Milky Loads Sullivan in the NYT: How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized and Lost Its Way

The Post loves it of course

He was harping on his substack ten days ago…

LOL The Onion in 2023:

Already a robust discussion on this here:

Sorry, but I refuse to take seriously anybody advertising for milky loads, regardless of the subject matter.

R3 No one is endangering trans lives. It is a myth you and everyone else keep pushing. Please show where Trans lives have been endangered. Gay and lesbian people are killed in Iran, but trans people are allowed there. Even in the most homophobic societies like Pakistan, trans people have statutory rights which gays and lesbians do not have. In India, Trans people have the right to get married where whereas gays and lesbians are denied that right. These statements are put out by activists to suppress even the slightest debate that is necessary, as the rights they are demanding infringe on other people's rights, such as the privacy of women, their rights to their own safe spaces. The Trans movement is coercive, like every social justice movement in America these days. Even though most of these Trans movements keep blaming white men, white men and white societies are the most accepting of social justice to the extent they are willing to erase themselves, addled with white guilt. The Trans have extraordinary protections and are treated as equal citizens and even celebrated in the Western world, to the extent that women, as usual, are getting the short end of the stick. Yet, Trans people are not satisfied. They want children to be trans. They are going to the extent that a neonate can be transed. Is this what all DL people want? Erasure of gays and lesbians, and women? Do the Trans realize that by erasing women, they will have no children in the future to even be Trans? Anyway, this oppression Olympics has to stop. Oppression means systematic denial of rights and erasure from public life. This means the right to live a life, the denial of public services, jobs, etc, and criminalizing their existence. None of it is happening. Denying access to spaces meant for women is not oppression. Twisting everything into an oppression does not make it so, except in the feverish minds of DL activists and the broader stupid-brained social justice ecosystem.

He left out a crucial point. The slight of hand to redefine the word "woman" to include men, from there to move on to "woman" being merely performative, resulting in mostly educated people having to play the game, acting like womenhood was ephemeral, cost women a kot. Women 's spaces like locker rooms, saunas, sport clubs, school toilets, competitions, safe houses, you name it, was overnight made I obsolete by making it accessible to men. And if someone complained and said that something like cancer screenings at the gynecologist are meant for biological women, it was called a right-wing dog-whistle. This wasn't about a group demanding something however loudly, but a movement that I infiltrates the media, politics, academia, and in the country where I live legislation we as population had no significant influence in. We now have to deal with men being allowed to pretend to be women wherever. (And we know, everyone knows, what a woman is.) There is a German term used in sociology and social theory called "Deutungshoheit". It is the power to define and redefine words and their meaning (and concepts in general). In any discourse, this is a coveted position because who controls the definitions can shape perceptions. We had a very small group of people doing that to words like "woman".

Get ready to have your ability to post comments suspended all ye who do not cling to the party line on certain issues!

He should write about something he is an expert on: bug chasing while holding a rosary.

I remember some DLer saying they would see him dining in local restaurants and he never ever had a friend with him.

He uses the same specious, half-baked right wing arguments we see on DL, which makes me believe either he posts on here or the right is churning out BS and spreading the same message everywhere.

Nearly all of his anti-trans arguments are versions of arguments used against gay marriage.

He used to have "interns" who would come here to workshop that pablum. In fact, for all we know, he may still have them.

What he neglects to mention is that, in a country that strives for equality, what exactly does that mean for trans people?

Certainly, for those who aren’t trans, the world seemed to shift with pronouns and such. That said, it was an attempt to give trans equality. Milky Loads seems to be fine with keeping trans second class citizens forever

Jesus Christ R14, what planet do you live on?

My guess, R15, is that he lives on Rumble or some other cesspool of right wing trollery. Or, maybe, in Budapest.

[quote]Nearly all of his anti-trans arguments are versions of arguments used against gay marriage.

There is a significant difference between two consenting adults legally committing to each other vs. a confused (likely gay) child making life-long alterations to their bodies. We don't even know what the long term impact of puberty blockers is; there are so many changes to the human body as it moves through the maturation process that it is akin to playing Russian roulette. And that's the thrust of one of Milky's points: gay men worked for 50+ years to achieve marriage equality as we showed that gay men can and do enter into long-term relationships and they look both statistically and colloquially just the same as straight marriages, whereas we don't have enough history with transitioning children to know what impact it will have, if any. And I'm willing to admit that puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgery may have similar small impacts, but I doubt it. If I decide that my husband is no longer husband material, we can separate and go our own ways. If I've transitioned to the opposite gender, I can't retroactively grow or reattach my genitalia or mammary glands.

^Forgive my focus on gay men in this argument as I meant no disrespect to our lesbian sisters who have been at our sides and in many cases taking the lead when it comes to arguing for marriage equality.

Why are all of you commenting on this when there was a full thread less than a week ago about this? I understand if the other thread is really old - but this topic was discussed just 3-4 days ago.

You want to discuss more - use the link at R4 - it's a very recent thread.

And put your dishes in the dishwasher please!

It's fun to attack the messenger, but it certainly announces a lack of any argument to counter the factual one presented.

Only those with no argument to make resort to name calling and personal attacks.

I am still amused to see the sad, last-gaspers who are convinced that anyone who refuses their pre-chewed pablum must be a "right-winger!" Lordy...

Sullivan's argument seems to be, essentially, that pro-trans-rights activists are responsible for the nationwide assault on their rights because they were annoying online and asked for too much.

The problem is that it assumes that American society would have been OK if "Trans people" would have accepted bans on youth transition and youth sports participation. That is, the multimillion dollar hate machine ginned up by Musk and the like could be sated with concessions and were operating in good faith.

Of course we know that's nonsense.

R21 - no - appeasing the right was never the argument - that's a no-win situation.

It's the overreach, distortions and pushing the left and centrists into a corner if you don't accept everything they say and want. Particularly in the LGB community.

Oh dear, DL trannies have their size XXL lace panties in a bunch once again because someone dare not to toe the line!

I think you've missed the point, R21. Trans activists didn't ask for too much, they DEMANDED too much, and the Democrats gave in too much out of deference to the LGB community owing to the successful 50+ year effort at changing attitudes and beliefs. I've written here before and will again: after Obergefell as we took a breath to absorb our victory, trans activists seized the vacuum and took over the movement to our detriment. We successfully asked straight people to consider us equals in the eyes of the law, and that shiny object was too much for the next group to leave alone for long enough for it to sink in and become the norm before leveraging it.

My chief example is that it is preposterous that biological male Lia Thomas ever won a medal swimming against biological females. Telling female athletes that they just had to accept competing against and losing to a man was simply too much. The argument that stung the most was when those on the right correctly pointed out that for the party that relies on science it was hypocritical to set science aside and tell us that "trans women are women" in all matters. And then we turned around and as Milky wrote, violated the prime directive and went after children.

I generally loath Sullivan and feel his opinions on most matters are bullshit, but he hit the nail on the head this time. I know that if the trans-ing argument were around when I was pre-puberty, I could have accepted the argument that I was a girl born in a boy's body. Knowing I liked boys the way that my peers liked girls was very, very confusing, disorienting and caused substantial pain. And then puberty smacked me upside the head and I discovered the joys of the penis, specifically sharing and comparing mine with others, and I realized what it meant to be gay.

It's the "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" argument that turned those on the political right against initially the trans community but as we've seen marriage equality polling reflect, us as well. Support for gay marriage on the right has fallen something like 15 points in the last 5 years, and that's worrisome. I fear that the trans community has undone in 5 what took us 50+ years to achieve.

R24 - agree with every word you wrote.

I also fear that if this was around when I was young, that I would be susceptible to it. We know that a lot of people with gender discomfort are gay men and women - because how could you not?

But it's also about changing language and squishy concepts of 'identity' without transitioning one tiny bit that's also unfair and provocative.

I'm so tired of this subject but the gay and lesbian community have this huge albatross around our neck now. And it has NOTHING to do with us, which is even worse.