Category: Violence

I should explain

Hello Everyone.  As everyone knows my blog means a lot to me, I have used blogging the friends it brought me as a help against all the bad memories I have in my life.  But for the last three weeks I couldn’t really do the blog and today at nearly 1 pm, after being at the computer since 3:30 am, I am just now starting to get to the comments I love.  

I went to bed yesterday after a grand meal of a steak and large salad.  Even though I did not finish all the steak but did eat the entire salad is because I just don’t eat like I use to, I now eat like an older person.  But it was great and grand.  But after, I went to bed about four pm.  

I woke on and off until 1:30.  I tried to go back to sleep but at 3 am Ron’s rescue cat tummy feed me alarm went off so I got up to feed him.  At 3:30 I got to my computers.  Then I went to the Male survivor site.  I found I had several private messages and a bunch of replies to what I wrote before.  Plus there were 20 more posts.  I read them and replied to those I had something to add to the thread.  Plus it is not just one person, every person is adding their thoughts and we all add our responses to them.  It took me until 10 am this morning to clear it all out.  Then I had to lay down and I slept for an hour and half.  

When I got up, I went to the admin on my blog and checked the posts from Ali and Randy.  I set them up in tabs to like, add comments to, or just read.  I love that both Ail and Randy are adding their thoughts here.  First it makes sure there is content when I can not get to it, and second what they both post is their ideas, their concerns, and different from what I might post.  As Ron says it broadens the blog to give a far more diverse reason for people to come visit.   Not to steal from the Christian or other holy books, but I looked on it and find it good.   😛😀😁😍😎

I have been feeling dragged out and tired.  But I am hoping as the cold fades and I have more energy I can do better at handling both the blog and the other sites.  I hate the feeling that there is simply not enough of me, and both Ron and Randy are worried about the time I am spending on the abuse site, immersed in others abuse and reliving mine.  They are afraid it will cause me a relapse into depression on my own abuse.  Yes it is possible I have already had bad dreams and been fighting that at night.   

One guy was abducted at age 7, tortured and abused to be made a sex toy for a cult leader.  Scary stuff, after a few years he was rescued, but still finds himself hitting himself if he doesn’t refer to the guy who abused him as master.  He hits himself before he can stop it. Then he simply gave himself to anyone who demanded it or told him to please him. As a teen and young adult he simply lived in a house with no clothing thinking he had a boyfriend who loved him, but instead the guy would invite friends over and they used him when ever they felt like it.   He got to the point that no matter what he was doing guys who were friends with his “boyfriend” simply would grab him and fuck him or tell him to drop down to suck them off.  I understand the trained behavior, I was trained to it also.  But most of mine stopped when the hell spawn left the house, only the adults were left to use me and occasionally the hell spawn came back or took me to their home to service them.  One took me out in his semi and forced me to “please” him when he parked in a truck stop.  I was an adult maybe 26 and still had not learned to tell them no.  I never went out in his truck again no matter how much he tried to get me to.   

The victim and I spend hours talking, writing back and forth.  He wants more like a video call or phone call, but I have explained to him those things trigger me.   Even now at 61 there are only two people in my life I feel comfortable / OK talking to on the phone, I still resonate with the beatings to never touch a phone as a child.  I do much better on a computer or video app on the phone like FaceTime, because I don’t have to look like I am holding a phone to myself, getting open for an angry beating.  But with ear buds it works also. 

So right now I am tired.  Again, I am going to lay down a few minutes because I can not finish this, my eyes are crossing.  Yhrrn —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Several hours later …   I just got up.   What happened is along with my normal medication I took a med my doctor wanted me to try that is also given to MS patients.  Ron has it at a much smaller dose.  He wanted me to try it with my other when my muscles hurt or spasms more than I could stand with my regular medication.  I took a half one.  When it kicked in, my eyes crossed and I felt so tired, needing to lay down.  Once the med cleared my system after a few hours I feel fine again but I will say my pain and spasms are much better.  I got so foggy I wrote the last above the line before I went to bed.  I decided to leave it in.   

So the day is gone by, I have not posted or replied to comments, I have not helped Ron much around the house.  I plan to make a sauce tomorrow.  I did not even post my meme post this week, but I have not added to it in four days until today.  So I think I will hold it a few days, or at least until tomorrow afternoon.  

I thank everyone for hanging on here, to listening to me, Ali, or Randy.  I feel so much better since I got up, I am going to go to the blog and reply to comments that are there I have not lost yet.  As always to those who posted a comment I missed, reposted it or use my email listed to get my attention to it.  Know I love you.  This is a minor hiccup that is going to work itself out soon.   Hugs.  Scottie

 

 

Peace and Justice History for 7/27:

July 27, 1919
A riot began in Chicago when police refused to arrest a white man who was responsible for the death of a young black man, Eugene Williams. The 29th Street Beach on Lake Michigan was used by both black and white Chicagoans. But the man had been throwing stones at the black boys swimming there before hitting Williams.
The Coroner’s report on the riot described the events as follows: “Five days of terrible hate and passion let loose, cost the people of Chicago 38 lives (15 white and 23 colored), wounded and maimed several hundred, destroyed property of untold value, filled thousands with fear, blemished the city and left in its wake fear and apprehension for the future . . . .”
The city’s booming economy, especially jobs in the stockyards, had drawn many blacks during the Great Migration from the South, more than doubling their population in just three years. Only one policeman died in the chaos, Patrolman John Simpson, 31, an African American working out of the Wabash Avenue Station. (Read more: https://www.newhistorian.com/2015/07/29/chicago-race-riot-1919/
July 27, 1953
After three years of bloody and frustrating war leading to stalemate, the United States, the People’s Republic of China and North Korea agreed to a truce, bringing the Korean War—and America’s first experiment with the Cold War concept of “limited war”—to an end (South Korean President Syngman Rhee opposed the truce and refused to sign). U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower had taken office six months earlier, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin had died that March.
Korean War Memorialphoto: Heather StanfieldThe armistice signed this day ended hostilities and created the 4000-meter-wide (2.5 miles) demilitarized zone (DMZ), a buffer between North and South Korean forces, but was not a permanent peace treaty. It also set up a system for exchanging prisoners of war: 12,000 held by the North, 75,000 by South Korea, the U.S. and the U.N. allied forces.
There were four million military and civilian casualties, including 16,000 from countries which were part of the U.N.-allied forces; 415,000 South and 520,000 North Koreans died.There were also an estimated 900,000 Chinese casualties. 36,516 died out of the nearly 1.8 million Americans who served in the conflict.
July 27, 1954
The democratically elected Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, after receiving 65% of the vote, was overthrown by CIA-paid and -trained mercenaries. There followed a series of military dictatorships that waged a genocidal war against the indigenous Mayan Indians and against political opponents into the ’90s. Nearly 200,000 citizens died over the nearly four decades of civil war.
“They have used the pretext of anti-communism. The truth is very different. The truth is to be found in the financial interests of the fruit company [United Fruit, which controlled more land than any other individual or group in the country. It also owned the railway, the electric utilities, telegraph, and the country’s only port at Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast.] and the other U.S. monopolies which have invested great amounts of money in Latin America and fear that the example of Guatemala would be followed by other Latin countries . . . I took over the presidency with great faith in the democratic system, in liberty and the possibility of achieving economic independence for Guatemala.”Jacobo Arbenz
More about Arbenz  https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKarbenz.htmThe real coup story through official U.S. documents  https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/
July 27, 1996
Known as the “Weep for Children Plowshares,” four women were arrested for pouring their own blood on weaponry at the Naval Submarine Base at Groton, Connecticut, on the morning of the launch of the last-built Ohio-class submarine, the U.S.S. Louisiana. The 18 such submarines carry about half of the U.S. nuclear deterrent – 24 Trident I & II missiles with a range of 7400 km (4600 miles), each with several warheads known as MIRVs (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles).
Trident sub being loadedDetails of the action  https://www.jonahhouse.org/archive/weep.htm

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july27

Replying to Donald Trump Jr’s Nonsense

Nothing more American than that

Refuse to Shut Up …

Letters from an American

Heather Cox Richardson’s history Substack is just a treasure of information and connections between history and current times. Here’s a copy today, because there are fine talking points in favor of the Dem candidate for US President.

July 23, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 24, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris continues her momentum toward the 2024 presidential election since President Joe Biden’s surprise announcement on Sunday that he would not accept the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. 

Today more than 350 national security leaders endorsed Harris for president, noting that if elected president, “she would enter that office with more significant national security experience than the four Presidents prior to President Biden.” As vice president, she “has met with more than 150 world leaders and traveled to 21 countries,” the authors wrote, and they called out her work across the globe from her work strengthening partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region to her historic trip to Africa and her efforts to expand U.S. relationships with nations in the Caribbean and North Central America. In contrast to Harris, the letter said, “Trump is a threat to America’s national security.” 

Those signing the letter included former Central Intelligence Agency director Michael Hayden, former director of national intelligence James Clapper, national security advisors Susan Rice and Thomas Donilon, former secretaries of defense Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta, and former secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. 

In a New York Times op-ed today, former secretary of state Clinton praised Biden for his “decision to end his campaign,” which she called “as pure an act of patriotism as I have seen in my lifetime.” She went on to say that Vice President Harris “represents a fresh start for American politics,” offering a vision of an America with its best days ahead of it and, rather than “old grievances,” “new solutions.”

Clinton noted that her own political campaigns had seen her burned in effigy, but said, “It is a trap to believe that progress is impossible” and that Americans cannot overcome sexism and racism. After all, she pointed out, voters elected Black American Barack Obama in 2008, and she herself won the popular vote in 2016. “[A]bortion bans and attacks on democracy are galvanizing women voters like never before,” Clinton wrote, and “[w]ith Ms. Harris at the top of the ticket leading the way, this movement may become an unstoppable wave.”

Today, Harris held her first campaign rally, speaking to supporters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the Republicans held their national convention just last week. The energy from the 3000 people packed into the gym where she walked out to Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” was palpable. 

She began by thanking Biden and touting his record, then turned to noting that in her past as a prosecutor, California attorney general, U.S. senator from California, and vice president, she “took on perpetrators of all kinds—predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So,” she said, “hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.” She went on to remind the audience that Trump ran a for-profit college that scammed students, was found liable for committing sexual abuse, and “was just found guilty of fraud on 34 counts.” 

While Trump is relying on “billionaires and big corporations,” she said, “we are running a people-powered campaign” and “will be a people-first presidency.” The Democrats, she said, “believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by but to get ahead; a future where no child has to grow up in poverty; where every worker has the freedom to join a union; where every person has affordable health care, affordable childcare, and paid family leave. We believe in a future where every senior can retire with dignity.”

“[A]ll of this is to say,” she continued, “Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency. Because…when our middle class is strong, America is strong.”

In contrast, she said, Trump wants to take the country backward. She warned that he and his Project 2025 will “weaken the middle class,” cutting Social Security and Medicare and giving “tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations,” while “working families foot the bill.” “They intend to end the Affordable Care Act,” she said, “and take us back…to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions…. Remember what that was like? Children with asthma, women who survived breast cancer, grandparents with diabetes. America has tried these failed economic policies before, but we are not going back. We’re not going back.”  

“[O]urs is a fight for the future,” she said “And it is a fight for freedom…. Generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom.  And now…the baton is in our hands.”   

Meanwhile, MAGA Republicans are still scrambling for a plan of attack against Harris. One of their first angles has been the sexism and racism Clinton predicted, calling her “a DEI hire.” House Republican leaders have told fellow lawmakers to dial back the sexist and racist attacks. 

MAGA Republican representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) has taken a different angle: he introduced an impeachment resolution against Harris, while others are demanding that the House should investigate Harris and demand the Cabinet remove President Biden under the 25th Amendment. The Republican National Committee has decided to make fun of Harris’s laugh.

But concern in the Trump camp showed today when Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio shared with reporters a “confidential memorandum” trying to get ahead of polls he says will show Harris leading Trump. He said he expects to see a “Harris Honeymoon” that will end quickly. 

Trump has continued to post angrily on his social media feed but is otherwise sticking close to home. His lack of visibility highlights that the Republicans are now on the receiving end of the same age and coherence concerns they had used against Biden, and there might be more attention paid to Trump’s lapses now that Biden has stepped aside. CNN’s Kate Sullivan noted today, for example, that “Trump said he’d consider Jamie Dimon for Treasury secretary, but now says he doesn’t know who said that.” 

As Tim Alberta noted Sunday in The Atlantic, the Trump campaign tapped J.D. Vance in an attempt to harden the Republican base, only to find now that he cannot bring to the ticket any of the new supporters they suddenly need. 

According to Harry Enten of CNN, Vance is the first vice presidential pick since 1980 who has entered the race with a negative favorability rating: in his case, –6 points. Since 2000, the usual average is +19 points. Vance won his Senate seat in 2022 by +6 points in an election Republican governor Mike DeWine won by +25 points. Vance “was the worst performing Republican candidate in 2022 up and down the ballot in the state of Ohio,” Enten said. “The J.D. Vance pick makes no sense from a statistical polling perspective.”

Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark, who specializes in focus groups, noted that swing voters groups “simply do not like” Vance. “Both his flip flopping on Trump and his extreme abortion position are what breaks through,” she wrote. 

The 2024 election is not consuming all of the political oxygen, even in this astonishing week. Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that eight large companies must turn over information about the data they collect about consumers, product sales, and how the surveillance the companies used affected consumer prices. 

“Firms that harvest Americans’ personal data can put people’s privacy at risk. Now firms could be exploiting this vast trove of personal information to charge people higher prices,” FTC chair Lina M. Khan said. “Americans deserve to know whether businesses are using detailed consumer data to deploy surveillance pricing, and the FTC’s inquiry will shed light on this shadowy ecosystem of pricing middlemen.”

The eight companies are: Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture, and McKinsey & Co.

In the House, Republicans have been unable to pass the appropriations bills necessary to fund the 2025 U.S. budget, laced as they are with culture-wars poison pills the extremists demand. Today House members debated the appropriations bill for the Interior Department and the Environment which, among other things, bans the use of funds “to promote or advance critical race theory” or to require Covid-19 masks or vaccine mandates. 

According to the European climate service Copernicus, last Sunday was the hottest day in recorded history. The MAGA Republicans’ appropriations bill for Interior and the Environment calls for more oil drilling, fewer regulations on pollutants, no new regulations on vehicles, rejecting Biden’s climate change executive orders, and reducing the funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by 20%.

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/07/23/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-at-a-political-event-10/

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/23/politics/kfile-jd-vance-believed-donald-trump-sexual-assault-allegations-2016/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/23/politics/video/jd-vance-data-ebof-digvid-enten

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/23/gop-race-comments-harris-00170735

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/07/23/kamala-harris-foreign-policy-endorsement/

Tennessee Republican files articles of impeachment against Harris

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/republican-leaders-urge-colleagues-steer-clear-racist-sexist-112216267

Click to access 7-23-24-harris-honeymoon.pdf

Trump pollster predicts ‘Harris honeymoon’ in upcoming polls

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/07/ftc-issues-orders-eight-companies-seeking-information-surveillance-pricing

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/23/ftc-launches-probe-into-surveillance-pricing.html

https://apnews.com/article/hottest-day-climate-change-heat-wave-warming-71e3e9d1fbfdc8503ef36eabec9390bd

https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-approves-fy25-interior-environment-and-related-agencies

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/kamala-harris-biden-trump-election-07-23-24

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-campaign-biden-dropping-out/679183/

X:

SarahLongwell25/status/1815724143939084597

MacFarlaneNews/status/1815841590964892159

RNCResearch/status/1815818534200697037

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/july-23-2024?r=1pk2l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Unhinged Republican candidate calls Kamala Harris a “little wh*re” as GOP descends into misogyny

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/07/unhinged-republican-candidate-calls-kamala-harris-a-little-whre-as-gop-descends-into-misogyny/

I did not post the full X / tweets about Kamal nor about Pete because they are exceedingly racist, bigoted and crude, a typical maga response to anything not straight cis white.  I am sick of these people that tRump enabled and the sooner we beat tRump soundly and put his people back under their rocks they crawled out from for good the better for the US.  But seriously if this racist bigotry is the best they can do, we already won.   Hugs.  Scottie

——————————————————————————————————–

For a lot of conservatives, all they can say about Kamala Harris are gross, sexist comments.
By  
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with D.L. Hughley highlighting how the Biden-Harris Administration has taken historic steps to advance economic opportunity by improving access to housing, creating jobs and investing in small businesses as part of her nationwide Economic Opportunity Tour on Thursday May 16, 2024 at Discovery World in Milwaukee, Wis.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with D.L. Hughley highlighting how the Biden-Harris Administration has taken historic steps to advance economic opportunity by improving access to housing, creating jobs and investing in small businesses as part of her nationwide Economic Opportunity Tour on Thursday May 16, 2024 at Discovery World in Milwaukee, Wis.Photo: Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK / USA TODAY NETWORK via IMAGN

Republican Missouri secretary of state candidate Valentina Gomez just went on an unhinged rant attacking Vice President Kamala Harris on X, where she called her a “little wh*re,” as conservatives posted misogynist memes and jokes about Harris.

“Kamala Harris slept her way to the top, and Tulsi Gabbard already destroyed and exposed her in 2020. Kamala is just another DEI hire, and President Trump is going to eat her alive,” she said in a video.

RELATED:

How much do you know about Kamala Harris and her stance on LGBTQ+ rights?

She could become president. Here’s a closer look at her history on LGBTQ+ stances.

“Kamala Haris is a little wh*re,” Gomez wrote when posting her video. [Update: The X post was put on “limited” visibility by X on July 22, 2024, hours after this article was published.]

The comment regarding Harris allegedly having sex to advance her career, alongside the “little wh*re” comment, reflects recent bouts of misogyny against the vice president in an attempt to discredit her. Harris is the first woman to ever be vice president of the United States and could be the first woman president of the country.

The claim has also notably been spread by far-right figurehead Matt Walsh, who said on X,  “Kamala Harris got her start in politics by sleeping with Willie Brown. She became Vice President because Biden needed a non-white female on the ticket… She’s made a career out of begging for hand outs from powerful men. A thoroughly unimpressive human being.”

 

These claims refer to a short relationship Harris had with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown 30 years ago, before he became mayor. There is no evidence that she only had a relationship with him to bolster her career. In a Reuters fact check, both Harris and Brown disputed that this relationship led anywhere and instead regarded it as largely irrelevant.

Other users attacked her as a “side chick” of Brown, referring to the fact that Brown was technically married during his time dating Harris. However, Brown was separated from his wife, making this claim misleading at best.

 

Other conservatives, though, just posted gross memes about Harris that sexualized her, showing both sexism and misogynoir, or the combination of sexism and racism directed at Black women.

This is seen with one post comparing Harris to the “Hawk Tuah” girl, someone known in a viral meme about engaging in fellatio.

 

One X user continued these claims, referring to her as “arm candy” for reality TV show host Montel Williams. The two briefly dated in 2001, however Williams has said since that he has “great respect for Sen. Harris.”

 

Right-wing commentator Konstantin Kisin referred to her as a “vagina of colour,” and another user referred to her and out Transportation Secretary – and possible running mate – Pete Buttigieg as the “blowjob ticket,” reflecting both misogyny and homophobia.

 

One political cartoonist made a comic of Harris giving fellatio to the Washington Monument, while another user made a post suggesting Harris wants to perform sexual acts on enough voters to get elected.

 

Another user documented multiple accounts making memes of Harris engaging in sexual acts to various different presidential logos.

Once prominent and now largely forgotten alt-right icon and “ex-gay troll” Milo Yiannopoulos made a post encouraging people to rely on him for objectification of Harris.

 

The attacks against Harris have been reflected in merchandise made about her. One shirt being sold says “Joe and the Hoe Gotta Goe,” a slogan that’s parroted in other right-wing merchandise that, while not officially endorsed by the GOP, has nevertheless been prominent among the Republican voter base

Gomez’s claim about former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (I-HI) attacking Harris is rooted in an old political debate where Gabbard criticized Harris’s history as California’s attorney general, pointing out her thousands of convictions of people who used cannabis. Additionally, Gabbard criticized Harris’s handling of people on death row, alleging that Harris could have done much more to protect innocent individuals.

This claim reflects the widespread public concern about Harris’s history as a prosecutor with many likening the candidate to a corrupt police officer. This is further reflected in criticism about her denying a trans woman gender-affirming care while in prison. She has since walked back on this decision.

Nevertheless, the misogyny reflected among right-wing criticisms largely ignores any critiques of her policy positions and instead aims to reflect on her sexual and romantic history. This neglects her substance as a person and a candidate and swipes aside any debates about her merit as a candidate. Notably, these types of posts are rarely directed at male candidates.

 

Don’t forget to share:

 
 
 

AP News: Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 39,000 Palestinians have now been killed in the war … repost

AP News: Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 39,000 Palestinians have now been killed in the war
With the links supplied by Ali.

Poliovirus Detected In Gaza Water Sources [VIDEO]

Poliovirus Detected In Gaza Water Sources [VIDEO]

July 21, 2024 News, Politics

 

Bloomberg News reports:

Humanitarian groups are considering a mass vaccination campaign for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after traces of variant poliovirus type 2 were found in water sources in the war-torn territory. The disease was detected in six locations in Gaza, the World Health Organization said.

Geneva-based WHO said it was working with partners – including UNICEF and United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) – to conduct a risk assessment. Polio vaccination rates in Gaza before the war were “optimal,” according to the organization.

Israel on Sunday confirmed the resurgence of the virus, which can be spread by contaminated water and direct person-to-person contact, and said it would offer booster shots to its soldiers operating in and around the Gaza Strip.

Read the full article.

https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/1814280276681322595

 

 

 

 

 

    

   

New studies find millions of young nonbinary and transgender Americans

https://thehill.com/changing-america/3811406-new-studies-find-millions-of-young-nonbinary-and-transgender-americans

This is what terrifies the fundamentalist and republicans.  That is why the attacks on LGBTQ+ kids in schools, it is an attempt to stop this acceptance of people different, of people not straight or cis.  This is what it is about.  They are terrified their outdated unreasonable hates and moral superiority of straight people is going away.  So like the people who hated equality for black people, they created Jim Crow laws for gay or trans people.  Hopefully we can beat back this attack on liberty and rights.  Hugs.  Scottie

Photo illustration of a person's hand holding two pins, one with transgender flag colors (light blue, light pink, white) and one with non-binary flag colors (yellow, white, purple and black). Hand is over a pink-dotted background with a purple-toned group of people, as seen from behind.
Madeline Monroe/iStock
 

Story at a glance

  • Roughly 1.6 percent of American adults are now transgender or nonbinary, according to a 2022 survey. 
  • That number is higher still among young adults, with 5 percent of people under 30 now identifying their gender as different from the one assigned them at birth.  
  • The growing visibility of transgender and nonbinary people comes amid rising societal acceptance and new efforts to count the populations. 

One young adult in 20 is now nonbinary or transgender, communities that society barely recognized and seldom counted until a few years ago. 

Those populations are not new. Only recently, though, have survey-takers thought to ask people about gender identity, invoking terminology that did not exist for prior generations. The word “nonbinary” did not appear in The New York Times until 2014.  

The rising visibility of nonbinary and transgender people reflects the nation’s growing acceptance of gender fluidity, especially among the young. One landmark study found 1.2 million nonbinary people in the 18-60 age group. Of that total, three-quarters were under 30, which suggests Generation Z has explored gender identity to an extent that older Americans have not.  

“We have a world in which we are finally counting these groups,” said Kay Simon, 28, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota who studies the experiences of queer youth and their families. “You can’t identify as something if you don’t know what the word is.” 

Simon grew up in Florida and Texas. “From a very young age, I kind of realized I was gay,” they said. “At the time, I probably could have told you that I felt different about my gender, but I didn’t have a word for it.” 

The word was nonbinary, denoting a person who identifies with neither the male nor female gender.  

Simon remembers when the academic community introduced he-she-they pronouns on faculty pages and email salutations, during their grad-school years. Even now, teaching about sexuality and gender identity in the presumptively safe space of a college campus, Simon must decide “kind of regularly” whether to correct someone who refers to them with the wrong pronoun. 

“I’ve had students misgender me,” they said. “And it becomes this joke of, A, you’re referring to your professor wrong, and, B, you didn’t read the syllabus. So, we have two problems.” 

The population of young nonbinary and transgender people is clearly large and probably growing. 

A 2022 report from the Williams Institute, a research center at the University of California, Los Angeles, estimates that 1.3 percent of adults ages 18-24 and 1.4 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds are transgender, with a gender identity different than the one assigned at birth. Teens and young adults are much more likely to be transgender than older adults. 

Five years earlier, in a 2017 report, the Williams Institute had found roughly half as many young transgender people. But the earlier analysis used different methods and drew on comparatively sparse data, so it’s hard to know how much of the increase is real. 

Is the transgender population exploding, or are researchers simply counting better? That is a common quandary, researchers say, in studies of the nonbinary and transgender communities. 

“I would argue, actually, it is not an increase,” said Russ Toomey, a professor of family studies and human development at the University of Arizona. “We are seeing the numbers of people disclosing nonbinary and trans identity on a survey because we are asking people in more inclusive ways about their gender.” 

Perhaps the most expansive tally to date of transgender and nonbinary people comes from the Pew Research Center. In a 2022 survey, Pew found that 1.6 percent of U.S. adults reported a gender different from the one assigned to them at birth.  

Pew, too, found that the nonbinary and transgender populations skewed young. Three percent of adults ages 18-29 said they were nonbinary and 2 percent said they were transgender. In the 50-plus population, by contrast, only 0.3 percent of respondents identified themselves as transgender or nonbinary. 

“I think that Gen-Z individuals are not alone in this, but they are kind of leading the charge,” said Rachel Farr, an associate professor of developmental psychology at the University of Kentucky. 

Today’s young adults have grown up in a society that is gradually recognizing the rights of the LGBTQ community. In 2010, the Senate voted to repeal the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, allowing LGBTQ people to serve openly in the military. In 2015, the Supreme Court recognized a legal right for same-sex couples to marry. 

“It’s not that there are more people. It’s that there are more people who are open and who are out,” said Shoshana Goldberg, director of public education and research at Human Rights Campaign, the LGBTQ rights group. “The reality is that when you talk to the average person on the street, they’re going to be more accepting and more affirming than they’ve ever been.” 

The share of American adults who identify as queer doubled from 2012 to 2021, according to a relatively long-running Gallup poll.  

Within Generation Z, polling suggests the LGBTQ population doubled in just four years, from 10.5 percent in 2017 to 20.8 percent in 2021. 

Bisexuals, and especially bisexual women, populate the majority of the Gen-Z queer community, according to research from Gallup and others. Transgender and nonbinary people constitute a smaller but significant share.  

Researchers say social media played a defining role in helping transgender and nonbinary young people define themselves.  

Landon Richie, 20, grew up in Texas and came out as transgender at 11. “But since I was two,” he said, “really as early as I could think and express myself with some sort of agency, I understood that I did not fit into the role that I was assigned as a girl.” 

Richie couldn’t fully process his identity until around age 10, when he “gained larger access to the internet and saw people who were transgender and who talked about their experiences,” he said. “And I was able to see myself reflected in their stories and their experiences.” 

Now that the transgender and nonbinary communities have been identified and counted, researchers say, they need society’s support.  

Both groups face a heightened risk of physical, emotional and sexual abuse in both childhood and adulthood, the UCLA study found. Depression and suicidal ideation are alarmingly common. 

Transgender and nonbinary people often feel under attack, and with good reason. Research shows queer people face a heightened risk of being victims of violent crime. Transgender and nonbinary individuals also face higher rates of workplace harassment and discrimination. 

The communities also face legislative attack. GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, tracked more than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills across the nation in 2022, many of them targeting transgender persons by seeking to bar them from equal access to sports, restrooms or health care. 

“Almost for as long as I’ve been out, there’s been a target placed by the Texas legislature on my back,” said Richie, who has been politically active in his state for several years.  

Some faith-based and socially conservative groups have argued that influential Instagram posters and overzealous educators seed gender confusion in young people. 

Advocates for the queer community counter that social media and progressive curricula help transgender and nonbinary people discover their identities, rather than create them. 

Friends and loved ones can play a crucial role, researchers say, simply by honoring the name and pronoun requested by a transgender or nonbinary person. 

“I think the first thing is just to accept them and listen to them,” said Allison Eliscu, M.D., medical director of the adolescent LGBTQ* Care Program at Stony Brook Medicine in Stony Brook, N.Y.  

“If you make a mistake, because we all do, apologize, say it correctly and then try to do better.”  

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