Jump to content

General US Politics


Ansem

Recommended Posts

13 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

I'll keep this one short--Of course Trump isn't stupid.

He lacks decency, truthfulness, and shame. Not intelligence.
 

I think you mean his legal team is intelligent. Because those litigous stunts you described, I doubt anyone outside of people who studied law could come up with them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 14.4k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

1 hour ago, Water Mage said:

So Trump recently banned transgender people from the US military.

Out of curiosity, what was Trump's view on LGBT rights when he got elected? Because I distinctly remember a picture last year, of Trump holding the LGBT flag.

It was a go-to argument by supporters, claiming Clinton has a shitty LGBT voting record but Trump doesn't thanks to the rainbow flag.

Even though Trump was anti-LGBT more than he was pro-LGBT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

It was a go-to argument by supporters, claiming Clinton has a shitty LGBT voting record but Trump doesn't thanks to the rainbow flag.

Even though Trump was anti-LGBT more than he was pro-LGBT.

Thinking about it, Trump never gave a clear answer about his stance, did he?

 

3 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

Donald, should we be concerned? You're sounding like a third world leader that just came into some money.

Is this statement supposed to get us Atheists distracted from speaking out for LGBT individuals?

...I feel like I need context. Other than the LGBT/Military thing, did something else happen recently? 

Or he might have finally snapped. Which I thought he already did, but I guess you can always go deeper.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Water Mage said:

...I feel like I need context. Other than the LGBT/Military thing, did something else happen recently? 

Or he might have finally snapped. Which I thought he already did, but I guess you can always go deeper.

There's no context, this came out of nowhere. I'm imagining the last few hours of Trump's day have been people inquiring about the military and how he can't just ban them, and he just snapped to say "screw government, we're doing this MY way!". Then replacing MY with God.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Water Mage said:

Out of curiosity, what was Trump's view on LGBT rights when he got elected? Because I distinctly remember a picture last year, of Trump holding the LGBT flag.

Something along the lines of

"I'll be the best president for the LBGT community. Hillary will only do damage to your cause."

Crazy, exaggerated bullshit that he clearly had no interest in following through on. Pretty par for the course. Honestly it's pretty surprising that it took 6 months before he completely back pedaled on being an ally to the LBGT cause.

Edited by Slumber
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Water Mage said:

Thinking about it, Trump never gave a clear answer about his stance, did he?

I can't find it on mobile now, but you can definitely find a tweet where he says that the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage was a travesty.

anyway there's no ban on transgenders in the military based on some stuff I've read - 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Something along the lines of

"I'll be the best president for the LBGT community. Hillary will only do damage to your cause."

Crazy, exaggerated bullshit that he clearly had no interest in following through on. Pretty par for the course. Honestly it's pretty surprising that it took 6 months before he completely back pedaled on being an ally to the LBGT cause.

I believe he had a few tweets like this.

2 hours ago, Gustavos said:

Donald, should we be concerned? You're sounding like a third world leader that just came into some money.

Is this statement supposed to get us Atheists distracted from speaking out for LGBT individuals?

While this is shit, it's sadly not out of the realm for most Republicans. Listening to someone like Ted Cruz you convince yourself he wants theocracy.

Edited by Tryhard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

While this is shit, it's sadly not out of the realm for most Republicans. Listening to someone like Ted Cruz you convince yourself he wants theocracy.

Yeah, but a Republican saying "we don't worship government" in any scenario besides denial is weird, don't you think? The same camp that jerks off the rotting corpses of our founding fathers and believes the law has no need to change with time?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Tryhard said:

Sure, but he also could have just killed it going to debate in the first place. We all know it's not going to get any better. He's not going to have many friends on the right or left at the end of this.

McCain does not like Obamacare.  He ran against Obama with health care being perhaps his biggest deviation from him.  Whatever he thinks about the current situation of the Republican health care reform, he still wants to replace Obamacare with something.  If he didn't vote to continue conversation, he would essentially be voting for Obamacare. 

8 hours ago, Water Mage said:

So Trump recently banned transgender people from the US military.

Out of curiosity, what was Trump's view on LGBT rights when he got elected? Because I distinctly remember a picture last year, of Trump holding the LGBT flag.

To clarify, he did not ban transgenders from the US military because he doesn't like them. Acc't to his tweets, he talked with military leaders and generals who agreed with him that they are more burdening due to the extensive costs associated with sex changes that the military has previously paid for.  The idea is the US military should use their money for the military, not sex changes for a very small percentage of it. 

Proof this was being done http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/09/21/pentagon-pay-for-some-sex-change-operations-transgender-troops.html

He also referenced 'disruptions'.  I am assuming this information is coming from his generals and servicemen, and honestly I could see how people going through gender dysphoria could cause disruptions in training procedures, etc.  

I suppose you could say that he was just saying that and he's really a bigot and he's just making it sound economical for political reasons, but I think that's rather speculative and I tire of speculation.  Additionally, I think it's clear Trump does not say things for political reasons, especially on his twitter.


I don't think this article goes with what trump was saying, because his statements were more economical.  Nevertheless, an interesting read so I'll post it here,

http://dailysignal.com/2017/07/26/why-forcing-the-military-to-pay-for-sex-changes-would-be-disastrous/

 

That being said, if Trump were to disallow gay servicemen in the military, I would be extremely against it because:

A.  Gay people do not cost more money

B.  While being Gay could be stressful, it is not a gender identity crisis so I can't imagine serious disruptions occurring.  

I have a gay friend who serves in the military, and from what I understand he does a fantastic job.  Ideally, I'd like the ban to be replaced with an extended evaluation.  Some Transgenders may have already gone through the sex change at their own cost and be completely emotionally stable.  I think these individuals should be allowed to service in the military. Hopefully we see something like this come out of this whole thing.  I'm not happy with the status of this topic, and I wasn't happy before these tweets.  I'd like to see other options explored.

Edited by Lushen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This money argument is totally bogus. The finance estimates for transgender people in the military is $2 to $8 million per year.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cost-of-medical-care-for-transgender-service-members-would-be-minimal-studies-show/

That is literally inconsequential, a drop in the bucket, compared to the massive military budget. The US military has a bunch of stupid shit that is unnecessary they already pay for and their budget is already too high to begin with, please don't insult our intelligence by claiming that transgender operations was/is somehow a big part of this.

Edit: It's worth noting that there are sources claiming that Trump cut a deal to try and do this (eventually) to get funding for his border wall. The Republicans that would want him to do this are not doing it for "fiscally conservative" reasons.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-transgender-ban-wall-642456

Edited by Tryhard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

This money argument is totally bogus. The finance estimates for transgender people in the military is $2 to $8 million per year.

Approximately a tenth of a percent of our military is transgender.

This is a simple cost-benefit analysis.  It doesn't matter how much money it costs compared to whole economy.  The fact is, $2-8 million is significantly better spent on other military funds.  Our military funds are not charity services, the money is not there so people can undergo sex changes.  It's a matter of principal.  If I wanted a mole removed, do you think the military would pay for the operation?

That being said, I am against the tweets as a whole because as I said earlier, I think there's a better Option C, but the economic argument is totally relevant.  And as much as I think the wall is a waste of money, it is considerably more contributing to our defense than 0.1% of our military personal that are cited by our military personal as being disruptive.  I don't know why politico went through all the trouble to report Trump secretly agreed to this in an effort to improve funding for his wall, that's not even a conspiracy.  I mean, the wall had to come out of defense expenditures and therefore cuts were going to have to be made in certain areas (or tax increases).  This seems like a pretty logical place to start.  

 

On 7/21/2017 at 6:46 PM, Lord Raven said:

Also trump asked if he could pardon himself or his family

LOL

I'm sorry but this actually really bothers me.  Please don't say things this serious because you saw some article that cited some anonymous source.  Either link the article or say that it is one anonymous source.  Do not say it is definitive fact.  

This comes from literally a single unknown person who allegedly told washington post in a single article that this was the case.  And acc't Fox News, that same source later denied what the washington post had stated.  I wish I could read the original washington post article, but it's stuck behind a paywall.  Here's the fox news article, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/21/trump-not-asking-about-who-can-pardon-in-russia-case-source-says.html

This whole story is a complete mess, and you referencing it as though it were fact bothers me because people might actually believe your baseless claim.  I wasn't going to say anything, because this was quite a while ago but when I saw it I was rather irritated.  

Edited by Lushen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

To clarify, he did not ban transgenders from the US military because he doesn't like them. Acc't to his tweets, he talked with military leaders and generals who agreed with him that they are more burdening due to the extensive costs associated with sex changes that the military has previously paid for.  The idea is the US military should use their money for the military, not sex changes for a very small percentage of it. 

Proof this was being done http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/09/21/pentagon-pay-for-some-sex-change-operations-transgender-troops.html

He also referenced 'disruptions'.  I am assuming this information is coming from his generals and servicemen, and honestly I could see how people going through gender dysphoria could cause disruptions in training procedures, etc.  

I suppose you could say that he was just saying that and he's really a bigot and he's just making it sound economical for political reasons, but I think that's rather speculative and I tire of speculation.  Additionally, I think it's clear Trump does not say things for political reasons, especially on his twitter.


I don't think this article goes with what trump was saying, because his statements were more economical.  Nevertheless, an interesting read so I'll post it here,

http://dailysignal.com/2017/07/26/why-forcing-the-military-to-pay-for-sex-changes-would-be-disastrous/

Considering that the military already spends more than five times as much money on viagra than it would expend for gender reassignment surgeries (and that's with me lowballing the difference between the costs)...
Like, I really don't get how all those "military economists" Trump apparently consulted think it's perfectly fine to pay for treatment against potency problems or for breast augmentation, but heavens forbid, no surgeries for transgender people. We're talking about how much here? 0.13% of the current health care costs? When the US already has the most massively bloated military budget in the world?
Source for the Viagra stuff here btw: http://washingtonpost.com/amphtml/new…nder-troops-medical-care/

And regarding the "disruptions": I probably could claim exactly the same about all the guys who need Viagra, right? Impotency can be a massive strain on someone's mental wellbeing after all and negatively impact their work performance.

De facto it's kind of sad how anyone could ever believe that Trump would be a great president for LGBT people because he like, waved around a rainbow flag once or something. Unless you think the "T" stands for "Trump" - in that case everything makes sense again.

Edited by Sias
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

McCain does not like Obamacare.  He ran against Obama with health care being perhaps his biggest deviation from him.  Whatever he thinks about the current situation of the Republican health care reform, he still wants to replace Obamacare with something.  If he didn't vote to continue conversation, he would essentially be voting for Obamacare. 

FYI: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2008/oct/the-2008-presidential-candidates-health-reform-proposals--choices-for-america

This was McCain's healthcare platform. It's very similar to the ACA, and Obama's was a much more universal healthcare platform.

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

This is a simple cost-benefit analysis.  It doesn't matter how much money it costs compared to whole economy.  The fact is, $2-8 million is significantly better spent on other military funds.  Our military funds are not charity services, the money is not there so people can undergo sex changes.  It's a matter of principal.  If I wanted a mole removed, do you think the military would pay for the operation?

2-8m is a very small cost, approximately one ten thousandths of a percent of our yearly military spending. What's the cost-benefit analysis there?

EDIT: RAND did a study on this: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1530.html

Some of their facts:

Quote

Only a subset will seek gender transition–related treatment. Estimates derived from survey data and private health insurance claims data indicate that, each year, between 29 and 129 service members in the active component will seek transition-related care that could disrupt their ability to deploy.

Quote

Using private health insurance claims data to estimate the cost of extending gender transition–related health care coverage to transgender personnel indicated that active-component health care costs would increase by between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually, representing a 0.04- to 0.13-percent increase in active-component health care expenditures.

The concept of a blanket ban is pointless here. The only thing he's hoping to gain here is a distraction.

The wall costs at LEAST 20 billion dollars. The "fence" built under the Obama administration costed 20 billion, and the wall will cost a lot more the way Trump wants it. You think that it's good to save from the .1% of the funding from the re-assignment surgeries? It's simply impractical. If it were a billion dollar saving per year, then whatever, but 2-8 million is a drop in the bucket.

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

I'm sorry but this actually really bothers me.  Please don't say things this serious because you saw some article that cited some anonymous source.  Either link the article or say that it is one anonymous source.  Do not say it is definitive fact.  

This comes from literally a single unknown person who allegedly told washington post in a single article that this was the case.  And acc't Fox News, that same source later denied what the washington post had stated.  I wish I could read the original washington post article, but it's stuck behind a paywall.  Here's the fox news article, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/21/trump-not-asking-about-who-can-pardon-in-russia-case-source-says.html

This whole story is a complete mess, and you referencing it as though it were fact bothers me because people might actually believe your baseless claim.  I wasn't going to say anything, because this was quite a while ago but when I saw it I was rather irritated.  

Fox News claimed the source didn't discuss that. Fox News is also historically up the Republicans' ass. Why did Trump later send a tweet affirming that he could pardon himself?

From my understanding, it was Trump's lawyer that said that Trump didn't ask that. Not exactly an unbiased source. He wasn't asked under oath and he was asked by a media outlet that historically softballs Trump and all Republicans. If it were false, then Washington Post would've pulled or edited it by now, but they haven't.

Read the full article for context: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-lawyers-seek-to-undercut-muellers-russia-investigation/2017/07/20/232ebf2c-6d71-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trumplegal-925pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.0b94433f67ae

Trump does not like this investigation. Of course him and his attorneys are going to play PR and say he didn't do something sketchy. Why would you take them at their word?

Edited by Lord Raven
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

Approximately a tenth of a percent of our military is transgender.

This is a simple cost-benefit analysis.  It doesn't matter how much money it costs compared to whole economy.  The fact is, $2-8 million is significantly better spent on other military funds.  Our military funds are not charity services, the money is not there so people can undergo sex changes.  It's a matter of principal.  If I wanted a mole removed, do you think the military would pay for the operation?

Keep in mind, this is $2-8 million of a $600 billion annual budget. There are shitty, obsolete fighter jets that never see use that are literally 100x more expensive than assignment surgeries for trans people. And we still keep buying those jets.

The US military is incredibly wasteful. If you want to start cutting military budgets, there are much better options than banning people who are willing to die for the country.

Edited by Slumber
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

Why did Trump later send a tweet affirming that he could pardon himself?

The tweet was "While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.FAKE NEWS'.  I think it's clear he's saying a pardon is completely unnecessary, but of course media outlets will take fragments and infer that he is saying he will pardon himself when caught.

2 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

I cannot, there is a paywall there.  If this were legitimate, it would not be posted on a single article behind a paywall and not discussed anywhere else.  

 

2 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

Fox News claimed the source didn't discuss that. Fox News is also historically up the Republicans' ass. Why did Trump later send a tweet affirming that he could pardon himself?

Fox New is illegitimate but Washington Post anonymous source is 100% confirmed?

2 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

FYI: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2008/oct/the-2008-presidential-candidates-health-reform-proposals--choices-for-america

This was McCain's healthcare platform. It's very similar to the ACA, and Obama's was a much more universal healthcare platform.

How similar it is to Obamacare is actually fairly irrelevant.  He is still against 'Obamacare' even if he wants to replace it with a replica.  He's a Republican, Obama's Health Care is a democrat's health care.  We all know how politicians work.

 

2 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

The wall costs at LEAST 20 billion dollars. The "fence" built under the Obama administration costed 20 billion, and the wall will cost a lot more the way Trump wants it. You think that it's good to save from the .1% of the funding from the re-assignment surgeries? It's simply impractical. If it were a billion dollar saving per year, then whatever, but 2-8 million is a drop in the bucket.

2 hours ago, Slumber said:

Keep in mind, this is $2-8 million of a $600 billion annual budget. There are shitty, obsolete fighter jets that never see use that are literally 100x more expensive than assignment surgeries for trans people. And we still keep buying those jets.

The US military is incredibly wasteful. If you want to start cutting military budgets, there are much better options than banning people who are willing to die for the country.

The cost relative to the budget is completely irrelevant.  This kind of thinking is why we're still paying for viagra.  People say "Oh, it's such a small part of our budget so we'll just leave it..." Transgender surgeries and the military have nothing to do with each other.  The military paying for these surgeries is a mistake.  We don't leave mistakes in our budget just because they're not significant.  

I don't understand why taking transgender surgeries out of the budget HAS to mean banning transgenders from serving, but I completely understand taking it out of the budget.  

3 hours ago, Sias said:

And regarding the "disruptions": I probably could claim exactly the same about all the guys who need Viagra, right? Impotency can be a massive strain on someone's mental wellbeing after all and negatively impact their work performance.

De facto it's kind of sad how anyone could ever believe that Trump would be a great president for LGBT people because he like, waved around a rainbow flag once or something. Unless you think the "T" stands for "Trump" - in that case everything makes sense again.

I would agree with you on the Viagra.  It is another thing that should be taken out of the budget.  But that doesn't justify leaving other things in the budget that should clearly be taken out.  Transgender surgeries and the military could not be more unrelated, and yet my taxpayer dollars that are meant to protect our country are going towards transgender operations.

I know a lot of presidents who would not have waved a flag around at all.  Trump is not an LGBT supporter, as someone who followed his election very closely, I can honestly say he doesn't give a shit when it comes to someone's sexuality.  

 

Finally, there is a question of whether the gov't should even be supporting sex changes this openly.  I have seen countless reports like the following, I could name more -  many of these reports result in suicide shortly after sex reassignment.

http://www.sexchangeregret.com/research
[This site is literally made by someone whose biggest regret is doing this surgery; considering the percentage of our population that is transgender is very low, the existence of this site says a lot about how successful the operations are]

"Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity [diseased state] than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism. (Read the entire study here)"

Another relevant quote on the website,

"In my view, the transgender activists are so busy lobbying for new laws of protection that they ignore the 31% suicide rate."

Why is our gov't supporting something that's not even proven to work?  I'm all for LGBT rights, but making it easier to conduct surgeries that have only been proven to increase risk of suicidal behavior with our tax dollars that are supposed to go towards something else entirely? This is my issue, the logic is horrifying.  I don't care how much it costs, I care that it isn't supposed to spent on these kind of surgeries, no one cares, and it's not even helping people.

 

edit: also, the costs people are citing can't be right.  Snopes claims 150 servicemen have been approved to change gender.  Acc't to the article linked below, surgery can cost anywhere from 10k average to 30k average.  This puts us at,

$2.5mil - $12.5mil.

Now, these are ONLY taking into account servicemen who have been APPROVED.  The cost is likely considerably higher than being reported.

https://heatst.com/life/gender-reassignment-cost/

Edited by Lushen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nearly all anti-trans articles come from a scant handful of people with an agenda. The vast majority of trans people have zero regrets and those that do are nearly always people who have been rejected and ostracized by their family and community. Where support is provided, trans people are no more likely to commit suicide than anyone else (and it's pretty transphobic to state otherwise). 

I don't have a single trans friend who wasn't a) disowned by their parents or b) rendered homeless for at least a short while, and we wonder why the suicide rate is higher?

Here's an article from a trans veteran friend of friends on why the military should support its several thousand current trans recruits.

And the 'my tax dollar' argument is bunk; everyone's tax dollars go towards something they don't like. Those of us who are anti-U.S. military engagements lose out the most on 'our' tax dollars, by the way. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The tweet was "While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.FAKE NEWS'.  I think it's clear he's saying a pardon is completely unnecessary, but of course media outlets will take fragments and infer that he is saying he will pardon himself when caught.

That tweet doesn't make sense at all. He's saying that he can pardon himself. Why is he saying this?

How can leaks be fake and a crime? If they're real, then they're a crime; if they're fake, they're not a crime.

Fox New is illegitimate but Washington Post anonymous source is 100% confirmed?

Yes, Fox News is historically a Trump cock-sucking, Republican ball-slobbering piece of shit. Their source was a Trump lawyer, who is not going to make his client look like a moron.

I cannot, there is a paywall there.  If this were legitimate, it would not be posted on a single article behind a paywall and not discussed anywhere else.  

How are paywalls a sign of illegitimacy? Seriously, every fucking thing you post here has such backwards ass or non-existent logic, I swear Shoblongoo's bitch slap a few pages ago should've snapped some sense into you but it made you regress backwards.

It's literally not even the only source, since other sources have more or less confirmed Washington Post on this. In either case, it definitely happened, and it's funny.

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

How similar it is to Obamacare is actually fairly irrelevant.  He is still against 'Obamacare' even if he wants to replace it with a replica.  He's a Republican, Obama's Health Care is a democrat's health care.  We all know how politicians work.

In the context of your quote,

4 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

McCain does not like Obamacare.  He ran against Obama with health care being perhaps his biggest deviation from him.  Whatever he thinks about the current situation of the Republican health care reform, he still wants to replace Obamacare with something.  If he didn't vote to continue conversation, he would essentially be voting for Obamacare. 

It is not irrelevant! He ran against Obama's healthcare using ideas that would later conglomerate to form Obamacare! 

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

The cost relative to the budget is completely irrelevant.  This kind of thinking is why we're still paying for viagra.  People say "Oh, it's such a small part of our budget so we'll just leave it..." Transgender surgeries and the military have nothing to do with each other.  The military paying for these surgeries is a mistake.  We don't leave mistakes in our budget just because they're not significant.  

I don't understand why taking transgender surgeries out of the budget HAS to mean banning transgenders from serving, but I completely understand taking it out of the budget.  

Because it's part of healthcare. These people entered the army, they qualified, and they can't easily quit whether or not they have gender dysphoria. It's still extremely insignificant, but it doesn't matter either because you have to take care of soldiers! Do you think transgender veterans should be unable to use their benefits for their surgeries?

Soldiers should be taken care of for their conditions, no matter what the condition. That's the price of their service; we must take care of them.

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

"Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity [diseased state] than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism. (Read the entire study here)"

Another relevant quote on the website,

"In my view, the transgender activists are so busy lobbying for new laws of protection that they ignore the 31% suicide rate."

Why is our gov't supporting something that's not even proven to work?  I'm all for LGBT rights, but making it easier to conduct surgeries that have only been proven to increase risk of suicidal behavior with our tax dollars that are supposed to go towards something else entirely? This is my issue, the logic is horrifying.  I don't care how much it costs, I care that it isn't supposed to spent on these kind of surgeries, no one cares, and it's not even helping people.

Um, are you saying that gender dysphoria in general should not be treated for and that it's a waste of time or what?

And why did you cut off that line a line early? Here's the full quote:

A 2o11 study of 324 Swedish transsexuals by the Karolinska Institute showed that "after sex reassignment, [they] have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group."

This implies we haven't done enough research in mental health or transsexual acceptance to improve the suicide rate. Transgender people are disproportionately targeted for hate crimes, at a greater rate than the regular populace. They're also much more likely to be victims of sexual assault. That definitely contributes to the higher suicide rate.

At any rate, this overall wasn't an issue until President Cocksucker made it into an issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Lushen said:

Approximately a tenth of a percent of our military is transgender.

This is a simple cost-benefit analysis.  It doesn't matter how much money it costs compared to whole economy.  The fact is, $2-8 million is significantly better spent on other military funds.  Our military funds are not charity services, the money is not there so people can undergo sex changes.  It's a matter of principal.  If I wanted a mole removed, do you think the military would pay for the operation

This is not a simple cost-benefit analysis. This is about denying members of the armed service the health care they're entitled to, either for survival or quality of life purposes. The sort of health care they would have access to if they had a normal health care insurance as a civilian. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Lushen said:

The cost relative to the budget is completely irrelevant.  This kind of thinking is why we're still paying for viagra.  People say "Oh, it's such a small part of our budget so we'll just leave it..." Transgender surgeries and the military have nothing to do with each other.  The military paying for these surgeries is a mistake.  We don't leave mistakes in our budget just because they're not significant.  

I don't understand why taking transgender surgeries out of the budget HAS to mean banning transgenders from serving, but I completely understand taking it out of the budget.  

I would agree with you on the Viagra.  It is another thing that should be taken out of the budget.  But that doesn't justify leaving other things in the budget that should clearly be taken out.  Transgender surgeries and the military could not be more unrelated, and yet my taxpayer dollars that are meant to protect our country are going towards transgender operations.

I know a lot of presidents who would not have waved a flag around at all.  Trump is not an LGBT supporter, as someone who followed his election very closely, I can honestly say he doesn't give a shit when it comes to someone's sexuality.  

 

I have... multiple problems with this. First of all, the "my taxpayer dollars are going to things I don't like" issue isn't a valid argument, like Rezzy already said - if you would cut out every part of the US budget that is disliked by some kind of taxpayer group, exactly nothing would be left.

It's also not true that the military and transgender surgeries have nothing to do with each other. Paying for someone's gender reassignment isn't a "free government handout" or something like that, it's hazard pay. A lot of people who enroll in the US military don't do so because they think it's the finest job ever, but because they get free college or, guess what, healthcare in return.

Like, even spending money on Viagra is going to be better than blowing it all on equipment you'll never use. After all, better sexual happiness = better mental health = better performance = better military. If you truly want to start erasing the numerous mistakes of the US military budget, I'd start with the big ones who have any actual impact instead of the less important tiny footnotes that the issue may have.

Additionally, banning transgender people from serving in the military entirely is a whole different deal because you know, that's flat out discrimination.

And I dunno, I do have the impression that Trump doesn't care much about anything besides his personal matters or his ego. He's happily allied with the notoriously anti-LGBT Republicans though, so when he still pushes their agenda, does it even matter what he himself may think about the issue?

Quote

Finally, there is a question of whether the gov't should even be supporting sex changes this openly.  I have seen countless reports like the following, I could name more -  many of these reports result in suicide shortly after sex reassignment.

http://www.sexchangeregret.com/research
[This site is literally made by someone whose biggest regret is doing this surgery; considering the percentage of our population that is transgender is very low, the existence of this site says a lot about how successful the operations are]

"Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity [diseased state] than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism. (Read the entire study here)"

Another relevant quote on the website,

"In my view, the transgender activists are so busy lobbying for new laws of protection that they ignore the 31% suicide rate."

Why is our gov't supporting something that's not even proven to work?  I'm all for LGBT rights, but making it easier to conduct surgeries that have only been proven to increase risk of suicidal behavior with our tax dollars that are supposed to go towards something else entirely? This is my issue, the logic is horrifying.  I don't care how much it costs, I care that it isn't supposed to spent on these kind of surgeries, no one cares, and it's not even helping people.

 

edit: also, the costs people are citing can't be right.  Snopes claims 150 servicemen have been approved to change gender.  Acc't to the article linked below, surgery can cost anywhere from 10k average to 30k average.  This puts us at,

$2.5mil - $12.5mil.

Now, these are ONLY taking into account servicemen who have been APPROVED.  The cost is likely considerably higher than being reported.

https://heatst.com/life/gender-reassignment-cost/

Considering that both the article you linked in your post before and the website you provided now are by the same person, who is only giving out references to three further sources? Yeah, I really don't believe that transgender surgeries are as harmful as you claim, but let's look at the quoted studies, shall we?

Quote

Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.

This is the conclusion of the first mentioned study. Strangely, it doesn't tell us that sex reassignment is dangerous, but only recommends to improve the treatment afterwards. Transgender people's need for psychiatric therapy may have even something to do with the fact that half the world seems to hate and ridicule them, hm.

Article number two isn't exactly beneficial to your position either. The first part only mentions that a lot of research so far may have been inaccurate, followed by a bunch of speculation. Even if we accept their claim that up to a fifth regret their sex change at face value, that's still a large majority who benefits from it, right?
The article's second half however picks up the flawed research again, this time mentioning that it's negatively influenced by people unsympathetic to transeexuals. It also tells us things like "the vast majority of transsexual people enjoyed much happier lives following surgery" or "you either have an operation or suffer a miserable life. A fifth of those who don't get treatment commit suicide". Sounds like a reson to get them their surgeries imo.

The third link doesn't even work anymore, and contemplating the websites very selective quoting before, I doubt that I'm getting the full view by reading only the selceted parts. On the other side however, there's nevertheless the mention of "He found that most of the patients he tracked down some years after their surgery were contented with what they had done and that only a few regretted it.", so there's that.

You could also consider the immense societal stigma many transsexuals still have to face nowadays, so maybe there could be a relation to increased suicide rates here, I don't know?

And finally... regarding you edit about surgery costs: First of all, even if I use the link in your article and add up all single potentially possbile treatments to create the most expensive surgery possible, the final result is nevertheless lower than the price your news source mentioned. Also, when you take a further look around their website, you'll discover that not only is the next recommended article titled "Gender Expert: Teens Are Trying to Be Transgender Because It’s Trendy", there are also further gems like "Police Raids Across Germany for People who Posted Offensive Comments Online", "Politically Correct London is Becoming a Global Laughing Stock" or "Silicon Valley No Longer a Safe Space for Tech Bro Douchebags". Yeah, sounds like a trustworthy publisher and not like some sort of weird Republican propaganda website for sure.

Edited by Sias
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The cynic in me says Trump doesn't care in the slightest about Trans-persons serving in the army, and did this as a give-away to the base at a moment when he senses they're becoming increasingly upset with his attacks on Jeff Sessions and lack of progress on healthcare. Alternatively, he's just an asshole. 

...in any event...

Top generals at the Joint Chiefs of Staff—in what in any other scenario would constitute an unprecedented act of insubordination and disregard for chain-of-command but herein just serves to underscore Trump’s incompetence and showmanship-over-substance approach to governing—are refusing to implement the President’s policy on transgendered persons in the military and say that at this time, the generals will disregard the president’s statements and continue to allow transgendered soldiers to openly serve.

The Reason Why: “A tweet is not an order.” 

The General’s position is that Trump never actually consulted anyone about the policy or ordered anyone to change policy through recognized channels of command; he just posted an off-the-cuff change-of-policy announcement on his twitter feed. If he wants to order a change of policy the military will follow his orders; but the military will NOT give force-and-effect of orders from high command to Twitter Posts.     

Directly under-cutting the president’s message; from The Generals: 

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/27/trump-transgender-military-ban-no-modification-241029

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/344107-joint-chiefs-chairman-no-change-in-transgender-policy-until-trump-sends


“I know there are questions about yesterday's announcement on the transgender policy by the President. There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President's direction has been received.

AND

“We grow up and learn to obey the chain-of-command. We will work through the implementation guidance when we get it…To my knowledge, the Department of Defense has not received written directives.”

…That’s as close as you will ever get to hearing a man of military disciple at the highest levels of leadership tell his chief officer: “Go fuck yourself, you wannabee-dictator disgrace-to-the-office.” 

Trump's own Generals just smacked him down.

Congress will play games with an emotional toddler of a president who doesn't respect  or follow regular order, but the military isn't messing around. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Lushen said:

The cost relative to the budget is completely irrelevant.  This kind of thinking is why we're still paying for viagra.  People say "Oh, it's such a small part of our budget so we'll just leave it..." Transgender surgeries and the military have nothing to do with each other.  The military paying for these surgeries is a mistake.  We don't leave mistakes in our budget just because they're not significant.  

I don't understand why taking transgender surgeries out of the budget HAS to mean banning transgenders from serving, but I completely understand taking it out of the budget.  

funny how republicans only care about budget when it's to screw minorities or destroy welfare

building a huge, expensive wall? cutting (already low for 1st world standards) taxes on the very rich, which have no effect on gdp growth? increasing already expensive military budget? No issues

A small amount of money going to a welfare program? CUT IT

it's a FACT, undeniable FACT that the american debt has increased less under democrats than republicans. Reagan is the father of the American debt. Bush was the one that "gifted" obama the huge defict that couldn't just be cut out of nowhere and resulted in the 100% debt to gdp. Meanwhile Bill Clinton delivered surplusses and Obama lowered the deficit almost all his years in office. Those are government data, there's no denying to them.

Edited by Nobody
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Congress will play games with an emotional toddler of a president who doesn't respect  or follow regular order, but the military isn't messing around. 

The office, not the person in it. If Trump writes it out, he's the Commander in Chief, and his word is final. Anywhere else, he's just Donald Trump. Trump can do fuck all to the civil bureaucracy, but even the President has to follow the red tape of the Pentagon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/27/2017 at 5:04 AM, Lushen said:

I have seen countless reports like the following, I could name more -  many of these reports result in suicide shortly after sex reassignment.

http://www.sexchangeregret.com/research
[This site is literally made by someone whose biggest regret is doing this surgery; considering the percentage of our population that is transgender is very low, the existence of this site says a lot about how successful the operations are]

"Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity [diseased state] than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism. (Read the entire study here)"

Another relevant quote on the website,

"In my view, the transgender activists are so busy lobbying for new laws of protection that they ignore the 31% suicide rate."

Why is our gov't supporting something that's not even proven to work?  I'm all for LGBT rights, but making it easier to conduct surgeries that have only been proven to increase risk of suicidal behavior with our tax dollars that are supposed to go towards something else entirely? This is my issue, the logic is horrifying.  I don't care how much it costs, I care that it isn't supposed to spent on these kind of surgeries, no one cares, and it's not even helping people.

Putting the cart before the horse. Could it possibly be they are heavily disparaged in society to this day, and especially so if they have an operation that leaves them at the time as less than convincing as the other gender? Look at any video including a transgender/transsexual speaker, including the recent ex-military members, and see how they are generally seen by the public. For example, here was a short video of transgender Navy SEAL Kristin Beck speaking about the decision, I suggest you check out the comments. Youtube comments are a dumpster fire at the best of times, but it's hard to argue that they don't seem to be generally maligned.

Regret for these types of operations is real, but what is a better alternative? There doesn't exist one, and that's even without going into the possibility of denying them when the person really does want them. On top of everything that Sias and Res already said.

It's worth noting that homosexuals have higher rates of suicide to this day too, decades after it stopped being considered an official mental illness. You're making the same sorts of arguments people made when wanted to keep gays out of the military (some still do) and the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' policy of very recent times.

Edited by Tryhard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...