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How to support and not to support President Biden's Transgender Executive Order

Last week, President Biden signed an Executive Order that starts out by stating "all persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation."  It's intended to offer protections to the LGBTQ community.  

Opponents to the Order are speaking out.  Legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom stated "President Biden's executive order has directed federal agencies to eviscerate legal protection for women and roll back nearly 50 years of gains for women."  One opponent specifically called out the impact on women's sports of allowing individuals born biologically male to compete against women.

Supporters of the President's order are responding in 3 ways.  

The first, most frequent, and most offensive response is bullying.  Opponents are called "transphobes," "trans exclusionary radical feminists" or "TERFs," or "gender critical feminists."  Instead of addressing the arguments by critics, people in favor of the President's Order just bully them by calling them names.  Call a transgender person a name and you'd be eviscerated but call a person with an opposing view a name and it's acceptable behavior.  (See the Daily Signal and Refinery29 articles linked below for examples of this name calling.)

How does that influence me to support the President's order?  It tries to intimidate me to support the Order but, at least for me, you try to intimidate me and I'll probably oppose you just on principal.  At the very least, I'll stand up for the people being bullied.

To people who take this approach I have two things to say.  First, as we tell my 3 year old granddaughter, "use your words."  Tell me why your position is right and theirs is wrong. 

The second response is a question.  How does acting like a bully and offering abuse in response bring people together and create the unity President Biden is calling for around this issue?  I think almost all people would transgender people don't deserve to be insulted, humiliated or subjected to abuse - physical or any other kind.  If you really, truly want abusive behavior toward transgender people to stop, then focus on that and stop your own abusive behavior to people who have the audacity to not agree with you on a government policy.

The second most frequent response is to ignore the arguments being made in opposition to the order.  The NBC News article never mentions any opposition to the President's order in a lengthy article.  Nothing, nada, zip, zero.  Keep in mind this is an article on a website.  Space is not a premium.  It's not airtime on TV, it's not space on a page of a newspaper.  No mention of opposition.  An article like this makes me go seek out opposing points of view.

A related example is a "fact check" by Newsweek of a tweet in opposition to the Executive Order.  That tweet specifically focused on one thing - transgendered women being allowed to compete in women's sports.  Newsweek reproduces the tweet and that's it.  No other aspects of the opposition are discussed and, on the one subject of women's sports, nothing more is offered about why opponents feel that way.   In response, Newsweek provides a variety of points that are mostly irrelevant and then declares the tweet "Mostly false."  Why isn't it completely false?  Because in the very last sentence, Newsweek admits the point the tweet was really trying to make is true - "...the order might open the possibility for state and federal laws and policies to be challenged in court, which could lead to transgender women competing in women's sports teams."

Rarely articles will actually provide facts to rebut arguments made by opponents.  Refinery 29, after initially bullying opponents, did just that.  They mention specific points made by those opposing the Executive Order and offer rebuttals to those points.  As someone undecided on the issue, that part of the article was interesting reading but normally I won't get past the insults to read those points.

Newsweek could have been in this category but it would have required admitting the tweet about transgender women competing in women's sports was true and heaven forbid they admit an opponent to President Biden or LGBTQ is right.  The tweet Newsweek cited said that any educational institution receiving federal funding must admit transgender women to compete in women's athletics.  The implication is if they don't they can face lawsuits or action by Federal agencies. 

What Newsweek could have said the tweet is true but irrelevant.  Newsweek's article documented that NCAA (governing college athletics) and the International Olympic Committee already have rules permitting transgender women to compete in women's athletics.  Newsweek could have said regardless of the Executive Order being adopted, transgender women are allowed in women's athletics and they would have been exactly correct.

But it begs the question of why can't supporters of the President's Order just rebut opponents without insults (as Refinery 29 did) or by misrepresenting the opposition and refusing to admit when an opponent has a valid point (as Newsweek did).


#BidenErasedWomen Trends After Biden Signs Executive Order (dailysignal.com)

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/biden-issues-executive-order-expanding-lgbtq-nondiscrimination-protections-n1255165

https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-does-bidens-executive-order-allow-transgender-athletes-compete-gender-their-1563790

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/01/10272481/biden-executive-order-transgender-women-girls-protection


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