The Republican War on Transgender People, Drag Queens, and Queerness in General
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- 44 pages of prepubescent pharmacological blockers 45 pages of prepubescent whining 67 pages of prepubescent pharmacological blockers absurd contortions benny and benny drinking benny b still butthurt by maridonna bisque denoncement conversations cotton ceiling doesn't even know who totnumb are dogging has no gender handwaving women's rights hm govts mask dom fetish i identify as a knobhead jamaican voodoo gang from predator 2 maxi celibacy men's rights to women's bogs nonce biscuits and his moral high grooming ground oh here we go again 18 paragraphs about communism padrage phallusy political male lesbianism sanctimonious man really hates misogynists shed ted utd simple cancer insult skunk+internet casualty=as serious as cancer take a bite of peach there is no such thing as society what gender is the hand of god? world's worst dinner party
It is pointless but also Biscuits is an Oxford numpty and totally divorced from the religious context of America. so he's essentially gunning for the people who approve of Isaac marrying Rebecca at age 3, so you know, horses for courses. Clueless brit hasn't read his bible!
He thinks there can be a conservative faction in politics which doesn't subscribe to a form of religious cosmological thinking. But we saw this in the UK when the tories went absolutely mad at Penny Mordaunt for (opportunistically it must be said) being fairly indifferent and vaguely conciliatory towards trans people. It is hardly an issue in the UK, which is precisely why people deflect with this drag nonsense, even though in principle they supposedly have no issue with effeminate gay teachers who aren't in drag.
The tories are ruling a void, even more than the republicans are in the US.
Leo
Well-known member
G.O.P. Lawmakers Override Kentucky Governor’s Veto on Anti-Trans Law (Published 2023)
The Kentucky measure bans access to gender-transition care for young people, and West Virginia’s governor signed a similar bill on Wednesday. Passage of bans also appears imminent in Idaho and Missouri.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
Some on the right blame gender identity and not guns for Nashville shooting
Amid a national campaign to ban gender-affirming medical care and LGBTQ literature, some conservatives have seized on a shooting by a transgender person to further their agenda.
all the usual suspects (MJT, Fox, etc) plus a cameo from the world's worst Karen:
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
tbh I didn't realize until this thread the extent to which anti-trans discourse in the UK is dominated by TERFs, who are a total non-factor here
as terrible as they are, they're at least less threatening than the mixture of religious fanatics and cryptofascists (or just fascists) we have here
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
the Crowder being referenced above
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
the replies are as bad as you'd think
recycling a classic here "they have to recruit children"
recycling a classic here "they have to recruit children"
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
this guy's bio is "pro-NFT, anti-woke"
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
btw one of the wildest things about this is how their crusade against trans people and absolute refusal to address gun control have combined to make Republicans consistently talk about mental health
sure it's 99.99% gaslighting and they can only pretend to care at all bc their bitterest enemies spent the last couple decades destigmatizing public discourse around mental health, but it's still absolute staggrering for anyone who knows any history
like, this is the party of Reagan, whose most famous legacy - after "tear down that wall" - is probably single-handedly destroying mental healthcare, both as governor of CA and later as President, and creating the American phenomenon of mentally ill, occasionally violent homeless people by gutting the funding for their care
so the idea that modern Republicans are out here saying "we need to talk about America's real problem, mental health" is fucking wild
sure it's 99.99% gaslighting and they can only pretend to care at all bc their bitterest enemies spent the last couple decades destigmatizing public discourse around mental health, but it's still absolute staggrering for anyone who knows any history
like, this is the party of Reagan, whose most famous legacy - after "tear down that wall" - is probably single-handedly destroying mental healthcare, both as governor of CA and later as President, and creating the American phenomenon of mentally ill, occasionally violent homeless people by gutting the funding for their care
so the idea that modern Republicans are out here saying "we need to talk about America's real problem, mental health" is fucking wild
They are largely on the losing side, sure. I would quibble however in that whilst the US has a native white supremacist conservative segment of the population, in the UK that sort of policing is largely instituted against brown and black bodies precisely through white peoples ideologised sexual, political and cultural superiority or avowed autonomy. Which is why I have a big bone to pick with UK queers who transplant american language over here when they talk about the queer struggle being a struggle against white supremacy. (I have no problem with american language being applied in its appropriate context.) The sentiment is noble but you can tell it comes from white queers divorced from us, attempting to weaponise race for their own self-absolution, or people like Ash Sarkar who come from a long line of educated progressives. The average asian muslim who has migrated from poverty stricken countryside with a high schools education (at most) is anti-LGBT (not saying this as a value judgment either way/its complicated and a forum post won't do it justice — just as observable phenomenon.) And when we come over here, the only social activities we have generally transpire in the mosques and community centres which are either funded by financial interests back home or petrodollars, etc... And yet we're supposed to be grateful for magnanimous british generosity! the left here capitulate to that inter-communalism by pandering to a student milieu and completely isolating themselves from the average asian cabby or hospitality worker for fear of encountering the so-called 'alien' and the 'disconcerting.'
There was a wave in the late 80s, early 90s (somewhat into the 2000s) where conditions became so intolerable for certain immigrants from muslim backgrounds in the factories and warehouses that they resorted to drink, petty crime, gambling, etc. Their refuge from this downward spiral was precisely not amongst the irritating English lefty do gooders, but religion, and some, needless to say, were rehabilitated into political islamism...
I can't speak much about afro-caribbean immigrants but ive heard similar stories, although more in a church context for obvious reasons. A lot of the way UK cultural production presents Jamaicans especially is this (dehumanised and angelicised might i add) superhuman cultural vanguard. But a significant amount of them are highly traditional and many of their children also grapple with the same culture clash that we do. Same with sikhs. You could have settled in this country for four-five generations and people will still consider you a foreigner, ask where you are from. This doesn't exist in America in the same way.
The terfs have no visibility within immigrant communities so they will never be able to mobilise us. But then this is the issue with so-called liberation. Even UK anti-woke stuff is not indigenous to the UK context at all. someone like MB talks in entirely American language. But that is the thing, most of the far rightists over here believe they must route out the domestic liberal capitulator and then the uppedy blacks and asians can be repatriated. But when push comes to shove, they have the same concept of superiority as the liberal and the terf. It's just that the racist affirms it, whereas the lib denies it.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Sickening. These people don't care what damage they do or who they hurt, all in the name of principles they don't even really believe in. The performative dishonesty of it all is a final cruel insult.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I know I only see the tip of the iceberg and it's not even aimed at me, but reading this thread and seeing the links to twitter etc displaying so much hatred... vicious smirking bullies and liars; from elite politicians right down to the unemployed and semi-literate and everyone in-between, a shocking, horrifying barrage... I don't know how people survive it. The filth of these fuckers clings to you... it's horrible, horrific. Spirit crushing. How can people be so evil.
subvert47
I don't fight, I run away
Religion is a factor here too, but an outright religious take wouldn't work since the UK is far more widely secular. Instead, the right use TERFs to the same ends, giving them a massive platform to spout shite that they can then get behind. But in fact a lot of the same people are involved. In particular, UK TERFs have links to the US Christian right and receive funding from your religious fanatics and cryptofascists. They don't care, even about their own feminist beliefs. Any enemy of trans people is their friend, including the various actual fascists who turn up to their demos. But they were just a feminist fringe here until the right took them up.
Yeah, I was just about to post something to that end. There doesn't seem to be much of a base for Terfism in any communities here - neither conservative immigrant (where they might find bedfellows, as Third points out) or popular religious, or anywhere really. Thankfully. Does make me wonder to what degree it's an internet driven phenomena, which wouldn't hang together without Twitter (or one could argue, The Guardian).
In a lot of the American discourse, I can't help but think of Reich and his idea of the emotional plague - it was his shorthand for describing collective hysterics driven largely by unrecognised sexual fears. It fits here. I like the usage because it shifts the focus away from "rational choices", made on the basis of "assessing evidence" and shows these are just supplements to a basic irrationality.
In a lot of the American discourse, I can't help but think of Reich and his idea of the emotional plague - it was his shorthand for describing collective hysterics driven largely by unrecognised sexual fears. It fits here. I like the usage because it shifts the focus away from "rational choices", made on the basis of "assessing evidence" and shows these are just supplements to a basic irrationality.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
good post
yeah maybe the strangest thing to me about people like MB + HMG is how closely they parrot American right-wing talking points, not only in the topics but in the language itself. like, don't you have your own things to talk about and your own way of talking them?
it's not, as you say, exclusively a RW thing. We've all seen, I think, plenty of ppl remark on the direct importation of American language in re Black Lives Matter etc into foreign contexts where it doesn't make sense and is sometimes possibly counterproductive. Same thing here. A struggle is universal but manifests differently in each context and requires different language and solutions.
Anyway, the answer as usual is intersectionality, which is exactly what TERFs refuse to countenance, that refusal being what separates them from I think the huge majority of modern feminists.
IdleRich
IdleRich
It's strange but I think it's far from THE strangest thing...
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
Yeah I mean that was like 5 minutes of skimming Twitter replies, and those are pretty tame tbh
Anti-trans ppl love to take the most extreme thing any trans person anywhere has said or done and universalize it to all trans ppl - this terrible shooting (and ofc like any sane person I feel awful for the victims and their families) being the most extreme example of that tactic, as you can easily see on social media this week - but I strongly suspect a metadata study would find that anti-trans rhetoric outweighs it by some huge amount. It's an endless ocean, and plenty of it is aggressive, violent, extremely crude, or all of the above.
One I didn't even mention is Matt Walsh - not the comedic actor tbc, who AFAIK is a chill dude - a self-labeled (tbf, perhaps ironically) "theocratic fascist" RW culture warrior a la Crowder, Michael Knowles, etc, whose entire raison d'etre is basically saying trans people don't exist but are somehow also the greatest evil on earth
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
A close trans friend of mine described herself to me today as being "pretty much frozen with terror and extreme anxiety"
It's not going well yall
It's not going well yall
IdleRich
IdleRich
Just a few minutes of reading this stuff reminds me of how easy my life is really. Just cos the coin down one way instead of another. I honestly don't know how people survive this level of sustained and malicious abuse. I suppose in one sense the answer is that they do cos they just have to, but that blandly simplistic phrase covers a multitude of individual horror stories.
And the other side of it. How can so many people be so cruel? Surely anyone should be able to grasp that it could just as easily have been them. If not a real genuine feeling of care for other people then you'd think that that crude "there but for the grace of god" type thing should count for something.
I don't know why I keep thinking that that will ever amount to anything though. The very first time I saw some scumbag hoping that refugees drown I should have abandoned that naive and foolish dream forever... but I just can't.
I will never not be shocked by people sitting in their comfy chairs in their nice warm houses behind their fancy screens and wishing utmost evil on the most vulnerable people there are. Fuck me.
This is what gets me about people like Benny in this thread. It's the failure of basic compassion. It really doesn't matter what the fuck you think about the underlying issues, if you agree with Judith Butler or not, if you agree with the theoretical underpinnings or whatever, just where the fuck is your sense of care for other people. Why is so hard to accept that you're not an authority on someone else's experience? That it might be radically different from your own, and that's okay?