Will any American state start a transgender suppression program by 2033?
Standard
35
Ṁ1795
2033
50%
chance

Background

I was in a discord server where people were arguing about whether Republicans were pushing for "transgender genocide". The anti argument was that "genocide" is an inflammatory, hyperbolic way of phrasing it, while the pro argument was that if the things Republicans were pushing for were targeted any other group, it would be considered severe human rights violations.

Except, I think the pro argument is wrong, since the things Republicans were pushing for are in many ways analogous to how serious mental health conditions like suicidality, schizophrenia and anorexia are treated. Of course one could argue that we are running a "schizophrenia genocide", and I could buy that this fits the formal definition of "genocide" in some weird NGO book, but I can see how that could be considered hyperbolic, as "genocide" connotes murder.

On the other hand, while "genocide" is hyperbolic, it seems straightforwardly true that the government is running a suicide suppression program, a schizophrenia suppression program, and an anorexia suppression program. For instance there are strong media guidelines which censor the messages of suicidal people in order to prevent others from committing suicide. And one could ask whether a state would do the same for transness. In fact, I've specifically seen people tabling the option of treating transness as being like schizophrenia.

Resolution criteria

Inspired by the suicide/schizophrenia/anorexia suppression programs, we could come up with a set of elements that might constitute a transgender suppression program:

  • Non-marginal institutions endorse media guidelines to not support pro-transgender ideology, share positive stories about transness or provide information about how to transition

  • Gender dysphoria, transgender identity or transgender ideology is considered a valid reason for institutionalization

  • Teachers, medical professionals, and others are part of a legally enforced system to report transness to others who will help stop transitioning

  • Institutions specifically make hormones less accessible in order to prevent transition

  • Psychs supporting transness or doctors performing transition surgery are considered guilty of medical malpractice

  • Methods like antipsychotic medication or behaviorist-inspired pain for conditioning are used as the line of treatment for gender issues

If there is any state where all of these are true for any period until 2033, this question resolves YES. If there are no states where any of these are true until 2033, this question resolves NO. If there are states where only a subset of the criteria hold, then this resolves PROB according to the amount of criteria that hold in the given state.

The scope of the question will mainly focus on adults. There are things to be said about children and teens too, but I don't want to complicate the interpretation of this question too much. That said, one exception is teachers being forced to report transness, which would be considered fulfilling a criterion.

The scope of this question will mainly focus on state and federal policies. As such, if there are conservative state or federal policies to institute a transgender suppression program, but this policy is de-facto nullified due to resistance from a progressive deep state, then this still counts as YES.

If one of the criteria are ambiguously or partially fulfilled, I may resolve it as a probability. For objectivity reasons, I will not be betting in the market.

May 3, 7:58pm: Will any American state start a transgender eradication program by 2033? → Will any American state start a transgender suppression program by 2033?; +antipsychotics criterion

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The program isn't executed on the state level, for example a large number of states had the same text mentioned below submitted. I do not see how the state framing is useful.
The comparison to other mental ilnesses is also baseless as there the treatment guidelines are set by medical experts working to optimize patient outcomes, not politicians trying to stop a social group from existing.
The question also requires the program to be successful, not only started as in title.
Also the second from last paragraph contradicts the one below the list of criteria.
Texas Attorney general issued an opinion designating gender affirming care as child abuse by default fulfilling 3.
Florida HB999 in my opinion fulfills 1:


Texas Attorney general issued an opinion designating gender affirming care as child abude by default fulfilling 3 and 4. Alternatively there are 3 attempts at criminalizing it for adults.
There is a wide legislative effort to make theoretically drag shows, as written any "performance" by a transgender person wearing makeup basically equivalent to a lap dance at a strip club and qualify a businesshosting them as adult-oriented for example Texas HB643, Kansas SB149, Minnesota SF933, Arizona SB1030 as introduced
Arizona SB1698 makes "UNLAWFUL EXPOSURE TO AN ADULT ORIENTED PERFORMANCE OR ADULT ORIENTED BUSINESS PURSUANT TO SECTION 13-3508" a sex crime punishable by 5-15 years in prison.
I believe 2 and 6 to be wrong criteria as they would require compelling doctors to act against medical consensus and accepted treatment guidelines, those are not efficient ways to achieve the goal.

The program isn't executed on the state level, for example a large number of states had the same text mentioned below submitted. I do not see how the state framing is useful.

@CodeandSolder I mean republicans are pushing for something like a transgender suppression program. (I think. Not sure to what extent it is all vs a subset of republicans. Ron DeSantis in particular seems to have had a strong focus.) This question is about the extent to which they will succeed rather than being fought back or abandoning the idea.

The comparison to other mental ilnesses is also baseless as there the treatment guidelines are set by medical experts working to optimize patient outcomes, not politicians trying to stop a social group from existing.

I can't claim to know much about this as I haven't investigated it in detail. One blogger I've been reading recently who I've generally found insightful suggested that the suicide suppression campaign is mainly a plot by the elites to protect the existing regime against dissent and flight:

The television series Thirteen Reasons Why is a story told within the frame of a high school student's audiocasette suicide note, which describes an experience of high school that was not preparing her to serve any useful function in society, or to understand her rights and duties as a citizen of a republic, but instead, to acculturate her into the world of social threat and betrayal described in its mature form by Robert Jackall's Moral Mazes and Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, and analyzed as a developmental process in Ayn Rand's essay on Progressive educational ideology, The Comprachicos (a). The suicide note offers thirteen case studies to explain why she would rather die than adjust to her circumstances. Enough young people who watched the show or read the eponymous book on which it was based were persuaded by the implied argument that some state authorities have acted to suppress dissemination of the text. For this reason, as well as the corroboration of Jackall's and Rand's account, I regard the text as sociologically credible. I have more hope for the future, but while I was blind to the sort of aggression the series describes, I did independently notice (and articulately state) that my high school was not preparing me to serve any useful function in society, and my mother was sufficiently concerned by the resulting depressive episode to send me to a psychiatrist.

I am not sure medical experts are knowledgable enough about the political tradeoffs involved in suppressing discussion of problems in order to know whether this sort of suppression is justified. However I have not watched Thirteen Reasons Why etc., so I cannot claim to have any sort of informed opinion on the topic.

I am not using the term "suppression campaign" to refer to whether something is justified or not, but instead to refer to a set of means that can be used for bad and maybe also for good.

The question also requires the program to be successful, not only started as in title.

No it does not:

The scope of this question will mainly focus on state and federal policies. As such, if there are conservative state or federal policies to institute a transgender suppression program, but this policy is de-facto nullified due to resistance from a progressive deep state, then this still counts as YES.

To clarify, the question will also resolve YES if e.g. republicans torture a bunch of trans people without the democrats stopping them and the trans people don't stop transitioning.

Also the second from last paragraph contradicts the one below the list of criteria.

How do you mean?

Texas Attorney general issued an opinion designating gender affirming care as child abuse by default fulfilling 3.

Yes.

Florida HB999 in my opinion fulfills 1:

That's an interesting edge-case because it goes far broader than transgender ideology, basically covering progressivism in general. I guess I rule it as counting, unless enforcement in practice ends up making exceptions for trans stuff (which sounds unlikely given the fact that Florida is opposing trans stuff in other ways too?).

However, like with the public library case in Montana, it doesn't seem to be broadly applicable guidelines, so I would probably not count it as 100%. On the other hand, I think maybe some doctors learn about transition treatment in university or something? In which case it could start making an impact on 4/6. Idk, I guess we'll have to see how it plays out.

Texas Attorney general issued an opinion designating gender affirming care as child abude by default fulfilling 3 and 4.

4 is only a rule for adults, per the "The scope of the question will mainly focus on adults." rule. Yes I know this sucks in deep ways, but see my discussion of the complexities in making a question for children further below.

There is a wide legislative effort to make theoretically drag shows, as written any "performance" by a transgender person wearing makeup basically equivalent to a lap dance at a strip club and qualify a businesshosting them as adult-oriented for example Texas HB643, Kansas SB149, Minnesota SF933, Arizona SB1030 as introduced

I think laws that make the presence of trans people count as a strip show would probably qualify for all of the criteria. (If nothing else then by the "If one of the criteria are ambiguously or partially fulfilled, I may resolve it as a probability.", Republicans implementing the basic logic of it but then labelling it differently. Like if a psych supports transition but then is guilty of incitement rather than medical malpractice, that seems reasonable to consider 99% or whatever.) Though most of the bills I've read have various qualifications on them, which would prevent them from counting 100%.

I think it is hard to say much until we see how it rolls out. Though in retrospect it might have been better to orient the criteria more around the content of the bills rather than the content of suicidality/schizophrenia/anorexia suppression.

I believe 2 and 6 to be wrong criteria as they would require compelling doctors to act against medical consensus and accepted treatment guidelines, those are not efficient ways to achieve the goal.

I think the government can just declare a new medical consensus and accepted treatment guidelines?

@tailcalled
> How do you mean?
> If there are no states where any of these are true until 2033, this question resolves NO.
> As such, if there are conservative state or federal policies to institute a transgender suppression program, but this policy is de-facto nullified due to resistance from a progressive deep state, then this still counts as YES.

> 4 is only a rule for adults
Whatever one considers to be the ideal level of suppression in children is making it completely illegal until 18 regardless of any relevant factors is absurd and clearly ideologically driven. But I also linked examples in (young) adults.

As far as i"m aware the government would not be able to implement either 2 or 6 without huge legal changes, nor would it be a particularly useful step.

> If there are no states where any of these are true until 2033, this question resolves NO.
> As such, if there are conservative state or federal policies to institute a transgender suppression program, but this policy is de-facto nullified due to resistance from a progressive deep state, then this still counts as YES.

@CodeandSolder The "or federal" overrules the "states" meaning, that is if something is implemented on a federal level then it counts as being implemented in all of the states.

Whatever one considers to be the ideal level of suppression in children is making it completely illegal until 18 regardless of any relevant factors is absurd and clearly ideologically driven

I am not limiting the market to adults because I don't think it is relevant in children, I am limiting it to adults because I think it is confusing in children. You are welcome to give ideas in response to my other comment where I talked about the difficulties with making a similar market for children, and maybe I will make one. Or to make a market for children yourself.

As far as i"m aware the government would not be able to implement either 2 or 6 without huge legal changes, nor would it be a particularly useful step.

@CodeandSolder You may be right, I don't know.

@tailcalled it could be confusing if it was for example requiring a consultation with all relevant specialists and a waiting period not when there is federal legislation introduced to make all forms of gender transition in minors medical malpractice, that is very clearly an attempt at suppression, not a good-faith medical policy:
https://legiscan.com/US/text/SB635/id/2752091
https://legiscan.com/US/text/SB1597/id/2819703
https://legiscan.com/US/text/SB457/id/2734132

@CodeandSolder Again if you want to discuss the situation with minors, I think you should respond to my other comment with my thoughts on that: https://manifold.markets/tailcalled/will-any-american-state-start-a-tra#3Wcrf7M02qZDdiKLsVVE

@tailcalled ok, last question:
>The scope of this question will mainly focus on state and federal policies. As such, if there are conservative state or federal policies to institute a transgender suppression program, but this policy is de-facto nullified due to resistance from a progressive deep state, then this still counts as YES.
Does that mean bills that were proposed but not passed are enough to fulfill criteria?

@CodeandSolder No, bills that were proposed but not passed were not nullified due to resistance from a progressive deep state, they were nullified due to resistance from elected progressive politicians. By "progressive deep state" I mean stuff like if bureaucrats and other people who work for the American government and a nominally meant to follow executive policies and passed laws instead decide to work against these purposes, oppose conservatives and stop their policies from having an effect.

For instance, consider the criterion: "Teachers, medical professionals, and others are part of a legally enforced system to report transness to others who will help stop transitioning". Suppose Republicans pass a law requiring this to happen, but teachers and medical professionals ignore the law, and school and medical administrations obstruct police investigations into the law violations (or the police also ignore the law, but I consider that less probable). In that case, the criterion will still resolve YES, because the formal state attempted to implement the transgender suppression program by passing the law, even though they were not successful in enforcing the law.

@tailcalled I'm not really sure about the scope of these things. I would argue that the widest possible scope (anything public trans is banned, nominally enforced through state violence) automatically qualifies for criteria 1, 2, 3 and 6. However, the bill itself mostly focuses on overtly erotic topics, which complicates things.

First question, if it is nominally only about erotic things, but in practice is enforced much more widely, would that still count? Argument against would be this section:

The scope of this question will mainly focus on state and federal policies. As such, if there are conservative state or federal policies to institute a transgender suppression program, but this policy is de-facto nullified due to resistance from a progressive deep state, then this still counts as YES.

... but this section is technically only phrased for the converse scenario. It feels more absurd to me to say "no, there is no transgender suppression program, because it is run by the deep state rather than elected politicians" than it does to say "yes, the politicians started a transgender suppression program, but it is ineffective due to being opposed by the deep state". So I would be inclined to rule a de-facto transgender suppression program implemented as a result of a nominal sexual propriety policy as a YES, unless people have strong objections.

Next, I think this thing in Montana is ruled based on the Drag Queen Story Hour rule, not the sexually oriented performance rule. And the Drag Queen Story Hour rule seems to be limited to forbidding things in publicly funded libraries. I think this is too weak to satisfy criteria 2, 3, and 6. However the intent obviously seems to focus on 1, albeit in a child-centered way, but if in practice it also affects non-child-centered cases, then I don't think it becomes an exception under "The scope of the question will mainly focus on adults". Though arguably we will have to wait a while to see how it is actually enforced.

The state legislature making a law certainly seems like the strongest notion possible of "non-marginal institutition" and "guideline". So the main weakness is, it seems like quite a narrow scope to limit it to libraries and hosted by trans people, which makes it hard to endorse resolving this subcriterion as 100%. More like 0%-15% I think? But ultimately it may be too early to tell.

Some discussion of a group that is trying to implement a transgender suppression program:

https://baptistnews.com/article/focus-on-the-family-affiliate-is-the-unifying-force-behind-campaign-to-restrict-transgender-rights/

I have trouble telling exactly what the news site thinks of it. Some parts of what it writes sound quite sympathetic to Focus on the Family, while other parts sound quite denouncing of it. Maybe this is just what media attempting to be honest looks like? Idk.

Anyway, the scope of the original market focuses on adults, while this article mostly focuses on children. I think there would be value in creating a corresponding market for children, especially because policy for trans children also ends up affecting trans adults.

However at the same time I am not entirely happy with just translating the equivalent of this market to children, because while I am very sympathetic to the notion that the ideal level of trans adult suppression is 0, I am more on the fence about the idea level of trans child suppression.

Maybe I should just make such a market anyway, but I don't know. Also, because children are much more subjugated than adults, it seems like the interventions needed for a given level of trans suppression in children is smaller than the interventions needed for a given level of trans suppression in adults. For instance, stuff like "Gender dysphoria, transgender identity or transgender ideology is considered a valid reason for institutionalization" is basically necessary for complete trans suppression among adults as otherwise they can just run away or go to the black market, but there are state programs that can effectively prevent this for children in the general case, even without being trans-specific.

Perhaps the most significant nuance to consider is the distinction between the state running a universal trans child suppression program vs the state helping parents to trans suppression program against their own children. Possibly there should be markets on both of these. But I think states probably already mostly permit parents to run trans suppression programs against their own children? Maybe a more relevant question for the latter would be something more like, "how many states will prevent parents from running trans suppression programs against their children?"? (Actually, I suppose that's a further distinction, prevent vs not-support. And that can be further broken down into prevent vs generically-support-because-children-are-subjugated vs just-not-get-involved-at-all, though I think the latter will be rare enough to be nonexistent?)

Florida may have 100%'d criterion 4, though I haven't verified this yet: https://trans.so/latestpolicy.png

https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1656359316666871838

I think this sort of thing could be said to go under the first criterion, though not necessarily as a 100% resolution. We'll also have to see how it plays out a bit.

predicts NO

This market is begging the question. The original disscussion on genocide hinges on two things:

1) the increased suicide rate amongst trans people trapped in a harmful society. This is social policy that increases irreparable harm, which is not comparable to harm reduction policy such as anorexia treatment

2) the specific pathway of "make crossdressing a child abuse crime" and "encourage the death penalty for such crimes" is not being addressed by this market at all.

As such, I don't think the market is in good faith and I expect the maker to find reasons to resolve no. All but the last two conditions have already been fulfilled I think, but I doubt they will this year due to the time it takes for a malpractice case to come to final trial.

2) the specific pathway of "make crossdressing a child abuse crime" and "encourage the death penalty for such crimes" is not being addressed by this market at all.

@CromlynGames Do you have a link for reference? I have some guesses as to what you are referring to but your phrasing is a bit confusing to me.

This is social policy that increases irreparable harm, which is not comparable to harm reduction policy such as anorexia treatment

I am not using the term "suppression program" to denote harm reduction, I am using it to denote a method to eliminate a group of people. Like if you consider terms like "gay suppression program", "feminist suppression program", "conservative suppression program", etc., the very phrase sounds like major human rights violations.

It happens that society accepts suicide/schizophrenia/anorexia suppression programs anyway because they are considered to be a harm reduction policy. Some people argue that those programs are actually bad while others argue that a corresponding program for transness is also harm reduction. There's a whole policy area to what groups society should run a suppression program against.

the increased suicide rate amongst trans people trapped in a harmful society

I think it is counterproductive to talk about suicide rates too much for various reasons, but the one most relevant to this market is that if trans people are committing suicide in response to some anti-trans societal practices, then it is far more atheoretically verifiable that those practices exist than that they cause trans people to commit suicide, so phrasing the market in terms of them makes it resolve more objectively.

Of course alternatively one could ignore the causal element and just look at the trans suicide rate alone, but this comes with its own problems.

All but the last two conditions have already been fulfilled I think, but I doubt they will this year due to the time it takes for a malpractice case to come to final trial.

My understanding of the state of the conditions so far (haven't rigorously counted yet, just based on news I've seen via osmosis, so will be somewhat off, though hopefully not in a biased way) is:

  1. Some conservative political groups have made general media guidelines against sharing transgender material, but they have not achieved a majority to broadcast them from e.g. state health institutes or similar. However, there have been achieved majorities to ban pro-trans materials in schools and such. Since this is only opposing it in a narrow segment of society, this only does not count for much. (Contrast with e.g. suicide letters, which are aggressively censored according to official guidelines.) Let's say 0-10%

  2. I have not heard of this being a thing. Let's say 0%.

  3. I believe some states have introduced this, so this criterion probably resolves YES, though I haven't researched how comprehensive it is, so it might only resolve a partial YES. (Also note that if e.g. this gets repealed and then later another state ends up satisfying a bunch of the other criteria but not this one then this might not contribute to the final resolution because it is max over all the states.) Let's say 20%-100%.

  4. Hormones are made less available to adults than arbitrary stuff is, but AFAIK mainly for generic medical reasons and not for explicit transition-suppression reasons. There are some states that have been moving towards making them less available, in particular by making them illegal for teens and young adults. If this market focused on teens too, then this might resolve YES, but since the market focuses on adults, it can at most get a PROB for the "young adults" stuff. Let's say 10%.

  5. Conservatives are pushing towards this but have not clearly succeeded yet; we'll have to see what happens with the malpractice cases etc.. Let's say 0%.

  6. There was a big meme/push by gender conservatives to do this (e.g. the pimozide meme a while ago), but there doesn't seem to be much that has happened. Let's say 0%.

So if the market was to resolve now, my guess would be that it would resolve PROB in the 5%-20% range, though I would have to do more research to place it exactly. (Note that this is for the current state of the US. I think it's likely that conservatives will continue the push and partially succeed in some places, so I think it is plausible that it will resolve to a higher PROB than 20% in practice.)

@tailcalled I don't understand what you mean by "max over all the states". I thought the market was going to rate based on the worst overall state?

@MartinRandall Worst overall state is what I mean by max over all the states 😅 sorry for the mathbrain

predicts NO

@tailcalled I'm not sure I really want to do your homework for you, especially as I have M on the idea you have a preconceived result in your head, and have chosen criteria to match.

but: https://translegislation.com/ might help you along.
In case you want to quibble that laws not yet passed don't count as part of an effort then:
https://translegislation.com/bills/2022/passed
https://translegislation.com/bills/2023/passed

@CromlynGames Those seem mostly in accordance with what I had seen from my twitter and such.

Test

Would any US state today have an "abortion suppression program" that qualifies according to these criteria or their equivalent?

@MartinRandall Good question, but I don't know much about abortion policy in US states so I can't tell. If someone can describe the strongest state-based anti-abortion rules to me, I can comment on whether they qualify.

Aside: I maybe wouldn't say the government is "eradicating suicide" because that number isn't going to zero any time soon, and with current tech trying to get to zero would be dystopian.

Maybe "attempting to eliminate"? not quite sure how to phrase it.

@MartinRandall Maybe "suppression program"?