\nBecoming clear that the vulnerability of trans stuff in America is it doesn’t have state-level infrastructure: the last decade saw an upsurge on the not-actually-a-government Everywhere of the internet, and signing-on of national groups that honestly needed a purpose to still exist after gay marriage, but there’s no state-by-state stuff, and the legacy queer orgs coming onsides for structural reasons means the organizational commitment isn’t matched at the grassroots
Meanwhile since the ‘70s social conservative pressure organizations have drawn on church congregations, which beyond representing a particular sect or interpretation and thus ideology, exist in a particular geographical location and have connections and influence on that basis. And strong local networks help in national-level operations because social issue affiliation is heterogeneous and even if you’re not ready to fight at national level you can identify more friendly territory to focus on, develop, recruit from, and pioneer policy in
should lead to increasing divergence across countries as well
Going differently in the UK is absolutely about structural factors: they don’t have autonomous lower-level state government (well, Scottish devolution maybe?) but also they have a much more nationalized journalism sector where pretty right-populist tabloids exist in the same infosphere as the elite stuff, so there was less running room to put new gender understandings over on a top-down basis in the first place before it was noticed and challenged in a way all public figures were answerable to
Britain also has the NHS, I assume that would come into play at some point.
Oh, yeah. American me could leave the front door, turn either way on the street, and get prescribed hormones on an informed consent basis in screaming range of my house.
One of those is a Planned Parenthood, one is a dedicated transing clinic opened a few years ago. I’ve been seeing stuff off and on since late oughts radfems (which\u2026 now that I think of it, I found hopscotching out from the period boom of feminist blogs. Someone blame TERFs on '00 feminist blogging, it’ll be funny and true) presenting trans specialists as greedily trying to lure people in (vs. pro-trans narratives of liberating missionaries) but it is, I think, significant that at that point it was a wide-open field where there wasn’t much between entry and the top, and that influenced some economic, political, and personal dynamics.
I’d say any reward there would probably be more ego (“here is a way I can make a difference in the world in line with high-status contemporary trends, while also developing a thriving practice at a young age!”) than money. It’s a vulnerability though, “running the only abortion clinic in the whole state” is often so unappealing retiring operators struggle to find successors
well, doctors providing abortion services in America are regularly shot, so you can understand why; crazy to have a specific building just for doctors that crackpots want to kill.
First abortion doctor wasn’t killed until 1993, 20 years after Roe v. Wade. The Silent Scream didn’t even come out 'til 1984!
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