I’m delighted to say that our new national leadership team is continuing to have a nearly perfect record in conveying half truths, lies and innuendos. I should hate to be proven wrong after all these months saying that Trump is stupid by suddenly being floored by his stating a truthful and substantiated medical fact, demonstrated an understanding of the US Constitution or even proffered some degree of humility of having the responsibility to lead one of the most powerful nations in the world’s history.
One of his favorite stupid don tricks is to claim something is true that really is not. “The Big Lie” consists of repeating the same tired wrong facts, figures or analysis over again until you seem like a fool to be asserting the actual facts. Trump didn’t invent this but with his gift for hyperbole he has developed it into a formidable weapon.
Trump’s fantasy narrative making use of the “big lie” technique.:
He tells us that little Johnny says goodbye to his parents in the morning. During the day, without his parents permission a dangerous reassignment surgery is performed on Johnny and he arrives back home that evening as Julia.
Now contrast my real life experience, which corresponds to other transwomen I know:
- Before I could schedule my surgery I needed letters from two separate therapists (PhD psychologists are ok too) and an MD. Typically the candidate will have spent a year living as the target gender. You also spend a year on cross sex hormone therapy and it is actually pretty obvious when that’s a bad move, instead of them feeling relieved and better, they feel bad.
- Once I went for my surgery, the surgery itself took seven hours. The reassignment surgery took about four hours and a breast enhancement took another two or three.
- I then spent the next four days recovering in the hospital on a vancomycin drip to avoid catching a nosocomial (hospital acquired) infection such as merced. This is one of the reasons hospitals want to kick you out as soon as possible.
- Another two weeks recovering locally to my surgeon and with help from my sister and brother in law.
- I then flew home and spent another six weeks recuperating before I could actually return to work.
Needless to say, even a young child Like Juli would need time in a hospital and recouperation time at home before Juli would be ready for the rough and tumble world of softball.
In case I’ve somehow been too subtle let me be perfectly frank and say that no doctor is going to risk their license to perform reassignment surgery on a minor, which is not allowed for in the WPATH protocol. The total cost of a reassignment surgery is around thirty thousand. To provide context this is similar to the cost of an appendectomy. For the insurance company to pay for the surgery, all the paperwork has to be in order. For reassignment surgery that means the patient has to be at least 18 (check the WPATH SOC document for the current requirements).
If this were really happening we would know about it. 60 minutes would have sneaked hidden cameras into the OR. Consider that just the surgical team involves more than just the plastic surgeon and the urologist involved. You have an anesthesiologist, there are nurses taking part, other doctors who might be learning the procedure or assisting in the surgery. If this were really happening we’d have substantial documentation because the hospital tracks everything that’s done to you. Why? If there’s a procedure there’s something to bill. Medicine is a lot of things but it is still a business.
Secrets are not well kept by ten people (plus the viewers from the gallery)
And now at last we get to transgender mice.Well this was a bit of a misnomer, referring to a study about transgenic mice which have nothing to do with either gender or sex. So as as Gilda Radner’s character would say on Saturday Night Live “never mind”
Now President Trump learned about “transgender mice”. Make that transgenic mice. We’d better watch out or Governor Abbot in Texas will introduce legislation regarding transgenic mice.
Needless to say the only real connection is that they both involve biology. Will we need to change the name of the department of trans-portation?
First some bad news. Texas really seems to have it out for trans people. The latest bill would make it a crime to essentially be trans in public. To be fair nobody expects this to go anywhere but Texas has a long list of bills to attend to. I’m glad that all the ordinary work of governance is so well centered that spending their time annoying the trans community has become a priority.
On the good news front/in Montana, about half the republicans stood with the democrats to defeat an anti trans bill that would basically criminalize the story telling hours that often have drag performers. Somebody should really clue them in that the kids just want to know if the fox stole the eggs.
Perhaps this would be a useful place to apply an executive order?
My Gifted Life 