This clip from the often odious Alan Dershowitz is telling.

Dershowitz, in his YouTube podcast, commented directly on this moment from the Judge Jackson hearing:

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: No that's bigotry! People have the right to choose how to live their lives. You know, Cruz asked a series of absurd questions. I hope he didn't learn them from me -- he was my student -- where he said 'well if a man has the right to choose to be a woman, do I as a Latino person have the right to be Asian?' No! No, you don't you can't change into somebody who's Asian. You can marry somebody who's Asian and live an Asian life and be part of Asian culture but no, you can't you can't do that. You can convert. You can be born a Jew and become a Catholic you can be born a Catholic and become a Jew. There are certain things you can change certain things you can't.

That's all well and good. But it's Alan Dershowitz's personal experience, knowing people who ARE transgender, that makes him sympathetic.

DERSHOWITZ: We used to think that gender was one of them! It turns out it's not! It turns out you can change gender and you can live a perfectly happy and good life. We have two friends who have grandchildren who have changed genders, and in both cases they're living much much much happier lives with the gender change than they were before. Who am I to tell them they can't do that? And these are conservatives who say the state should keep out of your homes -- the states should. Well yeah, the state should keep out of your issue of gender change. You should keep out of issues of whether you have sex with people of the same sex or different sex. If you're a true conservative who believes in limited government, then you should believe in limited government in that respect as well.

It's so telling that Dershowitz mentions his personal connection to some transgender people. So many people who are against LGBTQ+ being treated as PEOPLE change their minds once someone in their social circle turns out to be, oh really? THEY are queer/gay/trans?

People with empathy, however, don't need to be shown understanding and acceptance.

Ted Cruz doesn't have any empathy.

PS. In the full podcast, Dersh goes off on how horrible Brett Kavanaugh was treated in his hearing. Ugh.