"Without him, we might not have this committee. Without him, we might not even have this republic."
I don't disagree with anything said about VP Pence. His unwillingness to break the law and do his proscribed part in the attempted coup did save us from the alternative.
However, I abhor the fact that we have reached a point where we feel a need to applaud his (and others) actions in upholding their oaths to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. I want to go back to the days when we could (and should be able to) take that for granted in our elected officials. I know that is another shattered norm, but damn do I miss it!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. The two largest contributions I give each year for as long as I can remember are to my undergraduate institution and Planned Parenthood. At a fundraiser this past weekend I raised the same issue with Alex McGill Johnson, President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of American, having already discussed it with the Executive Director of our local chapter. I found Alex charming, knowledgeable and articulate and I agreed with virtually everything she said, but she did go to the inclusiveness talking points. I told her my feeling that in doing so we let the tail wag the dog. People who don't identify as women or are transitioning are a small percentage of those affected by reproductive rights. By using the word people we put them front and center. This immediately gives talking points to deceitful idiots like Tucker Carlson who has commented that Democrats want men to have babies and probably turns off a lot of centrists who as James Carville has noted are alienated by what he calls "faculty lounge" expressions. More importantly, it clouds the issue that the abortion debate is fundamentally about equal rights for WOMEN. Without reproductive freedom, the gains woman have made in my lifetime will likely vanish. I have a daughter and three granddaughters - I'll do everything in my power not to allow that to happen.
Here is the biggest irony about the efforts to not use the word women: it is an effort by people formerly known as men to trample over women. It is a bizarre extension of the historical sexism we have long lived with, but now dressed up (pun realised after the fact) as being inclusive. Notice these linguistic changes rarely if ever affect men.
Yes. Let's use the word women. I am and always will be a live and let live woman. I don't care if you are straight, gay or transgender. I don't care if you are an atheist or religious. Let's live our lives and respect each other. But this is where the "but" comes in. Whenever someone asserts factually women have vaginas, women menstruate, women give birth and women breastfeed, there is an attack squadron of Progressive activists who go nuts. They scream and threaten anyone who dare state the truth and say they are against the LGBTQ community. This is bullshit. Years (and years ago) there was a book written "Free To Be You and Me". What today's activists mean is I'm free to be me but you can't be you.
"The paper chronicles the number of progressive groups who have decided that using the word 'woman,' or 'women,' is insufficiently inclusive. So, they folks who brought us 'Latinx' have now decided that rather than talking about 'mothers' they will use terms like 'pregnant people' and 'chestfeeding'."
As long as Progressives keep believing that it's always just a matter of turnout, we are never going to be rid of their nonsense, and we're going to continue losing elections even though we wouldn't if we didn't take everything to a ridiculous level. They insulate themselves by believing we just have to get young people to turn out - hence student debt forgiveness.
Women across this country, Democrats, Independents, and even moderate Republicans are tired of the extremism on the left. Yes, we should fear the extremism on the right even more, but until voters rein in the left by voting them out of office, they will continue to cost Democrats the elections that matter.
I get they're trying to use inclusive language, but good God, this is not the time for this fight. We have putchists setting up to try again and steal the Republic, we're still just a hop-skip-and-a-throw from WWIII breaking out, and the start of the pandemics real legacy is just starting to hit the global economy. This ain't the time for a semantics fight
Jan 6th was about Trump using mob violence and intimidation to try to force Pence to do his bidding. Several law enforcement officers took their own lives in the aftermath, and 140+ law enforcement officers were seriously injured in the melees that took place. The legislative insurrection(s) aside, that is what Jan 6th was about: the president using mob violence against his own vice president to get him to illegally overturn the will of the voters, just to keep himself in power because his ego was too big and well-protected by money all of his life to be able to mentally/emotionally take a loss.
At the end of the day, that's a story of unrestricted capitalism giving rise to a class of billionaires in the 80's whose egos and bodies were so well-protected against the system that they could stay out of jail for everything from many years of raping underage women and paying them off to keep quiet, to overturning democracy simply over a bruised ego. Folks. If we don't end the decadent oligarchy and dynastic wealth-building in this country, we will forever be stuck with families like Clinton, Bush, Trump, and whatever billionaire political dynasty families come next. Our children are growing up in a political system and economy increasingly rigged for people who already have it made at the expense of everyone else. The dynasties will continue until taxing decadent wealth improves.
Okay, the JVL Atlantic piece has a certain cleverness. But it's virtues begin and end with that cleverness. JVL writes as if Pence's history with Trumpism doesn't exist before the 2020 election. Recall Pence's famous quote: "I'm a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order." Based on Christian principles, Trumpism is barbarism. Based on conservative principles, where conservatism is about constitutional and democratic governance, Trumpism is barbarism. Based on Republican principles where the phrase "party of Lincoln" means something, Trumpism is barbarism. All this was obvious before any election subversion took shape. Pence was happy to betray all his supposed principles for personal ambition.
Pence spent years fanning the flames. Now that he aims a little spittle here and a little urine there to "control" the raging inferno hardly makes him a hero.
I hold that we've gotten really lucky with regards to the absence of political assassinations in this era of national polarization. I do not think that trend will hold and I fully expect an assassination of a prominent politician, justice, or political donor at some point over the next six months.
When you see mass-shootings and political assassinations as being just as much about suicide as it is about political messaging, and then contrast that notion with the number of "deaths of despair" we've had in the last few years, it becomes obvious that mass-shootings are our nation's form of suicide bombings. Suicide bombings are often carried out by young men who feel like they don't have anything else to offer society except their lives for a cause. There are an abundance of those kinds of young men in this country, but there's no war to send them to.
Between the mental health crisis this country is smack in the middle of and the ease of access to magazine-fed semi-autos in this country, there's bound to be somebody armed and mentally-disturbed going political just as a factor of having a long enough timeline with those environmental variables present. It's like a time bomb whose fuse is already lit with those factors being in place. Just a question of when the time bomb goes off, how big the detonation is, and whether or not it produces more successive lit fuses.
I just fail to see how 'both parties have drifted to the fringes' when one party is an off the charts authoritarian cult and the other party is attempting to ensure voting rights for all, protect citizens from gun violence and ensure the working class and poor have some economic security. The political continuum has shifted so far right describing the parties as being at extremes belies reality.
TLDR: I don’t care about gender-neutral language as abortions affect all genders and demographics in a multitude of ways. What I care about is ensuring all of us have the appropriate health care to allow us to do family planning as we see fit for our own lives – regardless of martial state, gender, or any other demographic.
I have two main arguments for why the answer is no.
1. Systemic sexism requires allies on women’s issues.
Gender-neutral language is important in the abortion discussion because abortions do not just affect people with uteruses. They also affect the men in our lives, family planning in couples of all types, medical care providers, and more. When we use language that singles out abortion as if it is a women’s only issue, we lose allies as women’s only issues don’t typically win the legislative battles. Women’s suffrage took centuries – future President John Adams wouldn’t even listen to Abigail (his own wife and mother of another future President) about women’s issues.
Does that suck? YUP. Is it right? NOPE. But it’s the system we must work within. Abortion care affects women more, but that doesn’t mean others aren’t affected and we need to leverage those impacts to build a coalition.
2. Women are not the only people with uteruses.
Clinics and governments are adopting more gender-neutral language across all medical fields to provide more support and emotionally safe environments – it’s not specific to abortion care. Transgender individuals and intersex individuals have serious barriers to medical procedures and health care. Within the realm of abortion procedures, roughly speaking there are several hundred abortions obtained by patients that identify as transgendered and we’re not going to leave them behind in this fight. They deserve the best medical care possible – as do all of us. (References: https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2020/01/transgender-abortion-patients-and-provision-transgender-specific-care-non-hospital, https://www.allure.com/story/abortion-trans-man-nonbinary-experience)
If gender-neutral language helps in any way, I’m here for it. It doesn’t affect me, my experience, or lessen the fight for abortion rights but it may improve their experiences. There’s no downside, only positives.
My story and why I’m so passionate about this:
I’ve had two within a year as my husband and I have tried to conceive.
The first was a difficult decision as we had been waiting for a while to become pregnant. At our 20-week scan, the OB/GYN let us know that multiple organs (brain, kidneys, bladder, etc.) had failed to develop correctly or at all. It is impossible to be sure until the 20-week scan as the development can be exponential during that first trimester. The specialist concurred and told us “No matter what you do, it won’t be the wrong decision. This baby will never go home with you.” If the baby had been born, it would have spent 1-3 days suffocating to death. Additionally, there were risks to me (scaring, hemorrhaging, infections, etc.) that could have prevented us from conceiving in the future. There was also a time factor to consider (we are in our late 30s). We both agreed we didn’t want the baby to suffer – it was better to do this before a nervous system fully developed. (Note: We are aware of the debate about when a fetus can feel pain. We evaluated the best evidence is regarding the development at 23-25 weeks when the synapses and cortical plate occur, and there was a better chance of no pain as our fetus was underdeveloped than if the pregnancy continued. Others may not make that same decision but that was ours.) Thankfully, this was before the new Texas ban but our insurance (TRICARE) wouldn’t cover the procedure since there was a fetal heartbeat, so we had to go to an abortion clinic. Had to travel almost 300 miles, take time off work, deal with (thankfully polite) protestors, read false information regarding how abortions were related to breast cancer, my husband could not accompany me during the procedure (safety precaution for the clinic staff), and had a D&C without anesthesia because I couldn’t get off work for a day an anesthetist was available.
The second would be legal even under the new Texas ban because the development just stopped at 10 weeks for no known reason. Because after 2 weeks my body failed to reject the pregnancy (i.e., miscarry) I again went in for a D&C. This time, because of no fetal heartbeat, I was able to have my doctor perform the procedure in my local hospital with anesthesia – all covered by my insurance (TRICARE), and my husband was allowed to stay with me until I was asleep and be there when I woke up. It was more emotionally traumatic because the chances of two back-to-back are so low I really wasn’t expecting it. The additional pain that the first abortion could have resulted in the same level of care and support if the laws were different was an extra slap in the face during an already painful situation.
Impact:
And now I’m too scared to try again until we move out of state next year. I’m terrified that if we ended up with the same issues at 20 weeks as the first time, I wouldn’t be able to receive the treatment I need nor prevent the baby from suffering. Since we already know we are moving next year so we are waiting to see where we might go and aiming for somewhere more conducive to our family planning needs.
A moderate party sounds good on paper but right now the practical effect will be to make it easier for MAGA to get elected.
They are focused and engaged. Those who want to stop them need to be similarly focused and engaged. In general elections that requires voting for the Democrat against the MAGA. This will result in vote splitting on the pro-democracy side.
Squishy Repubs that have trouble conceiving of voting for a Democrat even when the Republic is on the line are going to be the death of our system. That attitude is petulant, selfish and childish.
What I feel more strongly about is that when talking about abortion, we say “women and girls.” “Women” implies adults. In Texas today, there are 11-12 year old GIRLS now forced to carry a pregnancy by rape to term. Forced pregnancies for children. Children. What kind of society does that?
I'm sure this will be termed "blowback" but on the language stuff.
First I want to point out that it appears Charlie and most others are assuming it is people born men who are transitioning to women that would want some sort of language change. I am not fully plugged into the trans community but I would assume it is people born women who are transitioning or identifying as men but who can still get pregnant and may choose to do so in order to have a biological child. So yeah, they can actually get pregnant but no they don't want to be referred to as women.
More importantly though I don't understand why people care so much. If I called Charlie Chucky and he corrected me and said I prefer to be called Charlie, I'm the asshole if I do not adjust my language. Why is this any different and how does it harm me in any way to have to do so? Same if I called someone Mr. XXXXXX and they said they prefer Dr. XXXXXX but I ignore it. And many of the people who are the most adamantly opposed to such things will likely never, ever run into a person the will require them to make the effort at all. Why does this matter to people who have almost no stake in it, especially compared to other issues? I also have almost no stake in it so I don't really care either way personally. I just happen to think that since it doesn't cost me anything I might as well side with the people who do have a stake in it rather than the squishy moderates who clearly can't be bothered to do anything that may inconvenience them slightly at some nebulous point in the future or cause some angst when they read the news, whether it is this or saving democracy.
EDIT:
I just don't understand the obsession but clearly these perceived nettles are what the majority of Americans actually give a shit about and most of the rest are just interested in mollycoddling them about it to curry favor for their own ends. Its pretty fucking pathetic and depressing but no longer surprising now that the "shining city on a hill" image has been shattered.
Listen, I'm the mother (yep, mother) of a person who identifies as non-binary. What can I say, I love her more than life itself, and when I'm around her I use the appropriate gender-neutral pronoun. But I'm a woman, and the left's war on WOMEN is offensive, absurd, sexist, and fodder for the right.
What's the difference between carefully carving language to include trans people, and carefully staging fusion ballots to include partisans? You say the former is denying reality for the sake of small groups of people who supposedly don't want to accept the reality of language, then, in literally the same column, you applaud the attempt to deny the reality that *you are voting for a (candidate of the party you don't like)* to make things more comfy for people who don't want to crawl off their partisan box.
Are you really any more dedicated to reality than the frivolous people in the first part of your column?
"Without him, we might not have this committee. Without him, we might not even have this republic."
I don't disagree with anything said about VP Pence. His unwillingness to break the law and do his proscribed part in the attempted coup did save us from the alternative.
However, I abhor the fact that we have reached a point where we feel a need to applaud his (and others) actions in upholding their oaths to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. I want to go back to the days when we could (and should be able to) take that for granted in our elected officials. I know that is another shattered norm, but damn do I miss it!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. The two largest contributions I give each year for as long as I can remember are to my undergraduate institution and Planned Parenthood. At a fundraiser this past weekend I raised the same issue with Alex McGill Johnson, President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of American, having already discussed it with the Executive Director of our local chapter. I found Alex charming, knowledgeable and articulate and I agreed with virtually everything she said, but she did go to the inclusiveness talking points. I told her my feeling that in doing so we let the tail wag the dog. People who don't identify as women or are transitioning are a small percentage of those affected by reproductive rights. By using the word people we put them front and center. This immediately gives talking points to deceitful idiots like Tucker Carlson who has commented that Democrats want men to have babies and probably turns off a lot of centrists who as James Carville has noted are alienated by what he calls "faculty lounge" expressions. More importantly, it clouds the issue that the abortion debate is fundamentally about equal rights for WOMEN. Without reproductive freedom, the gains woman have made in my lifetime will likely vanish. I have a daughter and three granddaughters - I'll do everything in my power not to allow that to happen.
Here is the biggest irony about the efforts to not use the word women: it is an effort by people formerly known as men to trample over women. It is a bizarre extension of the historical sexism we have long lived with, but now dressed up (pun realised after the fact) as being inclusive. Notice these linguistic changes rarely if ever affect men.
Yes. Let's use the word women. I am and always will be a live and let live woman. I don't care if you are straight, gay or transgender. I don't care if you are an atheist or religious. Let's live our lives and respect each other. But this is where the "but" comes in. Whenever someone asserts factually women have vaginas, women menstruate, women give birth and women breastfeed, there is an attack squadron of Progressive activists who go nuts. They scream and threaten anyone who dare state the truth and say they are against the LGBTQ community. This is bullshit. Years (and years ago) there was a book written "Free To Be You and Me". What today's activists mean is I'm free to be me but you can't be you.
"The paper chronicles the number of progressive groups who have decided that using the word 'woman,' or 'women,' is insufficiently inclusive. So, they folks who brought us 'Latinx' have now decided that rather than talking about 'mothers' they will use terms like 'pregnant people' and 'chestfeeding'."
As long as Progressives keep believing that it's always just a matter of turnout, we are never going to be rid of their nonsense, and we're going to continue losing elections even though we wouldn't if we didn't take everything to a ridiculous level. They insulate themselves by believing we just have to get young people to turn out - hence student debt forgiveness.
Women across this country, Democrats, Independents, and even moderate Republicans are tired of the extremism on the left. Yes, we should fear the extremism on the right even more, but until voters rein in the left by voting them out of office, they will continue to cost Democrats the elections that matter.
I get they're trying to use inclusive language, but good God, this is not the time for this fight. We have putchists setting up to try again and steal the Republic, we're still just a hop-skip-and-a-throw from WWIII breaking out, and the start of the pandemics real legacy is just starting to hit the global economy. This ain't the time for a semantics fight
Jan 6th was about Trump using mob violence and intimidation to try to force Pence to do his bidding. Several law enforcement officers took their own lives in the aftermath, and 140+ law enforcement officers were seriously injured in the melees that took place. The legislative insurrection(s) aside, that is what Jan 6th was about: the president using mob violence against his own vice president to get him to illegally overturn the will of the voters, just to keep himself in power because his ego was too big and well-protected by money all of his life to be able to mentally/emotionally take a loss.
At the end of the day, that's a story of unrestricted capitalism giving rise to a class of billionaires in the 80's whose egos and bodies were so well-protected against the system that they could stay out of jail for everything from many years of raping underage women and paying them off to keep quiet, to overturning democracy simply over a bruised ego. Folks. If we don't end the decadent oligarchy and dynastic wealth-building in this country, we will forever be stuck with families like Clinton, Bush, Trump, and whatever billionaire political dynasty families come next. Our children are growing up in a political system and economy increasingly rigged for people who already have it made at the expense of everyone else. The dynasties will continue until taxing decadent wealth improves.
Okay, the JVL Atlantic piece has a certain cleverness. But it's virtues begin and end with that cleverness. JVL writes as if Pence's history with Trumpism doesn't exist before the 2020 election. Recall Pence's famous quote: "I'm a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order." Based on Christian principles, Trumpism is barbarism. Based on conservative principles, where conservatism is about constitutional and democratic governance, Trumpism is barbarism. Based on Republican principles where the phrase "party of Lincoln" means something, Trumpism is barbarism. All this was obvious before any election subversion took shape. Pence was happy to betray all his supposed principles for personal ambition.
Pence spent years fanning the flames. Now that he aims a little spittle here and a little urine there to "control" the raging inferno hardly makes him a hero.
I hold that we've gotten really lucky with regards to the absence of political assassinations in this era of national polarization. I do not think that trend will hold and I fully expect an assassination of a prominent politician, justice, or political donor at some point over the next six months.
When you see mass-shootings and political assassinations as being just as much about suicide as it is about political messaging, and then contrast that notion with the number of "deaths of despair" we've had in the last few years, it becomes obvious that mass-shootings are our nation's form of suicide bombings. Suicide bombings are often carried out by young men who feel like they don't have anything else to offer society except their lives for a cause. There are an abundance of those kinds of young men in this country, but there's no war to send them to.
Between the mental health crisis this country is smack in the middle of and the ease of access to magazine-fed semi-autos in this country, there's bound to be somebody armed and mentally-disturbed going political just as a factor of having a long enough timeline with those environmental variables present. It's like a time bomb whose fuse is already lit with those factors being in place. Just a question of when the time bomb goes off, how big the detonation is, and whether or not it produces more successive lit fuses.
I just fail to see how 'both parties have drifted to the fringes' when one party is an off the charts authoritarian cult and the other party is attempting to ensure voting rights for all, protect citizens from gun violence and ensure the working class and poor have some economic security. The political continuum has shifted so far right describing the parties as being at extremes belies reality.
TLDR: I don’t care about gender-neutral language as abortions affect all genders and demographics in a multitude of ways. What I care about is ensuring all of us have the appropriate health care to allow us to do family planning as we see fit for our own lives – regardless of martial state, gender, or any other demographic.
I have two main arguments for why the answer is no.
1. Systemic sexism requires allies on women’s issues.
Gender-neutral language is important in the abortion discussion because abortions do not just affect people with uteruses. They also affect the men in our lives, family planning in couples of all types, medical care providers, and more. When we use language that singles out abortion as if it is a women’s only issue, we lose allies as women’s only issues don’t typically win the legislative battles. Women’s suffrage took centuries – future President John Adams wouldn’t even listen to Abigail (his own wife and mother of another future President) about women’s issues.
Does that suck? YUP. Is it right? NOPE. But it’s the system we must work within. Abortion care affects women more, but that doesn’t mean others aren’t affected and we need to leverage those impacts to build a coalition.
2. Women are not the only people with uteruses.
Clinics and governments are adopting more gender-neutral language across all medical fields to provide more support and emotionally safe environments – it’s not specific to abortion care. Transgender individuals and intersex individuals have serious barriers to medical procedures and health care. Within the realm of abortion procedures, roughly speaking there are several hundred abortions obtained by patients that identify as transgendered and we’re not going to leave them behind in this fight. They deserve the best medical care possible – as do all of us. (References: https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2020/01/transgender-abortion-patients-and-provision-transgender-specific-care-non-hospital, https://www.allure.com/story/abortion-trans-man-nonbinary-experience)
If gender-neutral language helps in any way, I’m here for it. It doesn’t affect me, my experience, or lessen the fight for abortion rights but it may improve their experiences. There’s no downside, only positives.
My story and why I’m so passionate about this:
I’ve had two within a year as my husband and I have tried to conceive.
The first was a difficult decision as we had been waiting for a while to become pregnant. At our 20-week scan, the OB/GYN let us know that multiple organs (brain, kidneys, bladder, etc.) had failed to develop correctly or at all. It is impossible to be sure until the 20-week scan as the development can be exponential during that first trimester. The specialist concurred and told us “No matter what you do, it won’t be the wrong decision. This baby will never go home with you.” If the baby had been born, it would have spent 1-3 days suffocating to death. Additionally, there were risks to me (scaring, hemorrhaging, infections, etc.) that could have prevented us from conceiving in the future. There was also a time factor to consider (we are in our late 30s). We both agreed we didn’t want the baby to suffer – it was better to do this before a nervous system fully developed. (Note: We are aware of the debate about when a fetus can feel pain. We evaluated the best evidence is regarding the development at 23-25 weeks when the synapses and cortical plate occur, and there was a better chance of no pain as our fetus was underdeveloped than if the pregnancy continued. Others may not make that same decision but that was ours.) Thankfully, this was before the new Texas ban but our insurance (TRICARE) wouldn’t cover the procedure since there was a fetal heartbeat, so we had to go to an abortion clinic. Had to travel almost 300 miles, take time off work, deal with (thankfully polite) protestors, read false information regarding how abortions were related to breast cancer, my husband could not accompany me during the procedure (safety precaution for the clinic staff), and had a D&C without anesthesia because I couldn’t get off work for a day an anesthetist was available.
The second would be legal even under the new Texas ban because the development just stopped at 10 weeks for no known reason. Because after 2 weeks my body failed to reject the pregnancy (i.e., miscarry) I again went in for a D&C. This time, because of no fetal heartbeat, I was able to have my doctor perform the procedure in my local hospital with anesthesia – all covered by my insurance (TRICARE), and my husband was allowed to stay with me until I was asleep and be there when I woke up. It was more emotionally traumatic because the chances of two back-to-back are so low I really wasn’t expecting it. The additional pain that the first abortion could have resulted in the same level of care and support if the laws were different was an extra slap in the face during an already painful situation.
Impact:
And now I’m too scared to try again until we move out of state next year. I’m terrified that if we ended up with the same issues at 20 weeks as the first time, I wouldn’t be able to receive the treatment I need nor prevent the baby from suffering. Since we already know we are moving next year so we are waiting to see where we might go and aiming for somewhere more conducive to our family planning needs.
A moderate party sounds good on paper but right now the practical effect will be to make it easier for MAGA to get elected.
They are focused and engaged. Those who want to stop them need to be similarly focused and engaged. In general elections that requires voting for the Democrat against the MAGA. This will result in vote splitting on the pro-democracy side.
Squishy Repubs that have trouble conceiving of voting for a Democrat even when the Republic is on the line are going to be the death of our system. That attitude is petulant, selfish and childish.
What I feel more strongly about is that when talking about abortion, we say “women and girls.” “Women” implies adults. In Texas today, there are 11-12 year old GIRLS now forced to carry a pregnancy by rape to term. Forced pregnancies for children. Children. What kind of society does that?
I'm sure this will be termed "blowback" but on the language stuff.
First I want to point out that it appears Charlie and most others are assuming it is people born men who are transitioning to women that would want some sort of language change. I am not fully plugged into the trans community but I would assume it is people born women who are transitioning or identifying as men but who can still get pregnant and may choose to do so in order to have a biological child. So yeah, they can actually get pregnant but no they don't want to be referred to as women.
More importantly though I don't understand why people care so much. If I called Charlie Chucky and he corrected me and said I prefer to be called Charlie, I'm the asshole if I do not adjust my language. Why is this any different and how does it harm me in any way to have to do so? Same if I called someone Mr. XXXXXX and they said they prefer Dr. XXXXXX but I ignore it. And many of the people who are the most adamantly opposed to such things will likely never, ever run into a person the will require them to make the effort at all. Why does this matter to people who have almost no stake in it, especially compared to other issues? I also have almost no stake in it so I don't really care either way personally. I just happen to think that since it doesn't cost me anything I might as well side with the people who do have a stake in it rather than the squishy moderates who clearly can't be bothered to do anything that may inconvenience them slightly at some nebulous point in the future or cause some angst when they read the news, whether it is this or saving democracy.
EDIT:
I just don't understand the obsession but clearly these perceived nettles are what the majority of Americans actually give a shit about and most of the rest are just interested in mollycoddling them about it to curry favor for their own ends. Its pretty fucking pathetic and depressing but no longer surprising now that the "shining city on a hill" image has been shattered.
Listen, I'm the mother (yep, mother) of a person who identifies as non-binary. What can I say, I love her more than life itself, and when I'm around her I use the appropriate gender-neutral pronoun. But I'm a woman, and the left's war on WOMEN is offensive, absurd, sexist, and fodder for the right.
What's the difference between carefully carving language to include trans people, and carefully staging fusion ballots to include partisans? You say the former is denying reality for the sake of small groups of people who supposedly don't want to accept the reality of language, then, in literally the same column, you applaud the attempt to deny the reality that *you are voting for a (candidate of the party you don't like)* to make things more comfy for people who don't want to crawl off their partisan box.
Are you really any more dedicated to reality than the frivolous people in the first part of your column?