@1 if you think health problems need to be criminalized then you should feel bad. shove your law and order up your boomer ass.

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It's hard to believe that SPD thought it would be constitutional to arrest people for chalking anti-police messages on the East Precinct sidewalk walls while also having a policy not to arrest people for drawing rainbows on the sidewalk. That's a textbook free speech case. If they had stuck with only arresting people for permanent graffitti, they might have had better luck in court.

@3 health problems shouldn't be criminalized however when behavior and actions from those problems impact innocent community members then there also needs to be some level of accountability. Health problems are not an excuse to prey on those around you and wreck havoc on your environment. Too often the focus continues to be on the addict and the expectation is that the rest of us in the community are supposed to just deal with it lest we be labeled "not compassionate". It's time for that to shift. Btw there was a similar exchange down in San Francisco between the mayor there and one of their progressive council members and she nailed it.

https://twitter.com/sfstandard/status/1669003667331248128?s=20

You can debate whether drug addiction is or isn't a health problem, but for decades the consensus among medical professionals and researchers is that it should be /treated/ like a health problem if you actually want results.

So as long as dipshit voters and dipshit politicians keep ignoring the undeniably well-established fact that treatment/support yields the best outcomes regarding substance abuse and addiction, and refuse to build/fund programs to the levels that are needed for actual large-scale gains to occur, then you're just gonna get the same shit that's been going on (and getting worse) for years.

Or continue living in denial and keep believing that addicts just need to "make better choices" and that jail will significantly persuade them to do so. 'Cause jail costs money too and it (statistically) doesn't do shit to actually correct the issues. I won't even get into the larger societal issues that directly factor into drug use/poverty otherwise I'll be typing this all day.

And to balance out all of my (fact-based) bleeding heart liberal bullshit, I also have a strong belief that laws need to be made (or bolstered) that increase the ability for treatments to be MANDATED by law. Give plenty of opportunities for people to take advantage of less intrusive interventions, but determine some threshold where, after those methods have been attempted (and failed) X number of times, you now have to deal with court-ordered treatment.

I'm closing in on two decades in the mental health field. For a small but significant portion of the population that need treatment for mental health and/or substance abuse related issues, they absolutely cannot/will not maintain the supports they need to keep their stability. But jail still isn't the answer, at least not like what you think it is. There are already systems in place where locked-door facilities exist, that can compel medications when needed, for folks servicing sentences for crime but where mental health issues are a clear factor. Your mileage may very depending on each facility but generally speaking there's way more opportunity for people to get treatment and improve their lives in such places compared to jail. I would just want that system expanded and funded more robustly instead of just "jail jail jail" being the answer.

And there's lots of civil liberties issues at play with this belief of mine. I recognize that and would welcome intense discussion if laws were actually going to be made along the lines of what I briefly described above. But whatever. That's enough for now. Just got a bug up my ass from seeing the typical uninformed responses on these topics in various comment sections.

TERF is as slur. It is hurled against women who have been fighting for equal rights for girls and women (and boys and men because misogyny and all it entails is toxic waste for all humans) for decades. I have been called TERF and I push back HARD. Fuck anyone who believes feminists are the problem with regard to the heinous and vicious anti-trans action being taken in this country.

As always, women are being blamed for what is a conservative, almost entirely male (though not exclusively, because there are hate filled anti-trans women in this country and in this world), misogynist movement. Feminists are not the problem. Conservative men who hate women, hate all queer identified people, and who want to cause as much psychological and physical harm as possible to everyone they hate are passing legislation and leading demonstrations against the trans community. And they drag community. And girls and women who need or want abortions. And anyone who simply wants to exist outside the very tiny, rigid, hate filled box that these men and the women who support them have created.

FOX news ran a story for 24 hours that claimed the PRIDE flag flown by the White House for PRIDE is a "grooming flag, a sign to others as a go ahead to sexually abuse and mutilate children) until they were proven to be lying and forced to fucking change their story.

Girls and women in this country have no bodily autonomy or freedom the way men do. Let that sink in. Girls and women in this country are in no way allowed to move through the world freely making decisions about their own bodies. Girls and women are seen as sexual beings from birth to death (see the history of men who believe babies have orgasms and other reprehensible psychopathic derangement). Girls and women are not allowed to simply BE.

Girls and women are criticized, condemned, and policed for everything - from how they behave and respond to male attention (see the web site When Women Refuse https://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/ or any of a million or more articles about what boys and men do when they don't get what they want with regard to women and access to their bodies https://www.damemagazine.com/2017/10/24/men-are-killing-thousands-women-year-saying-no/), to how they dress (see all of the school and work regulations regarding how girls and young women are policed with regard to what they where with the sole reason being "they distract the boys and/or men" and boys and men need to focus on their school/work) , to how they socialize: do they drink, do they like to party, do they like to dance, do they stay out late, have they had multiple sexual partners, do they have children and do anything, anything at all that is not related to their child or children, do they have children and WORK, have they had an abortion, have they sucked a cock, do they like anal sex, where do they live, how do they travel, do they dare do anything outside of their home alone oh oh wait are they a prude, do they refuse to have sex, do they want to be married, do they want to be single, do they have cats, do they live alone, do they live up to the male gaze of beauty in all ways whatever those ways may be at any given time???? the list of inane bullshit is ENDLESS and never, ever, EVER applied to boys or men in the same relentless, vicious, violent, and every changing and arbitrary way.

Any male that identifies as female (and is therefore trans) is free to be who they are and live how they want to live - they will never comprehend what it is to be a girl or woman in this society from birth, never go through having their first period, menstruation, the fear of being impregnated, being pregnant, having an abortion, giving birth, going through menopause, etc. Believing otherwise is sheer denial of reality. And going after feminists (certain feminists, because not all feminists believe the same thing, feminists are not a single block of humanity, they are not a BORG, just like trans people) because they believe this will not stop the men (and women who support them) who are going full force after trans people in this country to fully eradicate them.

And like I said before (and others keep saying, it's not something I made up), trans girls and women making accusations against and demands of girls/women for THEIR comfort and accusing them of being the problem regarding what is happening to harm them is just another form of misogyny.

Not even one addiction specialist on the work force. HUH????

May I suggest this week's installment on "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper" (Max) titled, "What Happened to San Francisco?" Very enlightenening.

Those pandemic encampments that provided spaced tent set-ups and provided Port-a-Potties and people like medics cost SF $60-90K per tent. Now, the avg 1-BR is just over $3K/mo. I know there's more than rent involved in living in an apartment, but bloody hell! I learned the vast majority of people living on the streets are not from SF, but from places like Modesto, Stockton, and Fresno. The people who were interviewed said they came because, "I love heroin," or, "It's so much easier to be homeless here than in Fresno."

The program was not one-sided though. Several different sides expressed. Few want to see people who are temporarily (hopefully) experincing financial hardship thrown to the wolves. Hell, that's most of us at one time or another, but it is clear in this instance, the easier you make it to be homeless, the more homeless there's going to be.

And I choke on those words because it sounds like they were pulled from The Bible of Reaganism. Watch the show if you can.

@10 Xina - don't always agree with you 100%, but I love your postings.

I hope that I'm the feminist that I should be, but I'm disturbed by some of the second wave stuff. Gloria Steinem is one of my High Priests. But as much as I respect and admire women, I'm glad that I'm not one. I wouldn't handle it very well. It would piss me off to no end to be compelled to buy make-up and hosiery, and I would curse under my breath every time I had to buy hygiene products. That shit's expensive.

As a trans person, I just want to live my life, navigate public spaces without harassment, and offer no offense to anyone. Fortunately, I am demure of stature and fit within acceptable "norms" of appearance, so this has not been any problem for me and hopefully never will be.

But if confonted by anyone, man or woman, over some perceived violation of your morality or social code, you will quickly find that I am not to be trifled with. The Infantry School taught me well and the lessons stay with me today.

@10 Xina,

"TERF is as slur. It is hurled against women who have been fighting for equal rights for girls and women (and boys and men because misogyny and all it entails is toxic waste for all humans) for decades. I have been called TERF and I push back HARD. Fuck anyone who believes feminists are the problem with regard to the heinous and vicious anti-trans action being taken in this country."

That's total bullshit, and you know it. It's hurled at people who are TERF's. End of story. You're conflating people who are TERF's with broader feminism. Probably most trans women would consider themselves feminists.

Definition: trans-exclusionary radical feminist: an advocate of radical feminism who believes that a trans woman’s gender identity is not legitimate and who is hostile to the inclusion of trans people and gender-diverse people in the feminist movement.

Whether that reflects your views, I'll let you decide.

"Any male that identifies as female (and is therefore trans)...

It sounds a lot like what you're saying is that trans women are just men that identify as women. If that's a misinterpretation, I would be glad to hear it. But to be clear, trans woman are just woman who are trans.

"... is free to be who they are and live how they want to live - they will never comprehend what it is to be a girl or woman in this society from birth, never go through having their first period, menstruation, the fear of being impregnated, being pregnant, having an abortion, giving birth, going through menopause, etc. Believing otherwise is sheer denial of reality."

Seriously Xina, you have absolutely no fucking clue what you're talking about when it comes to what trans people can comprehend and what they've experienced. You sound like an ignorant asshat.

And to equate a woman's reproductive system with being a "real" woman is shitting on all the cisgender women who will never be able to get pregnant.

"And going after [certain] feminists... because they believe this will not stop the men (and women who support them) who are going full force after trans people in this country to fully eradicate them."

That is literally incoherent gibberish.

"And like I said before (and others keep saying, it's not something I made up), trans girls and women making accusations against and demands of girls/women for THEIR comfort and accusing them of being the problem regarding what is happening to harm them is just another form of misogyny."

Why do you keep pitting women who are trans against women who are not? They're all women. You throw around words like "accusations" - yeah, when you're acting like an asshat, there may be some accusations that you're an asshat. Trans women aren't accusing "women" of being the problem. You want to make this about trans women vs. women. It's really that some women have a problem with trans women being accepted for who they are: women.

You've described your physical disabilities on these pages many times. It doesn't make you any less of a woman that you have mobility issues. It means that you can't participate in some activities that most other woman can. If a woman still has a penis, most reasonable people, including trans people, understand that in very specific circumstances, there may need to be some limited qualifications due to their physical characteristics. No different than being born without legs, or weighing too much or too little, or being too tall or too short.

But let's get this crystal clear: women who are trans, are women. Period. That's not "denying reality", that's not against the "facts" - that is reality, that is a fact.

@18 actually, it's been a dissension point amongst feminists for many decades now. I can see both viewpoints, and it's not an easy issue for anyone.

But all the male misogynists using it as a slur is probably the worst part, because they DO think women are second class citizens, no matter their biological origins.

@19 Will,

"actually"... what are you contradicting that I stated? TERF is just a description for certain feminists who are trans exclusionary. It dates back to the late '70's. Feminists and "radical" feminists are not necessarily TERF's. Feminists are only TERF's if they're trans exclusionary. The term "slur" as it relates to TERF is the way of TERF's trying to frame it as though it's the same as an anti-trans slur, or a racial slur, but of course it's not. Being a TERF is a choice of political and social views, the same as being a "right-winger". We can write it out as some is being a "trans exclusionary radical feminists"... if you don't like that description, how else would you describe someone who considers themselves a radical feminist with trans exclusionary viewpoints?

Misogynists use "feminist" as a slur... they're less interested in discussing TERF as most misogynists would agree with the "trans exclusionary" part.

I'm surprised no one has pointed out the obvious problem with the word "TERF" is that the "RF" stands for "radical feminist" but it is routinely used to label people who clearly don't fit that description. Radical feminism is a specific subset of feminist theory that regards patriarchy as the root of all oppression and vectors such as race and class to be derivative or secondary. There are very few genuine RFs compared to other branches of feminism (intersectional, womanist, liberal, Marxian, etc.). For some RFs, the term may be appropriate (and a handful may actually self-identify that way), but any other use is not. More than once I've seen Donald Trump called a TERF. I routinely see right-wing religious figures (male and female) labeled TERFs. Are such people in any way feminists, let alone radical ones? Generally speaking, journalists would do well to drop the word from their vocabulary, except in direct quotations and perhaps when the person being referred to self-identifies as such.

@6 - Using a drug for the first time is clearly a choice, but the addiction that can result has long been defined as a health problem by the entire medical community for decades now. There may be a few outlier quacks out there who disagree, but the medical community at-large accepts addiction as a health problem, just like alcoholism.

I'd wager no one here has fought the drug war at the height of its intensity from the side of law enforcement, as I did throughout the mid-late 80's into the mid 90's. As a young'un lawman, I was a true believer that locking these people up would be better for them and for society. It's better for the latter...while they're locked up. But you can't keep an addict in jail for long; most just get county time for possession. They're coming back into the community soon with their addiction intact.

It took me a while, but I eventually came around to the idea that mandatory treatment is probably the best way to go. If the court can mandate an addict be locked up, it can mandate treatment. If a person is so far gone that they're getting picked up off the street by cops for drug use, they almost certainly need treatment. So, I guess I basically agree with @9 that when first arrested for a possession charge, diversion into court-ordered treatment should be step one.

In fact, since treatment doesn't often "take" the first time, it should also be step 2 if picked up again and maybe more depending on what guidance the justice system gets from addiction specialists. Of course, for the really stubborn, eventually getting locked up may then be the right answer. I guess that makes me an advocate of partial decriminalization. And MJ and a few other drugs should just be legalized.

@27 Russell, I don't know, I don't have much interest in trying to identify those circumstances, but I acknowledge that there sometimes needs to be exceptions. What the legal mechanisms look like for handling that is well beyond the TS comment section.

A person's genitalia does not define who is a man and who is a woman. If there's an issue with the penis, then it's an issue with the penis, not with what sex/gender is attached to the penis.

I'll be very clear that, generally speaking, I support current WA State law that protects all people from discriminatory practices.

@26 Very clever, Veronica Mars.

Trans women are women 100% but I think it’s unrealistic to say that cis women and trans women have the same experiences in the face of the greater society. It don’t think it makes me a TERF to say I don’t want to see a penis in a locker room. It has nothing to do with trans people at all.

Ya’ll treading on thin ice with comrade Rich again. He’s going to drop in here like Oprah and shut this down…you get a ban and you get a ban and you….

@24 - Except as I stated, the treatment wouldn't be an offer; it would be mandatory when they're picked for possession or some other minor offense stemming from their addiction. I agree "offers" do not work. Court-ordered commitment to an in-patient facility might, even if it takes a couple tries.

@10 xina and @19 Will in Seattle for the WIN!! Kudos to both of you for nailing it.