bars</tle><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_65hRV2Qwn" class="css-1fxvzwo" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_ILVvi2tqx" class="css-1wnday1" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC"><rect x="34" width="6" height="36" id="el_qw_T_tngXw"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_p_9Pm85Ac" class="css-fwki7z" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_WxG3R40yd" class="css-t3i5e6" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU"><rect x="22.67" width="6" height="36" id="el_lf9GrROk6j"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_kYNRGDfcw" class="css-t9te0w" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_3c3bzSjOJ" class="css-1r5375t" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw"><rect x="11.33" width="6" height="36" id="el_-iueO8klO0"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_y_fKcpSxn" class="css-qknaag" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_R6bNB6_Ys" class="css-1vd04" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC"><rect width="6" height="36" id="el_dS5TKNZZ5w"></rect></g></g></g></svg></div><div><div class="css-1t7yl1y">0:00<!-- -->/<!-- -->39:59</div><div class="css-og85jy">-<!-- -->39:59</div></div></div></div></hear><div class="css-uzyn7p"><div class="css-1vxyw"><p class="css-1nng8z9">transcript</p><h2 class="css-9wqu2x">Three Opn Wrers on Why the G.O.P. Can’t Stop Sayg ‘Gay’</h2><h4 class="css-qsd3hm">A left-right bate on the genr panic grippg Amerin polics.</h4><time dateTime="2022-04-27T09:00:09.000Z" class="css-1e605">2022-04-27T05:00:09-04:00</time></div><dl class="css-p98d0w"><dt class="css-xx7kwh"></dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Hey, ’s Jane. A quick note before today’s episo — over the next few months, you’re gog to hear some excg chang to the show. I’ll be brgg on some new and some faiar voic to take you si the hive md of the Tim Opn sectn. You’ll hear om opn wrers each week who are gog to ver the big bat and polarizg divisns that people are screamg at each other about, whether stateho or on the ter, or around the dner table.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We’ll dig to the lumns and the gut says that we disagree on, and we’ll fally get to unrstand how on earth people thk the way they do. I’d also love to hear your feedback, so email me at And wh that ’s, The Argument. Let’s do this. Hello.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Hi.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Hi, Jane, how are you?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">How’s gog?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Good, how about you?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m good. I am here, I’m also gog to turn off my vio, sce apparently that’s what we’re dog now. All the ol kids are turng off their vio. Well, of urse, longtime listeners of The Argument will regnize your voic, but for new listeners you, are Ross Douthat and Michelle Goldberg, New York Tim Opn lumnists on oppose ends of the polil spectm. Thank you for beg here.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Thank you, Jane.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Thank you, Jane.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">What I want to talk about today is what’s shapg up to be some Republins’ midterm gamb the 2022 culture wars, even though I kd of hate that term, bee that mak seem like this is like, at some pot, someone is enjoyg this, or that there will be a victory that someone enjoys. But what we’re talkg about is how we thk about — and I’m gog to e the term queer, and I’m fe wh you guys g , too.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I do bee sayg L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ is a really long thg. We don’t have all day. But I want to talk a ltle b about Republins and how our society treats queer children, parents, and teachers. This year has seen dozens of Republin led state legislatur attempt to impose laws around what n be tght classrooms, who n play sports wh whom, medil treatments, and more.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that for me, watchg this as a bisexual married Amerin who spent several years of my life workg on makg marriage equaly a right for everyone this untry to have or ignore as they see f, when I was workg as Jim Obergefell’s speechwrer at the Human Rights Campaign, I firmly believe that the ethos behd the bills is extremely dangero. And I will stand agast them — which, I thought was eful to have an actual nversatn about them and what they mean.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So Ross, you wrote a big lumn entled “How to Make Sense of the New L.G.B.T.Q. Culture War.” In as easily as one n sum up a very long piece, uld you briefly break down how you are makg a sense of the ias and the strategy?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">So the ame for the piece was basilly that really, roughly the perd sce Obergefell vs. Hodg was cid, sce same sex marriage was clared a nstutnal right, there has been a pretty large sle transformatn sexual intifitn among young people this untry. Where the share of Generatn Z, meang basilly 18 to 25-year-old Amerins at this pot,</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk there’s some data suggtg this is te even of people who aren’t beg polled, who are high school right now, are much, much more likely to intify as — I mean, well, ’s actually probably worth g the acronym here, bee there are differenc. They’re more likely to intify as every letter the L.G.B.T.Q. list. They’re particularly more likely to intify as bisexual. That is by far the largt tegory this shift —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">We did !</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">—so when we say. [GOLDBERG LAUGHS] You did — you did !</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Whoo!</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">The crease gay intifitn, lbian intifitn, and pecially transgenr intifitn has gone way, way, way up a very short amount of time. And my lumn basilly tried to sort of anize or tegorize different ways of thkg about this, wh one way of thkg of beg, basilly, this is great. This is sort of a long supprsed, reprsed, persecuted aspect of human inty and human nature sort of jt g to the fore a eer society.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And this kd of intifitn should be enuraged om whatever age manifts self. And this perspective is the basis for a range of pretty novel curricula for younger kids, which you uld distill as like the “genr unirn.” If listeners want to Google that to see sort of what kd of curricula are beg veloped all the way up through — high school, pecially — this is a pretty big change.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And there’s a perspective that is basilly leang to and is all for . There is a nflicted perspective that says a lot of this is the equivalent of the sort of “lbian for llege” self-intifitn that I thk certaly was faiar when at least Michelle and I were llege. Right, that ’s a younger generatn experimentg, intifyg ways that are different om olr generatns, but probably isn’t or certaly isn’t necsarily some permanent revelatn about human nature.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And ’s not clear that you want to sort of graft iologil assumptns onto , that you want to treat sort of uncrilly as somethg to always be taken lerally, let alone tervene medilly every se. That’s sort of the uncerta middle ground.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And then there’s the third tegory, which is the nservative posn, but one that enpass, tertgly, a certa kd of femist argument, and a certa kd of nservative, pro same sex marriage argument, that basilly there’s somethg kd of dangero here, that there’s a kd of social ntagn effect here where kids who other circumstanc, let’s say, would jt intify as a lbian, more beg enuraged to intify as transgenr.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Kids who would otherwise intify as straight are beg enuraged to sort of treat the uncertati of adolcence as a reason to feel alienated om their own bodi, and that therefore you need some kd of ristance agast this. You need some kd of reassertn of normativy. And for the nservativ, that would mean heteronormativy.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">For the sort of gay and femist crics, that would mean blogil normativy — the ia that ’s sential to make the largt number of kids possible renciled to their own blogil reali, and not have a suatn where the relatively small number of kids who really do have genr dysphoric feelgs are treated as an inty that a larger number of people should effectively intify to, right?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So that bate has sort of been gog on, but not really foreground plac — like, hontly our own newspaper to some extent — but ’s sort of been perlatg behd the scen for a while, and has now sort of explod wh the var forms of legislatn which are red stat, nservative stat, attempts to basilly put the force of law behd the third perspective var different ways.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Michelle, how did the efforts e to the fore, bee you’ve been chroniclg some of the attacks state by state. Do Ross’s terpretatn of where the bills are g om seem rrect to you?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that he’s rrect, that is the sort of background. Although some ways, both the trajectory of the laws and the kd of public ntroversy around them, and also jt how difficult is to sometim nail down exactly what we’re talkg about remds me of the cril race theory bate, that there’s a high brow fense of some of the bans on cril race theory that will pot to the most egreg exampl of kd of bullsh D.E.I. speak, and say, do you really want this your schools?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And the people who are opposed to the bans, as I am, will say — you know, no, I don’t like this stuff, but that’s not really what we’re talkg about. In practice his is about the teachg of history unr the guise of banng cril race theory. It’s not jt that they’re teachg watered down Rob DiAngelo. They’re purgg the library of books about Ruby Bridg. And I thk there’s somethg siar here, where there’s thgs about the way that some people on the left talk about genr now that I don’t love.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I don’t like the language of assigned genr at birth, assigned sex at birth, which mak seem as if was sort of arbrary. It’s not really how works. It’s not that the doctor looks at you and mak a gus. They make a sort of termatn. So there’s parts of this that I’ve always been unfortable wh, and I’ve been wrg about the issu for many years. But I don’t thk that general that is what’s happeng schools.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I also don’t thk that schools have really that much to do — certaly not as much as the ter — to do, wh chang and unrstandg of genr and sexualy, or queerns, or the huge rise that we’ve seen adolcent girls who want to transn. In practice, what you see wh the bills is that they are not jt banng the most sort of, like, rende aspects of queer theory, but they end up beg ed to persecute gay teachers, to make the existence of trans inty unspeakable public schools.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I thk that’s what they’re meant to do, right? The thgs that might make the kd of people the middle of Ross’s taxonomy unfortable, they’re not jt addrsed to that. It’s a much more thorough purgg, and ’s a very siar playbook to what we saw wh cril race theory.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Right, seems to me that there is an argument among some that you n separate out — like, that there’s, like, no. Like, trans people, that’s different, but we n be OK wh lbian, gays, and bisexual people. But as we’ve seen over the last uple of weeks, ’s never happened that way. That’s never been what is. We are locked this room wh you.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">So Jane, do you thk that gay skeptics of, aga, let’s say the sort of “genr unirn” approach to teachg kids, that those people are jt lud? That they are sentially handg the pchforks to the anti-gay mob?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk so.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">So like, people who are ncerned about kids who are gay and lbian beg enuraged — ’s jt a plete tegory error that they’re makg?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I thk that ’s a tegory error for a uple of reasons. I thk a lot about the experienc of beg a queer kid, which I was. And first and foremost, I thk that the ia that many people have where ’s, like — well, you uld jt be a genr nonnformg kid. You uld jt be a mascule girl or a feme boy. And that would be fe. But if you have ever been to school or lived life, you’re aware that isn’t fe for many people.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">The typ of prejudice that trans kids face is many ways very siar to the typ of prejudice that genr nonnformg kids face, that gay and lbian kids face. That’s somethg here that really bothers me about the parlance around the bills. Jt givg you the example of the Florida bill, is discsed as if is a sex ed bill. It isn’t. It simply says classroom stctn by school personnel or third parti on sexual orientatn or genr inty may not occur krgarten through gra 3, or a manner that is not age appropriate or velopmentally appropriate for stunts acrdance wh state standards.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Now, bis the fact that there are no state standards for talkg about L.G.B.T. people Florida, and no one knows what velopmentally appropriate means, and we’ll all have to fd out urt, the ia of social ntagn, that there would be fewer trans kids, or trans people, or fewer L.G.B.T. people wr large if they jt didn’t hear about school, or movi, or somewhere else — which seems to assume that there would be a rrect level of L.G.B.T. people, and now we have too many.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">But Jane, n I ask you a qutn?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Of urse.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Do you make, if you totally dismiss the ia of social ntagn, what do you make of the fact that ed to be mostly trans girls who prented at the genr inty clics, and now ’s, like, trans boys, so people who are born female and now want to intify as male.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">My unrstandg is that ’s kd of a different prentatn than the clics ed to see like that there’s a kd of -prentatn wh a lot of other mental health ndns that n be hard for fai and clicians to disentangle, bee — are the mental health ndns like a rult of sort of not havg accs to genr affirmg re? Or are they thgs that are kd of gog on simultaneoly, and maybe creatg the imprsn that transng will cure all of the other maladi?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">How I see is that there’s sort of a ratchet gog on, which is that, clearly, some kids need this kd of re and benef om . And they’re beg opprsed the red stat, where ’s not jt that they n’t mentn school — right? In Texas, ’s beg refed as child abe. And some stat, they’re tryg to make this punishable — givg kids puberty blockers or whatever — punishable by long prison terms. I thk that is happeng.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And at the same time, you have certa parts of the untry, people like Eri Anrson, the trans psychologist, who ed to be kd of a lear one of the ma trans medil anizatns, who’s now sayg that standards are gettg really sloppy. And some people are gettg the treatments who go on to regret them. Aga, seems to me as like a ratchet. Bee those s of regret, which we don’t really publicize, but are hugely publicized on the right, then bee a sort of cudgel or an exce to ban this re altogether.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And the fact that the bans are happeng, and that trans kids and their fai are so beleaguered, mak people on the left extremely reluctant to sort of support any kd of new guardrails even where they might be lled for.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">That was a lot of qutns, but I’ll go through all of those. And then I want to talk a ltle b about the larger ias about how sexual orientatn and genr inty work or don’t work. I would say first and foremost that whenever we’re talkg about numbers of people, and like a rise numbers of people, I’m like, well, what has changed? What has changed the ntext? And so y, I thk that there are more trans boys and trans men transng.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I thk that there’s a fascatg thg that we do our culture, which is if we are talkg about trans women, we are always talkg about adults — the way that trans women are st our parlance, pecially on the right, as jt kd of like evil, ugly adults. We saw that wh the bathroom bills. But trans men are st as children. There seems to be this belief that trans men will grow out of a “tomboy” phase. Like, they don’t fully unrstand their cisn, even when they’re, like, 25.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">I jt thk that matters to talk about the people for whom works. Mental health out are really challengg to ntextualize, bee you talked about people who receive genr affirmg re, but who are also livg wh other mental health difficulti. Which like, yeah! It turns out that when I me out as jt a young non-heterosexual, that was great. But didn’t fix everythg. Like, I was still alg wh anxiety and prsn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I would jt like to note here that at no time the history of human civilizatn has been a better time to be me than is right now. At no time. Whenever people on the ter are like, oh, what year would you want to go back to? I say none, absolutely none. I would go back to 2019, and that’s as far as I’m gog back, bee I thk that — Ross, you brought up the ia of social ntagns.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I want to ask, like, what if ’s social affirmatn? Bee I’ve talked to enough trans people, or people who are now out, or me out late life. And a lot of was, I wasn’t able to do this, or I tried to e out earlier and was rejected. All of the experienc are very plex. But the shiftg our society n be a reason as to why people are dog thgs that they know they wouldn’t have done 10 years ago.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">So I thk that how society —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">OK, but thk about — but then, first, I totally agree wh you that ’s totally reasonable to make the argument that this is jt primarily affirmatn. I thk the view that this is primarily social affirmatn is an credibly wispread and powerful view. I also know, as someone who is a social nservative, if I had wrten a lumn 2012, and I had, said, look, here’s what’s gog to happen.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We’re gog to have same sex marriage as the law of the land, and wh five or 10 years, like a quarter of young people are gog to intify as L.G.B.T.Q. And we’re gog to have the Print of the Uned Stat sayg that the appropriate rponse to genr dysphoria is puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and eventually, potentially surgery. That is gog to be the posn of the Democratic Party.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">If I had wrten that lumn — not you, but I thk maybe Michelle would have rpond that I was beg crazy. That this was, like, the crazy alarmist perspective of social nservativ who thk everythg will get fluid and weird and crazy the send we allow same sex marriage. That that’s jt nonsense. And everyone unrstands that sexualy is graed. It’s geic. It’s blogil. It’s not somethg that n change rapidly a short perd of time.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And this is what has happened. And I thk there probably should be some room the bate for nservativ to be able to say, well —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I told you so.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Maybe, whout qutng —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You told me what then?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, then the qutn, is —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Is this bad?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Is all of this good? Is this jt unplitedly good?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh, nothg is unplitedly good. I thk that ’s all very plited, but I would say that pecially bee the are mov beg ma by dividuals who are all sorts of ntexts. And for some kids this is gog to be the start of a tly wonrful life for them. And for some kids will be an error, but is an error that they are able to take — and I’d like to note here that you’ve brought up the ia of medil transn a uple of tim.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But Florida, D.O.H. policy disurag the support of even social genr transn. We’re not even talkg about puberty blockers or surgery, or any of that. The ia here is that if you are a kid and you appear to be genr nonnformg, we n’t ll you by a name that mak you feel like yourself. We n’t let you wear the cloth that make you feel like yourself. And I thk that that’s what bothers me a lot about this bate.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I’m cur, bee I don’t have kids — not yet, anyway. Both of you are parents. But feels as if a lot of this nversatn is actually aimed at adults. They’re adults, talkg to adults, or screamg at adults, or llg adults groomers. It is very easy to put thgs the parlance of, oh, we’re jt protectg kids. I thk about how many of the moral panics we’ve ever endured as a untry have been about the kids, or the children.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And we see that the way that some on the far right have talked about the ias, where you hear someone like Charlie Kirk, who is — we’re not talkg, like, tellectual mol, but someone who gets heard by a lot of people sayg, that well, we let them have marriage, and now they’re g after our kids. The ia here is not, I am eply ncerned about trans young people. The ia here is those evil homosexuals are recg our kids.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">How do you f this to this overall polil ntext, where we’re talkg about the parental rights of some parents, and talkg about the rights of some kids. And I’m jt cur how you thk about this.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">There are a few different thgs here gog on. One, I pletely agree wh you that whatever the primary cultural driver of any of the trends are, is not K through 3, or K through six, or high school tn. It’s a sort of adolcent culture, ter-mediated phenomenon, and the alternative theory that this is jt people’s actual nature g to the fore, then obvly the schools aren’t the on drivg that eher.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">However, the schools are evably the sort of polilly erned place, as you said at the start, where we hash out how we talk about the thgs, what ncepts we troduce to children at what age, and also how you navigate the qutn of where do parents’ powers end, and teenage sort of self-termatn beg. So the Florida law rather famoly the word stctn, and says there’s not gog to be any stctn on the subjects, both sexual orientatn and genr inty, right?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so the qutn then is, what is stctn? What is stctn? And is stctn —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">And no one seems to be que clear.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Right well, and that’s bee part, the aln that is anx about the new trends clus both people who are very socially nservative and eher thk same sex marriage was a mistake, or are generally unfortable wh homosexualy, and also people who are very fortable wh same sex marriage and homosexualy, and are unfortable wh the way genr issu are beg tght schools.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And therefore, the balance that you would actually want is the teacher who has to talk about why a kid their class was drsed as a girl one week and now is drsed as a boy or the teacher that class who needs to talk sort of sually about how Billy or Jane has two daddi, and some fai have two daddi. All of that don’t seem like stctn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Right.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">To me, stctn means curriculum. And I thk the curricula that I’ve seen are not good, but if you take a law and say stctn means any nversatn, then that is both unworkable and somethg that I totally agree, that— you’re totally reasonable to be ncerned about . But I thk there’s an ambiguy here.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, and this is what I thk giv lie to the kd of parents’ rights amg.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Right.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Right, bee ’s not really about parents’ rights many plac. I mean, certaly Texas is not about parents’ rights, when ’s threateng child protective servic vtigatns of parents who make the cisn to let their children beg transns, which — I thk there are s where this is done valierly, or more valierly than I thk is appropriate. But most s, the parents are dog a lot of rearch and agonizg over this, and makg the cisn after like a lot of thought about their kids, who they know really well.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And Texas is basilly sayg, no, we know better. So I thk the parents’ rights thg is a b of a red herrg. I do unrstand — I mean, I wish I had the right quote ont of me, but Margaret Mead wrote that every known human society has been anized around the kd of dichotomy of male and female, even if different societi attribute different quali to one or the other, right? so genr is socially nstcted, but there hasn’t been societi that don’t have this sexual dimorphism as a central anizg prciple.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And morny chang that. It means that men and women have much more siar rol, and that has always created fundamentalist backlash and attempts to recreate a sort of lost social orr, that often the recreatn of ends up beg even more punive than the sort of origal, tradnal orr. And so —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I jt wanted to terject that I jt went to see “The Northman,” [LAUGHTER] and I would dispute the claim that any evangelil or fundamentalist muny anywhere the Uned Stat has e close to recreatg Vikg patriarchy. Jt puttg that there for the rerd.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">OK, I’m gog to give you that one, Ross.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">OK, thank you.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">OK, but I thk then you get to trans issu, and you get to new forms of social anizatn that even further subvert the genr bary. I mean, I thk there are people who are really cynilly explog this. I also thk there are people who really do see this as hugely stabilizg, as part of a sort of broar social breakdown. I thk all of would probably agree that the broar social breakdown is happeng? We disagree on the of .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">There’s people who look around, they see a untry that’s like extremely chaotic, where all sorts of bonds are ayg. And to them, this is part of . And so the right has been able to explo that anxiety and give people who are anx about this spegoats for . And I don’t thk so far that progrsiv have had a great rponse to this anxiety, bee some sense they kd of jt don’t want to talk about .</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I want to back up a ltle b, bee we’re talkg about the dividual bat, and we’re talkg a lot about Florida. But I thk that a lot of the bills seem to sprg om what I would say is a willful misunrstandg of how people like me beme ourselv. That for L.G.B.T. adults, somethg happened. You get bopped on the head, or you saw the movie “Mannequ.” Somethg happened to you at some pot, and if jt wouldn’t have happened. You would not be L.G.B.T.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We saw 2016 that Republins had a — an armistice on L.G.B.T. issu, sort of. And I want to be very clear on the sort of, bee I thk some of was performative. You had Peter Thiel at the 2016 Republin Natnal Conventn. You had Tmp holdg that pri flag that was scrawled on.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And there was a sense om Tmp that he jt simply did not re about the issu, which that is one thg about him that I totally believe. I simply believe that he jt do not really re that much.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">That do not mean that social nservativ stopped rg about . And I talked to social nservativ after the Bostock Supreme Court cisn, and they were very upset. But what do you thk is gog on sce 2016?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, I mean, part of is that there has been, aga, jt to go back to where I began, a dramatic statistil, at least, transformatn the self-intifitn of Amerin youth that very few people, liberal or nservative, would have predicted 10 years ago. And send, that the arguments beg ma by the liberal or progrsive si about what is play here, and the nature of sexual inty and sexual orientatn, have changed a lot.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And have, some s, ma a kd of 180 gree change, where really was the se that the re argument around same sex marriage and acceptance of homosexualy and gay people, the argument that triumphed over Ana Bryant, that triumphed over all of the social nservative arguments agast — and very easily, the end, relative to people’s expectatns — was that homosexualy was not a choice. Whether ’s fully geic or blogil, whatever is, is eply graed.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">You know — and that you n image a society that has a lot of straight people, a smaller number of gay people who behave vaguely the same ways. And look, obvly, what I’m scribg sounds simplistic and naive. I thought was simplistic and naive at the time. But this was the argument, right? And now, a relatively short amount of time, we have swched to an argument of, well, of urse, we always knew that genr inty was totally fluid and that people would sort of move and out of inti.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And all of that has happened batn wh a change how medil thori and systems handle trans-intifyg youth, that has happened a way that leads to at least some s of ser regret for — not social transng, but you know, treatments that sterilize people, that lead to mastectomi, that — and aga, all of this happened a relatively short amount of time whout substantial bate.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I gus one of my issu wh how this nversatn works is that some of the laws are really bad. Some of them I thk are more batable. But people are very ncerned about hypothetil s drawn om the laws. But we have eher a total fort, or many s jt a sort of silence liberalism about the possibily that we were nng ser medil terventns whout a lot of evince on kids, on 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And that has actually happened. It has happened large, not massive numbers, but substantial numbers.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oh, I don’t thk ’s happened substantial numbers. I mean, the numbers of 13 and 14-year-olds who are gettg cross sex hormon — there’s, like, a horrible arth of rearch on this — but they are pretty small.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">You n see the number of clics gog way, way up, which tells you somethg. But yeah, we’re operatg part on the basis of anecdote rather than data.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">When we’re talkg about trans people, the way numbers n be ed n be credibly harmful. When you talk to trans people who are, like, why didn’t you transn earlier? A lot of people tried. Yeah, get people rigoro help. Give people the bt medil support they n possibly have. That seems pretty obv to me. What we are talkg about when we’re talkg about trans kids is that, general, we’re talkg about kids who socially transned.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">They might start g a different name. They might start wearg different cloth. But seems to me that if you are a parent and you’ve worked wh doctors, and you’ve worked wh your kid, and you are all makg cisns together, to have the state of Texas e and say, look, you’re abg your kid, that seems like bullsh to me.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">We n’t get to all of this, or we will be here lerally all day. But I do want to ask both of you before we end, this issue is credibly ntent. And I feel like ntent even mak sound like we’re talkg about policy, but we are also talkg about people. But is this a strategy — like, is this a brilliant bate to rope-a-dope me to havg the nversatns 87 ln tim, and is that gog to help the Republins the midterms? Like, is this a polil strategy? What’s gog on here?</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And Michelle, where are Democrats on this, and where should they be?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Well, look, I thk ’s a difficult nversatn for Democrats, bee ’s sort of a classic wedge issue, where I’m gusg that you have a large number of Democratic voters who are uneasy, but probably even more fervent group of Democratic voters who expect the party to be stalwart supportg a maximally genr affirmg policy.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Right, I mean the reason that the right mak such e of transners is bee they reprent somethg very difficult for the Democratic Party and people who re about L.G.B.T.Q. rights, people who jt re about featg the right more generally. You know, be a wedge issue. I tend to thk that the bt approach is to jt talk about them forthrightly. You know, somebody that I ma a parison to abortn regret.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And they said the same way that the right lov to dwell on women who regret abortns, even though studi show that most women don’t regret their abortns, and actually, women who get abortns fare much better on all sorts of social and psychologil measur than women who are nied abortns at a siar time pregnancy. But I also thk that if abortn regret beme a big issue. It would jt make more sense to be, like, OK, fe.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Let’s look at stead of sayg —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Right.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">No, this discsn jt helps the right, and women don’t regret their abortns, and that’s all there is to . I thk is better to remove some of the taboos about havg the discsns, even though I do thk that the reason ’s so hard to have the discsns is bee there’s such tense fear of playg to the right, bee even people who are ncerned about this stuff among liberals still believe that there are trans kids and trans people, and that their rights are unr attack.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And so at a time when people are a fensive crouch, ’s very difficult to then have a sort of dispassnate discsn about treatments that some people regard as a matter of life and ath.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Ross, I remember mere months ago when this started wh Florida’s legislatn, and was a nversatn about stctn regardg genr inty the classroom. And then has spun wildly to the Republin Party killg Disney’s special district. So I’m cur to hear om you as to — om the Republin perspective, what is gog on here? And what is the endgame your view?</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I mean, I don’t know what the end game is. There’s totally potential for Republins to dramatilly overreach. I thk the DeSantis and Disney thg, a way, would require an entirely different episo. But I thk ’s part of a larger pattern of Republins and their relatnship to big bs, at a time when a lot of rporatns are unr ternal prsure to be publicly progrsive.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">And I thk that to the extent that the DeSantis gamb is popular among Republins, ’s that larger ntext. Jt like, OK, we need some kd of polil strategy where we e polics to balance agast the progrsive employe of Silin Valley. We n’t get Elon Mk to buy every pany. So if the Florida law leads to high profile firgs of gay teachers, will be very unpopular. I uld be wrong, but that would be my expectatn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">But I thk we are only a few years removed om social nservativ nsistently losg bat not jt about gay rights, but about trans rights. And I wouldn’t assume that unrlyg dynamic has been transformed, which is why I thk, to agree wh Michelle, I thk ’s helpful for liberals to sort of figure out, well, what is — not what is drivg the backlash agast the most relig of relig nservativ, but what is makg this seem like a good polil move for Republin ernors purplish stat? And for that, you do have to look —</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I’m sorry to terpt, but I jt want to say, I thk that what liberals should be tryg to figure out is jt what do we thk is the right policy, not reactn to what the right is dog.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Yeah, I agree wh — I endorse that take.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">I still have a great al more to say on the subject, and I’m sure you both do too. But for now, let’s leave here. Michelle, Ross, thank you so much for talkg about this wh me.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Thank you, Jane. Thank you for—</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">michelle goldberg</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Thank you so much.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">ross douthat</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Thank you for enablg heated discsn.</p></dd><dt class="css-xx7kwh">jane aston</dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Ross Douthat and Michelle Goldberg are Tim Opn lumnists. And we’ll lk to Ross’s lumn. It’s lled, “How to Make Sense of The New L.G.B.T.Q. Culture War.” I also want to leave you wh one statistic, bee we talked a lot this episo about how many trans people have send thoughts about their transns. Generally, we’re discsg medil transns, to be clear there. There are lots of trans people who do not pursue medil transn.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">Now, ’s a tricky qutn, but there have been some studi that have tried to answer . And one survey of those studi found that of the people who have unrgone genr-affirmg surgeri, the number of them who regret is only about 1 percent. Fally, we’re openg ments on today’s episo. So now that you’ve listened, feel ee to leave your thoughts, and I will look forward to your very civil bat and rpectful disagreement.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">The Argument is a productn of New York Tim Opn. It’s produced by Phoebe Lett, Elisa Gutierrez, and Vishakha Darbha. Eded by Alison Bzek and Anabel Ban, wh origal mic by Isaac Jon and Pat McCker. Mixg by Pat McCker. Fact-checkg by Michelle Harris and Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Bta, wh edorial support om Krista Samulewski. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Dr. Stephanie Roberts at Boston Children’s Hospal.</p><p class="css-8hvvyd">[MUSIC PLAYING]</p></dd></dl></div></div></div></div><div style="posn:absolute;width:0;height:0;visibily:hidn;display:none"></div><hear class="css-1vwfk9f" data-breakpot=""><div style="width:100%" data-ttid="flt-layout"><div style="background-image:url()" class="css-18qqsen e1llfg0"><div class="css-1hmsypo e1llfg2"><div class="css-131hid3 e1llfg3"><div class="css-1uhi299 e1llfg1"></div><div class="css-1tloyb6"><div class="css-1kltdsh ehra6vc0"><a href=" class="css-2ne0py"><span class="css-1f76qa2"><img alt="The Argument logo" src="><span>The Argument</span></span></a><span class="css-1lhttlg ehra6vc1"><span class="css-sj5ozi ehra6vc2">Subscribe:</span><ul class="css-hx5n"><li><a href=" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple Podsts</a></li><li><a href=" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Google Podsts</a></li></ul></span></div></div><div class="css-1r0dpua e1llfg4"><div class="css-1gu519p edye5kn0"><div><h1 class="css-1xbyom1 edye5kn2">Three Opn Wrers on Why the G.O.P. 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