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Phydios wrote:

You are right. I haven't had the time to write out a well-thought-out email in response, but I want to. I know that even though he often leans left, he will receive it graciously.

But this is one issue that he will fail to find common ground on- because there is none. Either you accommodate the people who say "biology is irrelevant" or you do not. Either you accommodate the people who say "businesses should not have the right to refuse service to us", or you do not. Either you disenfranchise those biologically male athletes who identify as female, or you disenfranchise the biologically female athletes who identify as female. There is no compromise. Someone will always be disenfranchised. And we are supposed to accommodate 1.5 million people at the expense of 328.5 million?

No. Just no. This is one matter that I will not budge an inch on. Either 2 + 2 = 4, or 2 + 2 = 5. There is no middle ground with this "Equality" Act.

Sen./Dr. Paul confronted Dr. Levine in his confirmation hearing to directly ask whether he supports "The government intervening to override the parents' consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia", and Levine, twice, directly refused to answer, giving this empty nonsense:

“Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field, and if confirmed to the position of assistant secretary of health, I would certainly be pleased to come to your office and talk with you and your staff about the standards of care and the complexity of this field.”

(I also just searched to get the exact quote, and the first five articles that come up on it are headlined "Patty Murray rebuked Rand Paul for 'harmful misrepresentation' at historic confirmation", "Sen. Paul criticized for comments during hearing for Rachel Levine's confirmation", "Sen. Rand Paul slammed for transphobic questioning", "Rachel Levine elegantly bats back Rand Paul's loaded trans questions" and "Rand Paul tried to derail Rachel Levine's confirmation with transphobic disinformation." All for the entirely neutral search term "Rand Paul Dr. Levine confirmation hearing", on DuckDuckGo, which is usually less ideologically slanted than Google.)

There was no possible misinterpretation here, Paul directly brough up Levine's record (“Dr. Levine, you have supported both allowing minors to be given hormone blockers to prevent them from going through puberty, as well as surgical destruction of a minor's genitalia.”) and directly asked the question multiple times ("Dr. Levine, do you believe minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision of changing one's sex?”, "Will you make a more firm decision on whether minors should be involved in these decisions?”), and there was no answer, but the resounding answer from the coverage of the hearing that children who are not of age to consent to use their sexual organs in intercourse can have such mutilated irreversibly.

I'm with you entirely on this, this is an absolutely central issue, and we're at the tipping point, past it, probably. I'm happy to have all manner of discussions on taxes, healthcare, immigration, even to say that an adult who wants to do certain things to their body can do so, but when we're talking about performing operations with lifelong consequences on children under the age of consent, from the backing of an ideology that rejects the basic fundamentals of biology, and with support that now goes so far that just yesterday or today Amazon has banned and removed books by medical doctors raising scientific concerns on transgender issues, there is a line in the sand, a hill to die on. I think it's too late, the reaction to this hearing being "Transphobic Senator Paul" and not "Nominee refuses to condemn genital mutilation of children" only proves that, but if we cannot stand here, we have neither the strength nor the right to stand anywhere.