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Comment by bokoharambe | Hacker News Reader

Numerous pieces of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation have passed at a state level under the Biden presidency. You might argue that that's outside of the purview of the federal government, but that certainly wasn't the case in the 50s and 60s where federal military force was used to enforce civil rights legislation. The federal government failing to use its sovereign power is 100% erosion of rights.

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I don't think those situations are comparable. There is precious little LGBTQ-rights legislation at the federal level, so there's nothing for the federal government to enforce when a shitty state-level government chooses to discriminate against LGBTQ folks. And it's not like Republicans in the federal government will let LGBTQ-rights legislation to pass.

LGBTQ rights are popular. Appropriate legislation could be drawn up and enforced. It would be an authoritarian move, certainly, but authoritarianism just won the election.

You're arguing Biden should have used the military, and because he didn't do that he's clearly sympathetic to anti-LGBTQ sentiment and that makes it the Dems fault? Well, that's certainly a take. It feels like it ignores the current government dynamics.

I'm just saying that inaction is not a neutral act at all. It is a form of complicity.

That seems an unreasonable expectation as to what the Dems can do. It's sets them up to fail, and make it's easy to say they are the same, when you set up an unreasonable scale where one is trying to remove the rights and the other isn't fighting hard enough become the same.

I'm not the one setting liberalism up to fail, it seems to implode catastrophically every few decades. Last time was during the interwar period. The failure of liberal governments to exercise their sovereign powers in the face of social and economic crises is exactly what handed electoral victories to fascists in the decades after WWI. Their failure was baked in and you were duped from the start for thinking that liberal democracy could be a sound basis for human emancipation.

The Dems are writing and sponsoring anti lgbtq laws nationwide. Biden removed anti lgbtq discrimination rules, permitting local municipalities to discriminate against trans kids. The Dems aren't just side liners here, they are active participants in the erosion of lgbtq rights.

Could you tell me what you're referring to with this:

> Biden removed anti lgbtq discrimination rules

Read up on 1557 changes and title ix changes, which include language that specifically permits institutions to say, "we do not discriminate based on criteria X, y, z" when they discriminate against trans people.

It also affirmed that they felt they could supersede state law to protect caregivers (doctors, etc) who provide care against the law in their state (gender affirming care). They declined to exercise that authority and explicitly said they would not.

They also said they would consider provider discrimination only on a case by case basis (which they are not funded to do, and leaves poorer people more likely to suffer discrimination).

They added language stating "nothing in this rule imposes a requirement that covered entities provide gender affirming care".

They specifically struck the following language: "a providers belief that gender transition or other gender affirming care can never be beneficial for such individuals is not sufficient basis for a judgement that a health service is not clinically appropriate." Basically giving doctors the explicit right to say "I don't believe in gender affirming care and will not provide it".

It's worse than this, actually. Biden administration removed anti discrimination statutes that both Obama and Trump had in place around discrimination in healthcare care and education. Biden changed the rules to permit discriminatory behavior by states as long as it was not "systematic". So, of course, states and municipalities will discriminate against trans folks and then claim they were all unique cases.

Yes, you are right Biden did nothing to protect LGBTQ folks, but he did also take action to harm them.

Most of that legislation is to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls, or to safeguard children from medical harm. When you examine the details it's not really going against anyone's civil rights.

Ah, the great American rhetorical tradition of masking discrimination in the language of civility. Just like pre-Jacksonian restrictions on voting protected the rights of the propertied from the depredations of the masses. Or how Jim Crow protected the rights of white southerners from those uneducated undesirables threatening orderly society. Or how restricting gay marriage protected the rights of Christians...

I hear exactly what you are saying, clear as day.

You should elaborate on why you believe these are comparable.

For example, consider a male convict who desires to be incarcerated in the female prison estate. Is it really civil rights discrimination to deny him this? If so, how?

Most importantly, what about the civil rights of the female prisoners he would be incarcerated with, if this were permitted?

American prisons violate any notion of humaneness and rights from the outset. The abject subjects who are condemned to dwell in them cannot be used to illustrate anything about civil rights, other than the fact that the state regularly uses its sovereign power to violate them.

If I was under constant threat of rape or murder, I would do anything to get to a situation that I thought might be less dangerous.

Are you aware of why prisons are, or were up until recently in some states, segregated by sex - why we have separate female and male prisons?

Prisons should not exist.

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