From my colleague Brittany Bernstein’s report:
The city of Palm Springs, Calif. recently granted $200,000 to two nonprofit groups looking to design a pilot program to offer a universal basic income (UBI) of up to $900 per month to transgender and nonbinary Palm Springs residents who meet a poverty threshold.
As generous as it is to offer free money to people who identify as trans and non-binary, this scheme does not seem particularly well thought through. First, there is no objective test for a trans identity. It is simply something you declare. (So there is an obvious flaw in the program’s incentive structure.) Second, this proposal abandons any pretense of equality. The more the public sees the trans movement as receiving special treatment and privileges, the less easy it is for them to be sympathetic to its demands.