U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican nominee for governor of Alabama, criticized transgender people, their parents and their doctors on the Senate floor Thursday.
Tuberville claimed transgender people are mentally ill and a danger to others.
He said that airline pilots who are transgender or wear fursuits are “deranged” and suggested more LGBTQ people should be institutionalized.
“It is the best interest of our country to bring back mental institutions as a normal part of our society, instead of sweeping it under the rug,” Tuberville said, standing next to a sign that said “Transgenderism is a Mental Illness.”
“I want to be clear about this gender confusion,” he said.
“It is not normal. It is a cry for help, and our society needs to stop affirming people who are suffering from this mental illness.”
Its creepy how obsessed they are with transgender people. Why are they so obsessed? To what point and purpose would institutionalizing these people solve? Like, I’m not seeing how transgender people existing harms people.
Also, who’d pay for this? We don’t even have universal health-insurance in America. So, what? We involuntarily incarcerte transgender people and then charge them for their own extermination treatment?
Also also, how would the 5th Amendment come in?
Wait: He suddenly wants to fund mental health treatment?
Republicans, how can you stand for this? There’s a socialist in your midst!
What’s funny is that—upon being abducted at gunpoint and forced into a mental hospital—trans patients would be given HRT and the usual treatments that conservatives hate. Because that’s what the science says to do and hospitals are legally required to treat their patients using actual, FDA-approved medical practices/procedures.
There’s already a number of hospital networks who refuse to provide pediatric trans care because they were essentially bullied into submission by this administration
Fwiw his point to bring back mental institutions has some merit in that interim programs and supported rehabilitation should be expanded though there’s no way he means it this way and he has no intention to fund mental health treatment, only pseudo prisons.
Starting in the 1960s the number of mental hospitals dropped precipitously. Mainly because of outrage at conditions, watch the Geraldo documentary on the willowbrook school, released in 1972, which further accelerated an already started trend because it was correct and conditions were atrocious
However, what is left out is that these places weren’t replaced with anything until much later. This led to decades of issues. Hospitals focused on physical health took the brunt, and social issues measurably worsened. This led to a rising trend in jailing people who were suffering from mental health issues and homelessness, which drastically hastened under Reagan in the 1980s
In the roughly 50 years since then psychiatry and social work in almost every state have moved towards community programs, in home services, and when things are extremely severe residential treatment and supportive rehabilitation residences. However, funding for mental health dropped almost constantly as asylums closed so these programs often started with shoestring budgets. Further for every president since Reagan these budgets have essentially continually dropped year after year. Sometimes tremendously; many states destroyed Medicaid and mental health funding in 2008 during the recession and since then it continually goes down or at best stays stagnant year after year
As a result most of these interim programs are inaccessible for many because they can only staff so much. On top of that the clinical fidelity is often poor to extremely terrible because you simply can’t attract talent. When I started in the field I did residential treatment for $9/hr. I then did mobile case management for $11. That was almost 20 years ago and those jobs now pay $13 and $15 respectively, still atrocious. Staff turnover is high because why not just work at target? You won’t have the constant threat of severe injuries (I literally just got an epidural steroid injection today to deal with a progressively worsening back injury from like 2015 at work), extremely depressing situations (I still remember the several case management clients I had who are dead because it was during the Wild West opioid days), terrifying liability (what do you do when someone is suicidal with a plan and begs you not to hospitalize? What do you do when you witness child abuse that is borderline at best and you know cps will just waste everyone’s time and destroy the rapport you have for no consequence? (You still report)). It’s not like when you have commercial ppo insurance through work and can see a decent licensed clinician for $10 copay (and the clinician gets 100-150/hr)
So then you get the people who actively resist funding these programs because they’re shithead politicians that just block any social service. But you create a situation where they give themselves ammo. They underfund the system so much as to cripple it. Then they can point to poor consumer satisfaction, poor outcomes, etc and starve them further. They can also gain constituents by having them experience this subpar treatment and then campaigning on tearing it all down (once again with no alternative proposed, which means prison)
Legally required… unless whatever law he excretes changes that
For now.
There’s [the flaw](hospitals are legally required to treat their patients using actual, FDA-approved medical practices/procedures.)