Blue Ribbon Gaslighting

ohmigod why are you people so like obsessed and stuff

This NPR interview with Nebraska Senator Machaela Cavanaugh is one for the recordbooks.

Start here for background: After a Republican legislator introduced a bill to ban “gender-affirming care” for minors — fertility-inhibiting puberty blockers and genital mutilation — Cavanaugh, a Democrat, threatened to “burn this session to the ground,” filibustering all legislation in the state senate. She’s making good on that threat, filibustering every day, and no legislation has made it through the Nebraska senate in the current session.

Now, on to the naked gaslighting in this NPR interview, complete with predictable vocal fry and upspeak: “I don't know why, as a nation, as policymakers, there is this newfound focus on trans children. Trans children have always existed. They have always lived in our society, in our schools, in our families. And all of the sudden, there is a decision by policymakers that we need to do something about them. It doesn't make any sense to me.”

Yes, why on earth is there a newfound focus on trans children? “All of the sudden,” the weird right-wingers are obsessed with it, for no apparent reason. Here’s what Reuters says about the topic:

In 2021, about 42,000 children and teens across the United States received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, nearly triple the number in 2017, according to data Komodo compiled for Reuters. Gender dysphoria is defined as the distress caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and the one assigned to them at birth.

Overall, the analysis found that at least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 through 2021.

Or, from that same article:

Knowing this perfectly well, Cavanaugh frames Republican interest in something that’s becoming far more prevalent in a hurry as baffling and weird, “this newfound focus.” This isn’t an argument; it’s just straight-up dishonesty, DARVO by other means, like punching someone and then asking why they’re so weirdly obsessed with being punched. Republicans have this newfound interest in gender expression among young people because Democrats have a newfound interest in gender expression among young people — or, more broadly, because the culture as a whole has a newfound interest in gender expression among young people. December 8, 1941: Legislator warns colleagues to stop with this super-creepy obsession about Japan, you guys.

Making something far more prevalent and then pretending to wonder why it’s getting so much more attention is sleazy behavior. This person is without shame.

But then, second, Cavanaugh frames the question as hate versus kindness: “If this legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful — painful — for everyone.”

If you doubt the wisdom of cutting the healthy breasts off a 14 year-old girl’s body, you’re “legislating hate against children.” Cutting is kindness. There’s no room anywhere in Cavanaugh’s consciousness for the slightest awareness of detransitioner narratives or whistleblower claims from pediatric gender clinics. The closure of the Tavistock clinic, the growth of detransitioner lawsuits against medical practitioners: crickets. She can’t take any of it on, because her world is love versus hate, and love is cutting parts off of healthy young bodies. Love is permanent infertility. All children who are medically transitioned are receiving kindness, full stop. She lives in a cartoon universe, equally dumb and self-righteous, seeing nothing as she imposes her will on an entire state.

Remember this dangerous fool. There will be a moral reckoning.

fh