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17 Montana Republicans Cross Party Lines, Defeat Anti-Trans Bill After Nonbinary Rep's Speech
(www.erininthemorning.com)
Holy crap.
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
919 points (98.7% liked)
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Right? This is actually unbelievable. There's a little hope
Direct link to the video of the speech
This is a win for humanity that this bill was defeated, but sadly I don't think the Republicans were moved to embrace different identities of gender, but rather are looking for a more targeted and specific bill language.
Senate Bill 164, legislation that would classify gender-affirming care for transgender youth as felony child endangerment. The bill would not only target doctors and nurses, but also parents—including those merely passing through the state
...
even a parent visiting Glacier National Park or Yellowstone with their transgender child could face felony charges for carrying estrogen, testosterone, or puberty blockers
Jesus
So, essentially, the bill was defeated because 17 Republicans realized that this bill would devastate their meager tourist trade as well as the tourist passthrough revenue. Because the law was so astoundingly ambiguous that people who aren't taking those drugs for gender affirming care would be subject to arrest and harassment by the police.
looks outside
Huh, doesn't look like hell froze over.
Yet! Maybe the sun disappeared and we have to wait 8 minutes for the freezing darkness. Who knows. I'm scared.
Thats only because they're still supporting policies causing the climate catastrophe. Its too damn hot.
This is some real uplifting news right here!
I just can’t believe how many said yes
Clearly you haven't been listening to the shit they spout regularly
I mean, I have, they just never cease to amaze me.
The hate truly flows through them.
Honestly it is nice to know that crazy town hasn't totally taken over
Republicans correctly saw though the "trans scare" being pushed by the extreme right.
There are still 40 representatives that voted for it. I'm glad it didn't pass, but still feels there's plenty of danger lurking.
Absolutely, but it's nice to see there are at least some Republicans with basic morals and spines willing to not sell their entire soul to the cult. Might indicate the start of a tipping point of Conservatives breaking away from the more odious policies.
That was a very compelling speech that Representative Howell gave. That there were 40 that still voted in favourite after having the obviously dangerous language in the bill is kinda frightening.
On-brand for R though. That's what makes the other 17 so surprising.
You know it's bad when rednecks stop acting like rednecks.
“We have a lot of tools at our disposal as the legislature to regulate healthcare, but felony criminal charges are not the appropriate tool for that job..."
The only language of the State is violence
"The State" as in the state of Montana? Or like The State?
Because if it's the latter... I would say that the state excels at building infrastructure, and providing services that would never be done by the private sector because they're not profitable.
I'm not sure I see any violence in that stuff...
The later. We dont need a State to build community and infrastructure
Yeah I love toll roads
Me too. Makes more sense than cyclists paying for stupid 14 lane highways
Ahh yes, the great american cross-country bicycle trip.
It's almost as if this country is far too big and spread out to make bikes the primary form of transportation.
I don't love how car-centric we are, but "hurr durr, people want to ride bikes on roads" is honestly the stupidest fucking reason to switch entirely to toll roads that I have ever heard. Do better.
The republicans' reasoning: "It's too obvious, we need to implement bigotry in a more subtle way"
It’s the fucking with the Overton window. They want to make existing as a trans person a crime. Reasonable people are not going to get on board with forcing adult trans people to detransition, so they can’t start with that.
Instead, it’s the emotional “think about the children!” If there really were doctors who were telling parents - “your son likes playing with dolls so we are going to start him on E” that would be fucked. It’s not true, but screeching all of the time about the “perverts that want to chop your son’s dick off” starts to convince people that piles of kids are getting HRT and surgery with no oversight.
Sports too - they fixate on Lia Thomas so much that they imagine that basically any cis woman in sports is liable to be replaced (or killed even, there was insane shit about Imane Khalif). But again, it shifts the Overton window. “The Left” wants a trans girl to take your kids $200 softball scholarship.
Like, Texas introducing that bill to make being trans a felony wasn’t intended to pass. But it does make it more acceptable to propose legislation that is less extreme. They would love to take away HRT from adults - and backing away from “all trans people are felons” to “we’re going to ban/restrict this medication” gets to come across as a compromise.
Good news? Is this even possible?
As with the previous time this happened, it's likely that most of those Republicans crossed the line because one Republican did and made a speech. (That republican, of course, may have been moved by Howell.)
They will simply pass this bill next year. That has been the continual pattern with these laws. What was a step too far and abominable last year is normalized and acceptable this year.
Fair enough. But the world being what it is, can't we just celebrate a win for a few precious minutes before we shit all over it?
Nope! We're on the left, we have to shit on every win we get or else how will everyone know I'm more left then them if I don't immediately attack their character?
It's called being a realist. If you want to live in denial, fine. But I'm not going to sugarcoat things. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but that pessimism has proven a far better predictor of future events than rose-tinted visions such as yours.
I'm the king of the pessimists. But I like to take five seconds when there's actually good news instead of constantly being the "well actually" guy. Then I return to my regularly scheduled "realism".
Not in denial about anything at all. It's just a miserable life to never take pleasure in the little wins.
Edited to add - I don't know if you know your literary history. But the irony in accusing someone called "Hemingway's Shotgun" of having rose-tinted glasses is absolutely delicious.
Acknowledging something, anything, as a good thing? Rose-tinted glasses!!!!
I know, right?!
Burn me at the stake for thinking that even in the pits of hell, there are some little moments of good, even if fleeting.
This morning, the guy in front of me at the Tim Horton's drive-thru paid for my coffee. Don't know him. Never met him. Never exchanged three words. He just decided to do it. I just sometimes randomly decide to do it as well. Made me feel good so I did it for the person behind me. I don't know how long that chain lasted, but hey...it doesn't matter.
The world might be shit, but that was a nice start to my day, and a nice start to the day of the person behind me. If I was "Mr. Realist" above me there, the response would be, "well fuck...what's the point? Sure, but the coffee's just going to get cold sooner or later..."
Screw me if I want to take some simple pleasure where I can, I guess.
The more I've thought about this, the more I'm sure you are right.
OTOH this is still uplifting news because thinking, compassionate people will get another chance to stop it.
As it turns out politics is not absolute. There are less conservative Republicans and more conservative Democrats. I think in reality we should seek the middle ground. However, the news gets more attention if they go for the extremes.
Well the rest of the Republicans voted to censure them from the senate and ban them from the party. So as it turns out, there really are only extreme Republicans. If they aren't extreme they're banned from participating in the party.
nah. I've been alive a long time. Conservative policies, attitudes, and talking points have for many decades pointed to exactly the place we have landed, and for 8+ years now any Republican resistance whatsoever to Trump has been essentially undetectable, and the few actual Republican leaders who have stood up to him in any meaningful way have destroyed their own political careers.
The Republicans in power have clearly been cool with every single thing that has happened until these tariffs started to impact the wealthy. And who keeps voting in the Republicans in power? (and Trump himself) The rank and file.
Fuck them all, every last one. If these Republicans accidentally voted in a way that isn't going to harm someone, it's because they have another plan in mind or it otherwise benefits them in some way. I'm glad it happened because reasonable people get another chance to stop them, but no part of me thinks they won't try again.
As it turns out politics is not absolute.
Any Republican who hasn't spent the past several years raising hell in their own party about where Trump was taking it, and especially any who voted for him in 2024, is at best complicit in where we are today, and in wherever this finally bottoms out.