flag so it could resemble the Somalian flag,” posted Texas resident Philip Anderson on X. “This man has absolutely ZERO LOYALTY to our country and he says that socialism is a good thing.”
But Walz was not a member of that commission, nor did he have any role in selecting a final design that would become the basis for the new state flag.
The work was all done by a commission of graphic designers, Native leaders and other community members created last year by the Minnesota Legislature, which was responding to decades of criticism that the imagery on the state flag and seal is problematic.
The original state seal, which was at the center of the flag, showed a white settler plowing a field in the foreground while a Native American man on horseback rode into the sunset, appearing to leave the land. Flag designers also pushed for a new look for years, noting Minnesota’s busy design looked like more than a dozen other state flags and was hard to decipher from a distance.
While Walz signed a broader bill that included language to create the commission, their work was done independent of the executive branch and the Legislature. They had four months late last year and a budget of $35,000 to redesign both emblems, enlisting the public for ideas for a new flag and seal.
The winning flag design came from Andrew Prekker, a 24-year-old Luverne, Minn., resident who was one of more than 2,000 Minnesotans who created alternatives for the commission.
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Post by dradtke on Aug 9, 2024 12:44:43 GMT -5
There aren't more trans kids, it's just something that was cruelly hidden is gradually becoming unhidden. When I was a plain old boring kid, an old guy named Flip Yost lived in my small rural Midwest town. The most notable thing about him was the airplanes he would make out of scrap wood and plastic. Small dolls of various sizes sat inside, and he would bolt them to the hood of his car. When he drove, the propellers would spin, and all the kids in town thought that was just the coolest damn thing. We didn't know how old he was; when you're a kid all adults are the same age. I learned later he was a WWI vet. The local Rotary Club gave him citizenship award. He would do handyman odd jobs for widows around town, and they would fix him dinner. And sometimes you'd see him walking around downtown wearing long chiffon gowns and a blonde wig. No big deal. Just Flip. |
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Post by Russell Letson on Aug 9, 2024 12:49:55 GMT -5
a curious claim started circulating on social media: that the Democrat had recently redesigned the state’s flag to look like the Somali National Flag. <snip> “Kamala Harris’s VP choice, Tim Walz, is the governor who just changed the Minnesota flag so it could resemble the Somalian flag,” posted Texas resident Philip Anderson on X. So apparently you can make this shit up. |
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Post by howard lee on Aug 9, 2024 13:09:45 GMT -5
Turnabout is fair play. Tampon Tim (for signing off on a law that will help thousands of financially strapped young women attend class on time and keep up with their studies? This is the best the GOP can conjure up?) is even less appropriate than Diaper Don.
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Post by james on Aug 10, 2024 10:46:31 GMT -5
Jim Wright aka Stonekettle seems to have had a bit of fun writing the following on Facebook.
"I have to wonder how different the world would be if MEN menstruated.
If men menstruated, there would be former-Marines turned lumberjacks standing the back of a tricked out, coal rolling, chrome plated 3500 RAM Dually in the parking lot of every football game throwing free jumbo sized packages of tampons and maxipads to the crowd.
Hell, they'd be firing Special Edition Mossy Oak Camo tampons out of a T-shirt cannon at every 4th of July celebration.
Burly Bearded Country and Western singers would be belting out odes to hygiene products on stage at the Grand Ole' Opry.
There would be an aisle between power Tools and roofing supplies in Lowes dedicated to hygiene products made by DeWalt, Milwaukee, and Porter Cable. And they'd not only come with wings, they'd have a free LED light and a subscription to Guns and Ammo.
Ford would make an F-250 Super Duty Country Maxipad Edition.
YouTube would be endless "survival" videos of Bearded Dudebros demonstrating how to craft emergency maxipads in the wilderness using only only squirrel pelts, beef jerky, and some deer moss.
Women's pants would FINALLY come with a dozen large pockets ... so they could carry extra hygiene supplies for their husbands and boyfriends.
Johnson & Johnson would have the most spectacular halftime shows.
If men menstruated, tampons would come in Original, Nacho, and extra spicy.
There would be mandatory Church sponsored hygiene classes in every school starting in Kindergarten and they'd insist on putting an anatomically correct diagram in every classroom.
Hell, it would be on the SAT
There'd be an entire book of the Bible dedicated to how awesome it was, including a speech on a mountain where Jesus multiplied the chocolate and gave out free samples.
If men menstruated, "Tampon Tim" would be the official mascot of NASCAR.
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Post by Russell Letson on Aug 10, 2024 12:34:31 GMT -5
I've been thinking about sex and gender for a good forty years, prompted in part by a bunch of stories by John Varley* in which medical technology and social attitudes have gotten to the point where choosing what kind of body and social role/character one prefers is the norm--so much so that most people have experienced life in both male and female configurations, often switching several times.
Varley's implicit model is that human gender/sexuality is fluid and shaped by social conditioning, and that a sufficiently powerful medical technology and a sufficiently tolerant social environment would make matters of "identity" matters of choice. My own suspicion is that we're unlikely to achieve a sufficiently powerful medical technology any time soon, but that gender and sexuality are far from absolute and fixed and that the developmental period we call adolescence has a looser set of click-stops and configuration options available than our culture likes to admit.
(And who hasn't encountered a tween or teen that decided that they were not pleased with their given name and insisted on being called something else? How different is that from trying on a new pronoun? Kids are in the process of making themselves, however much it might alarm their seniors.)
* Many of the crucial ones were collected in The Persistence of Vision and Picnic on Nearside. The other writers who made me stop and think were Joanna Russ, Philip Jose Farmer, and (of all people) Robert Heinlein.
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Post by coachdoc on Aug 10, 2024 12:42:57 GMT -5
Oh, man, that caveat is just intended to show that districts aren't required under the law to place the supplies in boys' only bathrooms. Until you show me proof of a single MN school with menstrual supplies in boys' bathrooms, shut up. It's your newspaper. If the writing were better and more precise, there wouldn't be a problem now, would there? Typical. Taking an unneeded swipe at a perfectly reasonable post. |
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Aug 10, 2024 23:00:22 GMT -5
Look, when I first heard about this, I thought WTF? What the hell is going on! I think that about a lot of things nowadays. Just one more for the list. And I unloaded a bit while playing gin rummy with my daughter, Anna, a middle school math teacher. "Anna, what the hell is going on with all this Trans stuff and pronoun abuse." We talked for several games. I got most of my "What the hell is going on?" out right away and pretty soon just shut up and listened. And I was impressed as hell, once again, at just how warm, perceptive, articulate, kind, and sensible my daughter was. Must have come from Charlene. The gist I got out it, other than how proud I was of the person my daughter had grown to become, was that apparently Trans kids weren't invented by Democrats, they are there and the schools are doing their level best to accommodate all their kids. And they have a wild crazy mix of kids with a wild mix of homes and non-homes, parents and non-parents (far too many non-parents). And some of these kids are doing great, some are doing ok, and some have real problems and aren't doing well at all. And others float between all the possibilities from week to week. And the school is trying its best to accommodate all of them. And as a teacher, Anna cares about all her kids and is doing her level best to understand how to best help them do well in her class and, and because she is who she is, to feel good about themselves in the process. (and it is a stressful job) But the least of what she does, the least of the accommodations to make, and the easiest, is to address the kid the way they ask to be addressed. It is such a little thing to ask and so easy to do, and it matters... sometimes just a little for only a short time, but other times, it can mean a lot to someone, more than you might be able to understand, definitely more than I can understand. And her school does have some bathrooms that are set aside for menstruators and they are equipped with tampons and such. The schools are just trying to accommodate the needs of their students, all their students, the best they can within the limits of what they are able to do. The schools deal with the kids the world sends them, or in Anna's case, Fargo. I still don't know what the hell is going on, but there are good people doing their best to understand and deal with the crazy mix of mixed up kids they see every day of the school year. As for Trans kids, all I know is that politicians don't know a damn thing about Trans kids. And preachers don't know a damn thing about Trans kids. All politicians and preachers can do is listen to the parents who have Trans kids and the doctors and clinicians who have worked with Trans kids. And, most importantly, the Trans community itself. Some politicians and preachers do listen. Many don't. They know it all without listening or learning. Maybe the best post I’ve ever read on the Soundhole. Mike |
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Post by epaul on Aug 10, 2024 23:07:44 GMT -5
I've been thinking about sex for a good forty years... Got you by ten! (15, actually) |
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Post by epaul on Aug 10, 2024 23:15:34 GMT -5
Sci-fi did see this coming... along with submarines and trips to the moon.
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Post by millring on Aug 11, 2024 5:04:32 GMT -5
No, nobody has ever switched sexes. Not yet. Probably not ever.
What a cruel promise to offer.
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Post by howard lee on Aug 11, 2024 8:41:17 GMT -5
I don't understand what the outrage over this Minnesota law is all about. It is an act of kindness and support directed at young women who may not be able to afford feminine hygiene products, lack of access to which could impair their academic lives, causing lateness or absenteeism and falling behind in their studies. If some schools offer bathrooms shared by young people of both genders, and those bathrooms are stocked with such products, so f*cking what? It's not going to turn boys into girlie men. This is the best thing the GOP has to smear Tim Walz? Pathetic.
I lived in a house with one bathroom with my family until I was 18, when my parents purchased a larger house with two bathrooms, and all those years I shared a bathroom with my younger sister (d. 1977). There was a plethora of feminine hygiene products in those shared bathrooms. If anything, it served to enlighten me to the natural biological process that women experience each month and made me more sensitive to their discomfort and pain. When I was a bachelor in my own homes, I always kept a variety of those products in my bathroom for female guests or girlfriends, which I purchased for them at the pharmacy. Out of, you know, kindness and courtesy, a concept the conservative media I see doesn't seem to have embraced.
Despite those things being in my family's and my bathrooms all my life, I am still male and, by Thor's hammer, I am alive and well.
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Post by dradtke on Aug 11, 2024 9:17:00 GMT -5
Some people have a need to feel outraged and persecuted. Couple that with the feeling that girl stuff is yucky, and there you go.
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Post by kbcolorado on Aug 11, 2024 9:41:36 GMT -5
I don't understand what the outrage over this Minnesota law is all about. It is an act of kindness and support directed at young women who may not be able to afford feminine hygiene products, lack of access to which could impair their academic lives, causing lateness or absenteeism and falling behind in their studies. If some schools offer bathrooms shared by young people of both genders, and those bathrooms are stocked with such products, so f*cking what? It's not going to turn boys into girlie men. This is the best thing the GOP has to smear Tim Walz? Pathetic.
I lived in a house with one bathroom with my family until I was 18, when my parents purchased a larger house with two bathrooms, and all those years I shared a bathroom with my younger sister (d. 1977). There was a plethora of feminine hygiene products in those shared bathrooms. If anything, it served to enlighten me to the natural biological process that women experience each month and made me more sensitive to their discomfort and pain. When I was a bachelor in my own homes, I always kept a variety of those products in my bathroom for female guests or girlfriends, which I purchased for them at the pharmacy. Out of, you know, kindness and courtesy, a concept the conservative media I see doesn't seem to have embraced.
Despite those things being in my family's and my bathrooms all my life, I am still male and, by Thor's hammer, I am alive and well.
Quite simply, it's the predisposition to outrage.
edit: dradtke posted the same thought. Brilliant fellow  |
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