Damn, we're just going keep squabbling over this basic sh*t, huh?

I'm missing Obama already.

This is one of those social-wedge issues that Republican and Democratic politicians (and the brain-dead media that shill for them) just live for. We have the highest rates of child poverty and child homelessness in the developed world. Thirty million Americans have no health insurance whatsoever, and many tens of millions more can't afford to actually use the health insurance they nominally have because the out-of-pockets are too high. We have the worst infant and maternal mortality rates in the developed world. The lifespans of African-American men are still eight years shorter than European-American men's. Millions of Americans will spend the rest of their lives trying to pay off their student loans. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world. One in nine African-American men is barred from voting because of a previous felony conviction. Women still earn significantly less than men. We still have no universal paid sick leave or family leave. We're still gung-ho on régime change abroad (Honduras, Libya, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, and, I strongly suspect, Brazil). We're doing everything possible to provoke Russia into a hot war (and maybe China, too). And we haven't made any tangible progress on arresting global warming. But the more the Republican and Democratic wings of the Corporatist Billionaires' Party can distract us with a hot-button social issue that's of trifling importance in comparison to the ones above, the more they can continue to get away with deciding the big issues in favor of their corporate and billionaire sugar-daddies instead of us.

Here's a thought experiment in social-wedge issues and lesser-evilism: According to polls, Adolf Hitler and Ernst Röhm are the only two "viable" candidates in an election for Chancellor of the Reich. They both support the Final Solution, but Röhm, being gay, favors exempting gays. What candidate are you going to give money to, advocate for, campaign for, and vote for? Hitler? Röhm? Or some other less-favored candidate who doesn't want to send anyone to extermination camps?

Affording transgender people equality, dignity, and respect is common human decency, and advocating (and suing and "decreeing") for that is fine, but for God's sake, keep your eyes on the big picture and don't let anyone distract you with it.