First of all, it's about an entrepreneur traveling to the US for a startup, which is directly relevant to a significant proportion of YCombinator founders themselves.
Beyond its direct relevance to the core founding audience of HN, it is not clickbait or wantonly inflammatory, and is clearly of interest to many based on the comment activity and votes.
Another commenter (now deleted) made the claim that, saying an issue shouldn't be partisan is “just saying ‘everyone should believe what I do’ but in the lexicon of people who look down their nose at the general public.” They added, “The only nonpartisan issues are the most basic of things that all societies have like ‘don't murder people’ (but even then the minutia become debatable).” Although the comment has been deleted, I think this merits a little further exploration, because it's a widely held viewpoint, and there is some truth to it, though I disagree more than I agree.
There are definitely people who mean, "Shouldn't be a partisan issue," that way, but what I mean when I say it is that from the clash of opposing opinions comes the spark of insight, and partisan struggles in which arguments are soldiers do not permit that process to happen: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-c...
I have frequently observed variants of the following exchange in mathematics classrooms:
Professor [writing on blackboard]: So you see that this just reduces down to x² + a.
Student sitting in the third row of the audience: No, it's x³ + a.
Professor: Hmm. [pauses]
Student: Because the x from substituting f doesn't cancel.
Professor: Yes, you're right. So you see that this just reduces down to x³ + a.
Sometimes it goes the other way, and the student is the mistaken one. Neither participant goes into the discussion on the premise that "everyone should believe what they do"; rather, they believe that by discussing the issue they can arrive at an agreement, which may involve changing their own mind. Converting the discussion into partisan struggle prevents that from happening. Imagine what would have happened in my example if the discussion had instead gone as follows:
Professor: So you see that this just reduces down to x² + a.
Student: No, it's x³ + a.
Professor: I don't remember paying tuition to come and see you lecture.
Or, alternatively:
Professor: So you see that this just reduces down to x² + a.
Student: You didn't even do a modicum of research. It's x³ + a.
Or, how about this?
Professor: So you see that this just reduces down to x² + a.
Student: No, it's x³ + a.
Professor: You're being manipulated into thinking that this factor is being canceled incorrectly by the horrible evil professor.
Or, how about this?
Professor: So you see that this just reduces down to x² + a.
Student: "x²" ? Êtes-vous fou ? Restez avec x³ !
This difference comes out in its purest form in mathematics, but it's also possible for discussion and consultation to reach agreement on empirical and even moral issues. But partisanship is an obstacle in that process.
The reality is that transgender Americans have been doing these things, all these things, for many decades. And nobody, and I do mean nobody, cared. Ultimately you are not inspecting penises in the Men's room. You, yourself, do not care.
What do you believe transgender people did in the 70s, or 80s, or 90s? You've never thought about it because you know, deep down, it's not a real issue. But, if you do think about it - or better yet, just ask them - you'd know they've already been doing these things.
Women do not run into burly men with beards when they go to the women's room. Do you know why? Because those transgender men have always gone to the men's room, and have never been questioned. Never been questioned, until conservatives decided to question it.
I have been alive for a long time now. We always knew trans people existed. Nobody batted an eye. Conservatives too, including conservatives that exist still, and including even you. Yes, that's correct - I am speaking for you, because I know you were not protesting these things in the 2010s, or the 2000s, or the 90s, or the 80s, or the 70s.
So no, you don't care, and no, you yourself believe these are not real issues. You might not say that now, because as I've already stated, the conservatives brought it into the zeitgeist to distract you. And now, you are distracted. Before, you were not.
And, to you and other conservatives, you should focus. The economy is in danger. Due process is being violated. Our constitution is in hot water.
The American right has been able to propagandize you, and others, so completely and so severely, that you not only do not pay attention to these issues, but you legitimately think you willingly chose to not pay attention. You didn't choose anything, this was carefully crafted for you. I challenge you to think back to an earlier time you were alive and question what you saw then.
Do you have any evidence for that?
For example, do you have evidence of any of these happening in the US before, say, 1990?
- any openly transgender athlete participating in sports on the team of their preferred gender rather than their sex assigned at birth?
- large numbers of children receiving "gender-affirming" hormones or puberty blockers?
- transgender prisoners being housed with the sex they identify as, regardless of whether they actually "present as" that sex?
- a transgender woman being accepted to attend a all-women college?
Maybe all of these happened quietly, so common and uncontroversial that they were totally unremarked upon. But surely there's some evidence that they occurred?
For me it simply doesn't pass the laugh test that a trans woman with a penis could walk into a nude spa in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s without anyone batting an eye.
They weren't, and they still aren't. The idea that transwomen want to be around ciswomen and hang brain is a conservative fantasy. You would very much like to believe that is true, because you believe transwomen are inherently perverted sexual deviants. Not unlike how conservatives viewed homosexuals. Of course, this is not so. This is one of the most classical forms of a projection. Meaning, you cannot view transwomen in a light that isn't sexual, so you project your own sexual objectification onto them. Again, exactly how was done with homosexuals in the past. Even today, there are a lot of people I've met who can't see a gay man without thinking "dick in ass dick in ass!". That's not the homosexual's fault.
On the topic of gender affirming care: the primary recipients of gender affirming has always been cisgender people. I take testosterone myself, because unfortunately I lost my testicles to cancer. I identify as a man and I want to present as a man as much as possible, so I take testosterone. And again, with puberty blockers, same thing - mostly cisgender people.
To be clear, gender affirming care for minors typically includes things like a new haircut and new wardrobe. In some cases, particularly for teens, puberty blockers may temporarily be used. The idea that minors are mutilating themselves is, surprise, another conservative fantasy.
But, even then, the Conservative's desire to get in the way of the rights of parents, their children, and their doctors, is very out of character. If you told conservative's 10 years ago that the government is going to want to vet what treatment their children can and cannot receive, they would be aghast. Even today they would be. After all, a lot of them have a big issue with the principle behind vaccine mandates.
I think you're probably right that the vast majority of trans women are completely uninterested in such a thing. And yet:
In San Francisco activists protested a policy that excluded trans women from a nude bathhouse one night per month for a "phallus free" womens night. They were investigated by the city's Human Rights Commission after numerous reports and reversed course - no more "phallus free" nights. In Washington State a trans activist sued a nude female-only Korean spa for not providing her with service because of her male genitalia.
Are these specific people merely fighting back to try to retain a right that was already "settled" back in 1970? Or are they trying to claim a new right?