VIEW from behind the plow

What does the word hate really mean.

Kamala Harris, the left-wing senator from California who has announced her candidacy for president in 2020, has also announced she will see that a third-gender option will be added to federal identification cards and documents if she is elected.

She used the question of gender to denounce what she described as “rising hate” in America.

Kamala needs to explain why someone giving a non-biological description of their sex on a card turns into “hate.”

People could describe themselves any way they want and it wouldn’t generate a feeling of “hatred,” at least on the part of normal people.

We might think somebody describing him, her or itself other than the sex the individual was born with was inane but we surely wouldn’t hate that person for it.

Hatred is an emotional dislike for someone, likely Kamala’s feeling for President Donald Trump. She may be revealing more about herself than others.

It could be that Kamala thinks she has latched on to an emotional campaign issue that will get her a bloc of votes.

Harris went on to attempt to pin “hate” on President Trump for efforts to ban transgender troops from the military.

There are some reasons that this might be a good idea.

For one, transgender people might want to rotate back to what they were naturally or go through the “trans” surgeries and have the government pay for it.

Studies indicate people who attempt to change sex often aren’t happy with the change after making it.

For another, strength enough to carry a wounded partner from a field of battle is vital in military service.

You may have read about the boys who identified as female winning state track events –  in record times – in girls’ competition in Connecticut recently.

Apparently there is something about the physiology of males that make them naturally stronger and faster than females of the same age group.

Parents in Connecticut have launched petitions to prevent boys from competing in girls’ track and field events, saying the current rules governing transgender teenagers gives boys an unfair advantage.

There are now many transgender athletes competing across the state, the Hartford Courant reported.

“I think it’s unfair to the girls who work really hard to do well and qualify,” Glastonbury sophomore Selina Soule, who finished sixth in the 100 meters, told the Courant.

Vox discussed the ban on “trans” people in the military in a column by one German Lopez thusly:

President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops is back.

Previously, lower courts had placed injunctions on the ban. But … (last January), the Supreme Court put some of those injunctions on hold. Since one injunction remains in place for now, the ban can’t take effect just yet – but given the Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday, that lower court’s injunction is likely to be put on hold soon as well.

If that happens, the Trump administration will be able to enforce its ban on transgender people serving openly in the military.

The Supreme Court did not decide yet whether it will directly oversee a case on the trans ban. It merely lifted some lower courts’ injunctions.

This goes back to July 2017, when Trump first tweeted he would ban trans military service. He argued, “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming … victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

In August 2017, the White House put out the actual policy behind those tweets. According to the administration, Trump would effectively return to the pre-2016 era in which trans troops could not serve openly. It would also ban the military from paying for gender-affirming surgeries, with some exceptions to “protect the health” of someone who had already begun transitioning. The guidance also allowed the secretary of defense, after consulting with the secretary of homeland security, some wiggle room to decide what to do with already serving trans service members — and it let them advise the president on reversing the ban.

The policy was to take effect in March 2018, reversing the Obama administration’s decision to undo the military’s long-standing ban on openly serving trans troops.

But federal courts halted the ban from going through, finding in part that trans service members who challenged the policy were likely to prevail. As a result, openly serving trans service members were able to join the military starting on January 1, 2018, and the military has already paid for some trans-inclusive medical services, including gender-affirming surgeries.

Deciding such issues is what makes the presidency a tough job. Anyone elected to the position deserves a measure of respect no matter whether or not you approve of his-her policies.