Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, there are going to be five amendments now that are all targeting the transgender community. I want to make sure we understand a couple of really sort of broad themes and why these amendments are so problematic. Number one is the transgender community has been targeted and discriminated against aggressively. If my colleagues troll through rightwing radio or online messaging, they are called freaks and weirdos. They are dehumanized on a very consistent basis in a way that has led to violence and discrimination against the transgender community. On all five of these amendments--just put a little exclamation point on that--it encourages the dehumanization of transgender people in a way that is very, very dangerous. That is number one. Number two is transgender people exist. That is just a fact. Gender dysphoria is a medical fact. No serious medical person disagrees on that point. It is not even debatable. There are a couple of things that are debatable. What do we do about it? What treatments are appropriate, given the set of circumstances? Personally, I think it is wide open to have that conversation. What should the medical profession do? Second, when there is a transgender woman or a transgender man, how does that work in terms of sports and a wide variety of different things with women's sports or men's sports? We can have a conversation about how to fit that in.”