My Newest (2025) Editorials & Letters

My Reply To Roxane Salonen (Jan 2025). Published in the Fargo Forum Newspaper.

In response to Roxane Salonen's Jan. 5 column, yes, people should not light other people on fire, in a subway or anywhere else. I favor a reasonable immigration policy that keeps America safe, competitive and multicultural. Congressional efforts to do something of this sort were blocked by incoming President Donald Trump, who preferred to keep the issue alive rather than have Republicans and Democrats work together to get something sane done.

Yes, people should not molest or rape other people, family, or strangers. Parenting is a serious business and something worth protecting.

However, most same-sex or opposite-sex couples that do adopt kids do not abuse them, but they do sometimes embarrass them, especially when the kids hit adolescence.

Yes, I would agree with the concept that “we’re all made in God’s image and likeness”, although I would assume that includes the immigrants, as well as members of the LGBTQ+/Allied community.

Yes, reasonable legal and medical guardrails should exist for minors seeking gender-affirming care. I would object if someone opened up a drive-through window where kids could have the procedure done willy-nilly.

If a public university outright banned a far right-wing student group from sponsoring “de-transitioners” onto campus, I would object on First Amendment grounds.

Yet, North Dakota and the other total bans on gender-affirming care for minors are bad policies, for reasons that I outlined in a previous letter to the editor ("Potential legal troubles abound with North Dakota's anti-transgender bills," March 28, 2023). They are also not based on what the vast majority of the scientific research is telling us and has been telling us for many, many, many years.

Like Salonen, I too “value truth far more than worldly judgment”. I was never the cool or popular kid growing up and what is popular or politically correct to the far right or the far left generally does not deter me from speaking truth.

Lastly, I am just a tad bit surprised that Salonen would be quoting from John Stuart Mill, who championed a philosophy that did not have much use for God, traditional gender roles, and favored a very pro-choice concept of personal liberty.

MY JAN 20025 LETTER SENT TO THE MINNESOTA STAR TRIBUNE ABOUT TRANSGENDER RIGHTS & THE MOVEABLE MIDDLE

Vanessa Sheridan is correct in stating that science, generally, backups the fact that sex does not always fit into two neat, little boxes. I hope that Sheridan is correct about what President Donald J. Trump's undoing will be. However, I do know decent people, outside of the LGBTQ+ community, who have sincere concerns about certain aspects of the transgender rights struggle. In the conversations that need to occur surrounding transgender people and their human rights, let us not be too quick to confuse serious concerns with Trumpian hatred and bigotry.

I know people whose politics are perhaps a bit conservative on some issues, but mostly part of a moveable middle concerning the rights and dignity of the transgender community. Some of these people did cast their ballot for Trump and calling them bigots because of their concerns would be a grave mistake morally and strategically.

The moveable middle can be educated more and might, given the right circumstances, be willing to have an open and honest conversation about what it means to be transgender in America. But you need to permit these people to express their sincere concerns about certain transgender rights issues and not be automatically told that everyone who voted for Trump is a lost cause, or that their concerns must be driven by malice.

Human rights struggles in America are notoriously, painfully slow to see any just results and much more resources need to be allocated for transgender education and the promotion of civil conservations about gender identity with Americans of the moveable middle.