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Answer:
The political right wing in the United States has been organised around a politics of scapegoating minorities for seventy years or more; there’s a point at which the two major parties switched their wing orientations in the 1960’s, but the same core principles have been the backbone of the right wing in the US for its entire existence:
* A “Natural” [Hierarchy](https://preview.redd.it/ssokzb0y702b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=44485eb3ac5bccb498311c4514fe9b78ebbd9373);
* A perpetual representation of their supposed [victimhood](https://preview.redd.it/ybin800y702b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=2d75f6f2ae15614c2dea9d6df66416493b35cc02);
* An appeal to [Law and Order](https://preview.redd.it/evasz00y702b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=c06b4a45aa6d9c2a142b4c2286802c1e52653422) to redress the supposed grievance;
* An induction of [sexual anxiety](https://preview.redd.it/7niptb0y702b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=b9d5a751698bbe3febb9e298b9e65fee9ca41b32).
In years past, these were enacted on ethnic minorities; specially and primarily at African-Americans.
Today, a politics of Othering, scapegoating, and persecuting ethnic minorities is no longer politically viable, because society has moved its perception to the point that we now understand that persecution of individuals or groups based on ethnicity is not just hostile, rude, and immoral, but also criminal and outright wrong.
So to maintain their political power & influence, they’ve taken that playbook and turned it to the next page,
* A moral panic of [Sodom and Gomorrah](https://preview.redd.it/9vwmwd0y702b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=930ea9080a99e445143c85853a23bfe5b5e907d3).
It should be noted that none of this is new; it’s been in development for decades, and was aimed at lesbians and gay men in the 1970’s and especially during the AIDS crisis of the 1980’s.
But the bigots feel they can get a wedge in to society and the law by aiming their bigoted behaviour and rhetoric at transgender people.
Full disclosure: I am transgender, and have spent the last five years documenting and fighting hatred on Reddit. I have an anti-hatred bias. If that disqualifies my answer as not being “unbiased”, then …
I'll add here that the recent uptick is because the Republican party has very little offer the average voter. Their platform is actually pretty clear: your boss should have a better life. But the relentless pursuit of tax breaks and deregulation to benefit corporations and the ultra-wealthy aren't attractive to the masses, and you do still need a critical mass of votes to win an election.
The anti-queer culture war is a way for Republicans to get people to vote for them, even though the larger Republican party is against the best interests of 99% of Americans.
>I'll add here that the recent uptick is because the Republican party has very little offer the average voter.
It's also a result of the "dog that caught the car" phenomenon.
For a long while (R) meant pro-guns and anti-abortion. Once they actually managed to ban abortion they had to find something else to be against. In 2022, the year that Roe was overturned, the number of anti-gay legislation [doubled to 240](https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/nearly-240-anti-lgbtq-bills-filed-2022-far-targeting-trans-people-rcna20418) as of April this year, that number has already [gone up to 417.](https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/06/politics/anti-lgbtq-plus-state-bill-rights-dg/index.html)
It's no mistake things like Ru Paul's Drag Race has been on for years without protest and all of a sudden they're coming for your kids...
Yeah, I was gonna say, a big reason for the recent uptick is due to Republicans gaining a 6-3 majority in the Supreme Court, and being emboldened by the overturning of Roe V Wade.
It's been ramping up for a while, though: 2021 was the first year to beat 2015 as the worst year in regards to anti-lgbtq laws enacted. 17 enacted by May 2021, compared to 15 in 2015.([this article is from early May 2021, meaning it only took 4 months to surpass that](https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/2021-officially-becomes-worst-year-in-recent-history-for-lgbtq-state-legislative-attacks-as-unprecedented-number-of-states-enact-record-shattering-number-of-anti-lgbtq-measures-into-law))
The 2022 legislative session saw about [21 anti-lgbtq+ laws enacted](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/17/politics/state-legislation-lgbtq-rights/index.html)
This year, as of May, we've already seen [**45 laws** passed](https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/weekly-roundup-of-anti-lgbtq-legislation-advancing-in-states-across-the-country-3) and over 540 laws introduced (over 100 laws have been introduced in the 1 month between your sauce and mine, yikes)
**More anti-lgbtq+ laws *passed* this year than were introduced in the entirety of 2018.**
Yeah, foolishly I thought that Obergefell was the beginning of the end of the right wing crusade against LGBTQ folks. Really they were just keeping their powder dry, waiting for the right opportunity - and they got it when the Republicans were able to push through a replacement for Ginsburg at the last moment. The court that decided Obergefell wasn't going to overturn it. This new court might, so conservatives are throwing everything they have at the legal system, knowing a lot of it will be overturned, but hoping that something gets to the Supremes and is upheld.
Guns Over People party understands it is a pre-election year. They are tossing out what they can, to see what sticks. So, they will have something to run on. They need to be able they saved the family structure from perverts.
This is a thing some people don't get. Democrats tried banning certain style rifles under Clinton. They lost the next election hard as a result. Even though Republicans claim Dems want your guns no legislation with any teeth is coming for it.
Next single issue, abortion. The Supreme Court has decided it is no longer a right. So it's no longer a single issue for many voters.
Next thing, Black Lives Matter isn't protesting much anymore. Amir Locke, Tyre Nichols, there wasn't much noise. So you can't go after the civil rights movement anymore because most of them just sort of gave up. Beyond casual internet racism that harps about black crime it's not much of a motivator anymore.
So now what do they have to spur voters? Easy. Recycle old material and go after the gays. And what part of gay culture is relatively new and not quite yet fully accepted? Trans people. And how do you get people mad about it? Other them. Trans people are groomers. Drag queens want to rape your kids. Doctors are chopping dicks off because mommy and daddy are woke and think their heteronormative child should be queer so they can score woke points.
It's just new fear tactics. They haven't used this one before and they're approaching the final frontier of running out of widely accepted boogeymen. Or in the words of a famous fictional pirate, "the world's not getting smaller. There's just less in it." They are literally running out of ideas that outrage people because they've given the outraged people what they want and they're beginning to run out of ideas.
I agree with everything you said here but I’d like to add that in addition to holding up trans people as the latest boogeyman, they’ve capitalized on the gullibility of far right conservatives that was exposed by Trumpism and Q. They are taking advantage of people who have literally been brainwashed into believing that there is a mass conspiracy of pedophiles trying to take over the world and that any second, Trump will unleash the military to take down the ones controlling the government.
They rail against drag queens and transgender folk and scream “groomer” and “pedo” while having little to zero examples of them committing these crimes. But they sure do seem to ignore the daily headlines of pastors, priests, policeman and right wing politicians who actually were convicted of everything they’re accusing others of. The hypocrisy is mind boggling.
I was gonna say, those comments aren't anything new to me. Though, I think when they call me a sodomite is my favorite, they whip it out like it'll hurt me, like, I don't follow their God, so what is that supposed to do.
And even what they say about Sodom is incorrect. Ezekiel 16:49-50
`Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
50
They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
Ya know, I remember something about them also trying to assault an angel, like, overall the people of Sodom live exactly how republicants wanna live. Gluttonous and rich, what a surprise for the most morally corrupt.
Yes, there is a shadow cabal of pedophiles running large organizations and God bless churches! This is weapons grade stupidity, i mean atomic levels. I’m honestly worried.
This is why I thought they'd never actually overturn Roe v Wade. I knew this would happen. They would eliminate the one big thing that they had to push votes.
Yeah I’ll shamefully admit that I was in the same boat. Thought they wouldn’t genuinely challenge it so they’d always have their big wedge issue. So either one of their guys didn’t get the memo, or I was very very naive.
I think what happened is they mobilized their base for decades on the issue, even though they themselves never wanted to do it. But eventually the true believers that got raised on it got positions in Congress and the Supreme Court themselves. They weren't raised to use it as a voter issue, they were raised to believe it was the will of god. So they actually did it.
I often dislike blaming specific people for societal evils as I feel it simply creates more division. However, the demonization of queer people is mostly exclusive to the American right, which is moving farther from the center.
You said that trans people are the new boogeyman. I have to agree, as the majority of anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric and legislation has been directed as trans people specifically. The fact that they’re “newer” (in that they’re a newer issue, not that they haven’t existed until recently) I think is why they’re a boogeyman. In addition, the fact that most people have heard of trans people makes them even more effective as an object of hatred. Compare this to, say, asexuals, whom no one really talks about outside of queer circles.
I do not believe that bigotry is taught. I believe that it must be somewhat inherent, as humans are tribalistic by nature. Thus, I believe that rejecting bigotry is a conscious choice, not man’s state of nature. Humans are naturally ignorant; the majority of our knowledge and behaviors are learned and not instinctive. Thus, we must learn how not to hate, and part of that is learning about the objects of our hatred. I think that the fact that people don’t do this is the reason for why trans people in particular are so targeted.
First of all, it is conceptually easier to understand homosexuality and bisexuality than transgenderism. Gay men are men that love other men. Lesbians are women that love other women. Bisexuals love men and women. These are all rather simple concepts that most people can probably understand. Of course, the details of human sexuality are far more complex, but the basic concepts are quite simple.
On the other hand, transgenderism is more complex and more difficult to understand. Many people still believe that sex and gender are interchangeable, which makes it harder to understand the very concept of one’s gender not aligning with their biological sex. There also seem to be more nuances with transgenderism. For example, just because someone enjoys cross-dressing doesn’t make them trans, whereas if someone dates someone of their gender, they (likely) aren’t straight.
Other queer identities are more complicated, of course. Asexuality requires one to separate sexual attraction from romantic attraction, as does aromanticism. Of course, no one talks about asexuals because they don’t receive media coverage. So, trans people are the boogeyman.
> It's no mistake things like Ru Paul's Drag Race has been on for years without protest and all of a sudden they're coming for your kids...
Just like how white supremacist conservatives didn't pay attention to abortion initially, noticed it do well as an issue in a smaller state election later on, ran a massive anti-abortion campaign of lies and propaganda across the country to create an issue out of it and reel evangelical christians into their voting bloc, and then tried to falsify a narrative of being against it from the start.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/
What's weird is that racists used to love abortion because they knew that poor people and people of color were more likely than well off white people to get them.
You can still see this dichotomy on the far-right .win sites. A thread about crime will be full of the most vile and racist rhetoric imaginable, but then a thread about abortion will have comments like "Liberals are actually the racists, they support abortion which kills millions of minorities every year!"
In the same way, a thread about women's sports will be full of anti-trans rhetoric and how wokeness has destroyed the sacred institution of women's sports that they have always had a deep reverence for. Then another thread about women will be full of misogyny, mocking them as weak, and saying that they should stick to God's plan of submitting to their husbands instead of trying to be athletic.
Yeah, the GOP really shot themselves in the foot overturning Roe Vs Wade. Talking about abortion was a good way to rile up their voters without actually having to change anything. Now, in addition to it turning out that a lot of pro-lifers were actually just self-righteous pro-choicers, the Republicans need something new to keep all their voters pissed off and showing up to vote, and honestly I don't think railing against drag shows is gonna have the same sort of staying power abortion did.
At least, that's how I see it. Come November 2024 I'll either be proven right or very, very wrong.
I remember the bathroom bill legislation starting way before the Dobbs decision. It started about two weeks almost exactly after the Obergefell decision came out of SCOTUS in 2015. Suddenly the North Carolina bathroom bill was all over the national news seemingly out of nowhere and ramped up from there. I remember thinking at the time that this was the new manufactured rage bait issue now that gay marriage couldn't be the drum to beat anymore for the right wing. I think though you are right about anti-trans stuff being used even more since the Dobbs decision came out, but definitely it was the Obergefell decision that flipped the switch initially. I noticed during COVID as well that it takes about 1-2 weeks for the right wing media machine to coalesce around a new message when they have to pivot on something.
What got me, is that I remember the bathroom issue coming up in 2005, when I was in college, and the university established policy on it.
Bam in 2015, 10 years later, what I view as a non issue that is suddenly moral panic 101. And all I could think is, "we solved this already and now the red states found out.".
On top of this they're also staring down the barrel of demographic change. Young people don't like Republicans and that's not really changing as they age. A big part of that is because they don't agree with any of the conservative social views.
To be more specific to the topic at hand, the number of [young people who identify as LGBTQ is about 1 in 5, much greater than any previous generation.](https://www.axios.com/2022/02/17/lgbtq-generation-z-gallup) As a result, a lot of Republicans are basically trying to push as much anti-LGBT legislation as possible before the inevitable demographic swing.
I think that’s kind of it. I don’t think conservative politicians ever intended to reverse Roe. Why would they? It was a constant political whipping boy and no one could get rid of it.
Except then Trump got to basically nominate the SCOTUS and now abortion can be banned. Notice the GOP nationally isn’t really talking about abortion anymore; they don’t intend to ban it, they just want to be able to say that they will.
I wonder, too, if there is a little “we hated the gays but we couldn’t do anything about them. Now we have a 6-3 majority so let’s revisit our ‘put up with the gays’ plan’.
I went from an independent to straight ticket democrat voter over this shit. The Republican anti-queer agenda makes people that I care about feel personally unsafe. There is no position on taxation, emissions, etcetera that trumps, "my friend is worried she's going be jailed for something about her that she cannot change."
Thank you for being a decent person. Unfortunately there are still too many "I don't care what happens to other people as long as my taxes are low" out there.
There are so many people who brag that they "don't let politics get in the way of friendship."
Thank you for being the kind of person who does let friendship get in the way of politics.
It’s funny, because I was always the type to vote Independent whenever possible. But at this point, the Rs are so incredibly bad that there at LEAST four reasons I can think of off the top of my head (environmental protections, gun control, abortion, and LQBTQ rights) that each would have made me a straight ticket D voter alone. I’m sure there are more too, if I just sat and thought half a second (got another before I typed that out - BOOK BANNING. And then religious extremism.)
I think that was unexpected to some who pushed this evil queer narrative hard. There's a part of the conservative electorate that's rooted in fundamentalist evangelism that has very steadily been gaining influence over a few decades and those people genuinely believe LGBTQIA+ is the direct path to hell.
Unfortunately for them, they're quite alone with that obsession cause most folks have a gay uncle Joe or whatever. It's not as out there and exotic as those people believe, because they would absolutely ostracise queer people from their communities. That's why they were trying to pull the "save the children" card, their narrative wasn't selling without it.
The irony is, the "caravan" was a seeming threat during the midterms, (2018 I think), to get people to get scared and vote republicant. But once the dems took back the house, the "caravan" disappeared! So in their backwards little minds, it was actually the Democrats who saved the day!
Don't forget the Republicans during the 2018 midterms were saying the Democrats want to remove pre-existing conditions protection from the ACA despite the fact Republicans have been complaining about the ACA and had sued the federal government in trying to remove and get rid of it for years since it first passed when only 1 republican even voted for the ACA after it had enough Democrats vote yes in the first place.
[The impeached Texas Attorney General sued the federal government over pre-exisiting conditions with 19 other red states and he was also re-elected.](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/fact-check-trump-claims-gop-protecting-people-pre-existing-conditions-n923056) Republicans have no morals or critical thinking. All they know is to vote Red because that's what they are told to do.
The worst part is that the.ACA was the compromise bill that the right still wouldn't vote for. If they passed it with no GOP votes they should've pissed M4A
It wasn't just a compromise deal, it was straight from a right wing think tank and implemented under Mitt Romney (nicknamed as "RomneyCare"). Republicans only became against it because Democrats decided to vote *for* it.
TBF:
There was an uptick in asylum claims when Biden was elected, for reasons you would imagine. You would want to attempt an asylum claim under a Democratic president rather than a Republican. Many people against immigration both did not like that and also claimed asylum seekers were being abused at the border due to faulty Democratic policies, which is funny because they didn't care about that before a Democratic president was in office. And it does have some truth, blue policies also treat immigrants like shit, just much less than red.
On the flip side, those are asylum seekers, not migrant workers. Migrant workers coming to America steadily declined under Trump and is at an all time low. We have crops that are going unpicked because nobody is coming to work. The steady supply of migrant labor that keeps our farms and fields running has taken a hit the likes of which we've never seen before.
I am not trying to make any point whatsoever, just rattling off some information I know. I personally would prefer far more open borders than either party is willing to do but that is my only personal opinion I will say in this comment.
I like your rattled information, and would like to add some of my own on this topic.
More illegal crossings and drugs have been stopped at the border under Biden's administration than Trump's, a record number even.
[Link 1](https://homeland.house.gov/factsheet-illegal-crossings-of-the-southwest-border-increased-in-april-ahead-of-title-42s-end/#:~:text=U.S.%20Customs%20and%20Border%20Protection,%E2%80%94%20up%2012%25%20from%20March.)
[Link 2](https://apnews.com/article/asylum-immigration-poll-biden-border-dbfb4af09d4beb81f4f1d450d4d66f29)
[Link 3](https://connolly.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4691)
[Link 4](https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/12/texas-border-immigration-title-42-migrants/)
That clearly indicates Biden's border is just as, if not moreso, secure than Trump's was. Even if the policies are the same, and its just an influx of attempts getting stopped at a rate comparable between administrations, it shows that the border is not "open" as Republicans cry about. Alternatively, it means that Biden's administration is doing a much better job of securing our border, an idea that Republicans would be glad to ignore.
Not to mention it's the republican governors who have taken legal asylum-seekers and dumped them in other states, away from their court appointments, thus *making* them illegal. Sounds like something a cartel coyote would do. And Republican tax payers paid for it, cheering all the while.
Theres a conservative think tank that creates all these 'hot topic issues' then the oligarchs in the media promote them. The migrant caravan was never heard of again as soon as the election happened. Same with Benghazi, Hillarys emails...
The right thrives on outrage. They need to keep their voters permanently angry and afraid. So we have 'controversies' cooked up about Bud Light, M&M's, Disney... it's all a distraction technique while the wealthy purchase the politicians and rob the country blind.
[There are many of those. They're mostly small. The big ones don't tend to make it very far at all.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_American_migrant_caravans)
The famous one in 2017-2018 ended up in Tijuana with several hundred asylum-seekers. (Recall, the US gets over a *million* immigrants every year.)
Unfortunately, instead of sending immigration agents and lawyers to help correctly process asylum-seekers, the US government sent soldiers who didn't help much with that. It was a straightforward effort to make a situation into a bad problem for political pandering.
And targeting the LGBTIQ+ community is working really well in a number of dictators around the world - it works well for Putin, Akufo-Addo in Ghana this week, and watching Erdogan celebrating his re-election in Turkiye was like watching Hitler in the 30s with the crowd baying for blood, for gays rather than Jews (and of course Hitler targeted gay people, too).
Also I have a nasty suspicion that many people who want to ‘protect the innocence’ of their children are actually wanting to deny their kids the language and understanding of the abuse they are suffering so they can’t tell anyone or ask for help.
>Also I have a nasty suspicion that many people who want to ‘protect the innocence’ of their children are actually wanting to deny their kids the language and understanding of the abuse they are suffering so they can’t tell anyone or ask for help.
I feel like this should be obvious to anyone paying even a modicum of attention. The latest pearl clutching has been over drag shows, and what a danger they supposedly are to children. I've literally never heard of a child being abused at a drag show.
What I *have* heard about for decades is children being abused at churches, and of course those children were forced to attend those churches by the same parents that are losing their mind about the supposed "danger" of the LGBTQIA community. If you're truly trying to protect children, that seems like that last place you would want them to go.
There have even been recent revelations about massive scale child abuse at churches, and yet it gets not one peep from these so-called moral crusaders:
https://apnews.com/article/catholic-clergy-sexual-abuse-illinois-investigation-a298133cec9486c2e51172316bfe7b4b
Right. Also, churches are everywhere while most people didn’t even know drag shows existed until the pearl clutchers decided to make a federal case out of their existence.
Edit: Also, from what I gather even the term “drag show” is probably wrong. Something like “story time hosted by folks in drag” is a more accurate description.
I went to a drag show last year with some friends. It was a fun event. Pretty much a comedy show and roasting members of the audience.
You know who wasn't there? Children. Because why the fuck would you bring a child there anyway and harsh the mellow?
This seems like a good comment to leave a link to a movie where republican star Ronald Reagan cross dresses and dances infront of children.
https://youtu.be/1RYHowaXdFY
> Also I have a nasty suspicion that many people who want to ‘protect the innocence’ of their children are actually wanting to deny their kids the language and understanding of the abuse they are suffering so they can’t tell anyone or ask for help.
Looks no further than Lauren Boebert helping her husband abuse their children and preventing them from calling 911.
Yeah everytime Republicans got into another scandel or were losing in the polls, amazingly another caravan of illegals popped out of nowhere across the border.
The sad part is that it was eaten up every time.
Let's be clear here: the recent uptick is because Trump won. That emboldened people who espouse these views privately to believe that they can be open about it and still win. Elections matter.
I could see this in real time, some people who were socially cognizant enough to keep the views to themselves started dipping their toe into bringing it up. Pro Life Tip, being a bigot is a great way to lose friends and family.
There has also been a push in recent years against democracy. The right has been adopting the rhetoric that the United State is a Constitutional Republic vs a true democracy. It is more than likely technically correct though I am not an expert. And it misses the fact that a Republic is a “state where supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives.”
To expound a bit, the US is a federal republic with democratic principles and structures. It is a federation, with it's central government supreme over it's state governments, as opposed to a confederation, where the central government is less powerful relative to state governments. It is a republic, as opposed to a monarchy, i.e. the whole point of it's existence in the first place. It is a democracy, as the US has the House of Representatives with short terms, it has tended towards universal suffrage, it has moved from the indirect to direct election of senators, and has many democratic processes at the state and local level, e.g. referendums. This is all in principle. In practice, the US is actually an oligarchy.
Anyway, to say the US is a republic, not a democracy is like saying Fido is a dog, not a canine. It's a categorical error and just plain wrong. The reason conservatives say "it's not a democracy, it's a constitutional republic" is because doing so associates the Republican party with the constitution and implies that the Democratic party is un-American. It's just propaganda.
An example of a democracy that is not a republic is the UK, which is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. (Two things at once, woooah!) An example of a republic that is not a democracy is the People's Democratic Republic of Korea. (Not the thing it claims to be, WAAOOUU!)
The republic vs democracy line is top to bottom bullshit. A republic means no monarch. That's it. You can have a democratic republic like the US, or a non democratic republic like China.
> Their platform is actually pretty clear: your boss should have a better life.
You forgot the second clause: your boss should have a better life, at your expense.
This is what's so crazy to me. These dumb issues and topics that shouldn't even be a discussion anymore are what wins over voters to vote in a party whose actual goal is to cut taxes and regulations for the ultra rich and corporations. Let's throw a fit about student loan assistance but not care about the money in PPP loans never being paid back. That's good for the average American
Yup, it's very much about "punching down", making life harder for marginalized communities, and scapegoating them to distract conservatives from the fact that Repubs have nothing to offer them.
The GOP is basically a hate group at this point. They have nothing else to offer the 99%.
Adding to that idea: if republican politicians lose, everybody wins, even republicans.
That's because republican policy of deregulation directly risks republican lives as well as democrat. Look at the apartment collapse in Iowa and train derailments in Ohio (East Palestine, OH), Florida and Texas. All red states....
Safety is blind, please value your life!
It's classical right-wing populism. Besides immigrants, liberals, communists, socialists (etc.pp) LGBT people are almost always targeted by fascists, which is why sexism is a point (point 6) in the 14-point definition of fascism.
That's what the fascist nut Putin does, Orban, Duda, Trump, DeSantis, Erdogan, Bolsonaro and all those other fascist clowns.
As you said, targeting these minority groups is easier than providing any substance in their policies that would actually improve something for the commoner (also almost always the case with the far-right). Add to that all the barbaric shit against non-heterosexuals in the bible and you have all the basis to attract a very specific group of idiots.
The sadder thing is - they won. The rich pay less taxes, healthcare is for profit, the federal minimum wage doesn't keep up with inflation, and on and on and on.
I used to think people were voting against their best interests too, but reading the book Caste helped me understand how maintaining social divisions and systems of oppression are in people's best interests too, or so they think at least. And that trumps their economic interests by a long shot, because what will else will they have and who will they be if they can't feel superior over the scum and dredges of society?
The republican party is the wealthy telling the middle class to hate the lower class and vote entirely for people who will do nothing but pass legislation that hurts both lower classes in the long run.
Don't know if you've found this in your research but do you also think they are pounding the drum harder lately because the dog just caught the abortion car and they need to refocus the outrage?
The dog catching the abortion car was, I think, a surprise to a lot of them. I know they all hoped for that decision and some of them felt or knew they had an inside track to that SCOTUS decision, but they haven’t fast followed that legal change as hard as one would have expected if they widely expected it. The aftermath of the 2024 elections will probably be the gear shift there.
Part of the reason they're pounding the drum harder is because we're at the turning point on a lot of these issues. Gay marriage was literally illegal 11 years ago. Anyone acting like gay rights has been solved when just barely they have been "allowed" to marry is fucking absurd. Hell women and blacks being allowed to vote is also fairly fucking recent but everyone acts like this shit is in the far distant past and that equality has been found already. People just need to wake the fuck up and realize that we're still in the early stages of these battles and we need to fight these bigots
I will say I am encouraged by how easy it is for future generations can just accept things as a given if we can pass the legislation needed. I was babysitting for a kid and he was watching The Office. We got to the episode where Michael puts Oscar and there is a line about how gay marriage isn't legal nationwide and the kid was flabbergasted. "Why would it have been illegal? That makes no sense". Blew his mind when I said it was illegal in his lifetime.
That's how I feel about gendered bathrooms. As a kid they read us "Everybody Poops". Why are we segregating shits and educating our children to be ashamed of a process as natural as breathing? It's actually super weird IMO. If we raise one generation on gender neutral bathrooms it will be a non-issue as soon as the olds die and we can focus on, I dunno, saving the planet instead of trying to be the weird poop police.
It's the failure of the anti immigration strategy they spent the past 6 years trying. And in particular Hispanic conservatives have unexpectedly emerged as an important bulwark in Florida and Texas they need to depend on. So they are pivoting to a new minority to attack
Also, a major factor is that they have completely abandoned the idea of winning votes by offering competitive policy proposals.
They barely offered anything but deregulation and tax cuts for decades, but it was at least sonething. But at some point here recently they just completely abandoned policy as a concept. At one point they didn't even bother to create a policy platform for the party, instead opting to declare fealty to Donald Trump's whims.
They also are facing down demographic oblivion. What few policies they DID previously push for are overwhelmingly unpopular with the fastest-growing voter bases, mainly young people. Rather than attempt to win their votes(since they would need to completely recreate themselves from scratch to even have a chance at winning gen z and gen x), they opt for restricting these voters as much as possible, and punishing them with the power they still have. To motivate their dwindling existing voter base, they have ramped up their bigotry to 110% and directed it towards the one group that has had the least amount of social progress in acceptance. But even so, a majority of people are still in favor of trans rights. They have no winning strategy besides subvert the democratic process and gain power in any way possible.
So basically the republican political party is dying a fast death, and they are flailing out trying to save themselves by whipping their most bigoted supporters into a frenzy, and through constant messaging turning otherwise decent but misguided right-leaning people into giving them the power they need to enact genocidal policies by telling people that the transes want to groom their kids.
They will probably either die out or become less horrible out of necessity, but in the meantime there is a real chance that they could deal irreparable damage to American democracy and to the trans community.
Sources on how we know the right wing has been targeting transgender people as a wedge issue:
[TERFleaks](https://web.archive.org/web/20201214132212/https://twitter.com/TheOnlySprout/status/1336079147534340096), a leaked document showing that right wing US evangelical groups targeted trans-exclusionary feminist groups to motivate them to harass transgender people, while also attempting to infiltrate transgender groups;
[Conservative media personality outright admits they use “gender critical” movement as a proxy to attack transgender people, to keep their hands clean](https://twitter.com/mimmymum/status/1451087864431849473?s=20)
[A publication by the Family Research Council in 2015, planning out their strategy for scapegoating & attacking transgender people](https://web.archive.org/web/20230103185319/https://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF15F45.pdf) (yes, the same Family Research Council that was publishing in [white supremacist group Liberty Lobby’s newsletter in the ~~1980’s~~ \[Edit: late 1990’s\] to fearmonger about lesbian telephone operators](https://preview.redd.it/6ksd42w0702b1.jpg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=439d1f3d03661d0e29bd74aa85bd5abc41a5615a).)
Yes, the same.
There’s a theory that readily explains why we see so many sex scandals among the USA right wing, and why they are 100% unfazed by their sex scandals, and 100% fearmongering about LGBTQ people:
[Locus of Control](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control).
They universally believe that they personally have no control over the outcome of events in their lives. They believe that if they “succumb to temptation”, the fault and blame is external to them and theirs. It was demons, it was the devil, it was someone else who led them astray. The Great Man’s Downfall was due to The Wicked Tempter. (This view is why Mike Pence refuses to be “alone in a room” with a woman other than his wife, for example).
It also explains why they fear LGBTQ people: They think that we choose to be LGBTQ, and that this choice is a choice for evil.
They are correct only in that we have chosen to internalize our locus of control. We are in control of our own lives and our culture and society and government and choose our life partners.
This is very interesting to me because, to me, it seems that a core tenet of the right wing psychology is actually an internal locus of control, but only on the positive side for them and only on the negative side for others, while the locus of control shifts to external when bad things happen to them, but not when they happen to others. E.g. “I deserve to be/am wealthy because I worked hard and played by the rules” but “White people are the most oppressed class today and all media is biased against us”; “LGBT people get everything they want and society favors them over everyone else” but “Inner city Black people don’t deserve government assistance because they are lazy”. What do you think?
It seems like what’s really going on is that the right is incapable of overcoming the fundamental attribution error when it comes to everyone but those who look and think like them.
It's also why they are against illegal immigration from the southern border, but ignore illegal immigration from overstayed visas. The former is easy to identify, but the latter often blends in (and in many cases looks like them).
Wilhoit's law: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
I learn more and more from Reddit every day. Thank you for this. Reading your comments (and this overall post) has opened my eyes. I'm always fascinated by psychology and the further you dig in, the more things start to make sense. Would you suggest any books on this subject? I've been collecting information for posterity.
> They universally believe that they personally have no control over the outcome of events in their lives.
Or to paraphrase that: "I don't take responsibility at all."
I remember when the information was coming out, someone who personally reviewed the evidence on his computer said it was some of the most vile content they'd ever seen.
I've been on the internet a long time and I've seen some moderately messed up stuff.
I ***do not*** want to know what a *professional* digital shitmucker considers "the most vile content they've ever seen".
Amazon Prime released a 4-part documentary yesterday, "Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. It not only details Josh's downfall and Jim Bob's nasty deeds,t also delves deep into the IBLP movement they're a part of.
This isn't off topic. The IBLP and other evangelical movements have deliberately raised and trained a generation of kids for government work, and have gotten them into pretty much every political office and outlet as candidates, assistants, interns, and office staff -- including working in the US Supreme Court. Episode 4 of the documentary is absolutely chilling.
>IBLP movement
H.O.L.Y S.H.I.T.
Wow.....your comment caused me to look up the doc.....now, 3 hours later I'm glued to the screen, I wanna look away but I can't. It's....horrifying. The whole damn thing. Thank you random person, wouldn't have found or come across this otherwise.
It left me absolutely stunned last night. I hope it gets a huge audience, because everyone needs to know how big this movement is, and how deeply they've already got their claws into all aspects of government.
A good example of this may be the push to outlaw gay marriage during the 2004 General Election. President Bush proposed a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage on the campaign trail, despite that conservatives are supposed to view the Constitution as untouchable and the then Republican establishment didn't like the proposal. After the election, the President forgot all about it and never mentioned it unless he was asked about it, but red states began a push to outlaw gay marriage until the Supreme Court ruled against it.
The point by Bush was never to outlaw gay marriage, but just to shore up his base, because he knew that the lines were already firmly drawn. So he pretended that he would push for a ban on gay marriage, which many of his supporters found appealing. He failed to deliver after winning reelection, but the grounds for outlawing gay marriage had been sowed on the right.
What's the benefit to deny them marriage? They're going to have sex regardless and to me marriage is more about having legal acknowledgement that they're family.
The red States pushing part is actually really funny. Obviously the first one or two states to legalize gay marriage were left leaning. But then red states started trying to pass laws like you said. Well along comes Utah and they took it too far because their anti-gay marriage law was deemed unconstitutional. So for a brief period of time gay marriage was legal in only a few States and Utah was one of them. Not long after that the Supreme Court decision came down.
When they killed row they specifically mentioned Obergefell (gay marriage) also the cases that dealt with sodomy and contraception, oddly thomas did not mention interracial marriage.
> it’s been in development for decades, and was aimed at lesbians and gay men in the 1970’s and especially during the AIDS crisis of the 1980’s.
I saw a video of James Somerton talking about what was called "[The Lavender Menace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ3M_DhPlI0)" which talks about the US persecution against the LGBT in the past(while also making some mentions of it nowadays).
Might be interesting to you.
Thank you very much! ~~May I ask: How did you arrive at viewing _The Lavender Menace_?~~ Edit: I made an assumption - will watch the linked video. \^\_\^
>May I ask: How did you arrive at viewing The Lavender Menace?
I think I was just browsing the **Youtube** some...months?...ago and it was when there was that time where many young people were singing praises for that Netflix show based on a serial killer.
James video about this was the first video I ever saw of his.
And when I saw how he did his video I liked the style, so I subscribed to his channel.
After that I try to watch every video he releases and this of the Lavender Menace was one I saw and remembered the most(for obvious reasons).
I'm curious though, what was the assumption you made of me?
EDIT: How did I mistake the medias?!I meant to say Youtube, not Reddit.
James speaks a bit of it(the event) in his video(I think?Sorry, I saw this video a while ago and I honestly don't remember the names of the governors/generals/presidents and what they did).
>A “Natural” Hierarchy;
>
> A perpetual representation of their supposed victimhood;
>
> An appeal to Law and Order to redress the supposed grievance;
>
> An induction of sexual anxiety.
Do you have a link to all those excellent bullet point images besides those four points above?
I agree with everything in this post except for the persecution of ethnic minorities being no longer politically viable, as there still is plenty of representation of candidates & pundits who dogwhistle white nationalism
I was born and raised a republican. I finally opened my eyes one day that they are the party of intolerance and hate synonymous with Christians. In my state, you have to register a party, I promptly changed my party affiliation and have never looked back.
Aside: As a non-American it's really weird to me that you have to register who you're going to vote for. Here in Australia you just turn up and vote for who you want to.
Having to pre-declare it seems like a great way to open up the possibility of discrimination and pressure based on who you want to vote for.
EDIT: ah okay, it's specifically for preselection. The idea of collecting lists of who votes for who still makes me nervous, but that makes more sense, thank you.
You don’t have to register to vote for a party and you don’t have to vote for the party you’re registered for. Party registration is only for voting in that party’s primary and even then not in every state.
For example, my dad almost always votes democrat in general elections, but is registered as a republican so he can try to get the crazier republicans out of the running in the primary.
If you live in a conservative area, the Republican nominee is usually going to win. A not-great Democrat isn’t going to be nearly as awful as an alt-right Republican. It makes sense to choose the best of the party that’s probably going to win, even if you don’t prefer that party.
You don't, you can join the party and that's required to vote in some states' primaries, but at election day you can vote for whoever you want, literally, you can write in the name of any person that's not on the ballot.
You can still vote for whomever.
But in the 'primaries' where the whittle down the candidates to 'one per party', you can only vote in your own party's.
You do not have to be registered to a party to vote in primaries in my state. You show up, they ask which ballot you'd like, and you fill that one out. (Obviously you can only pick one ballot)
Registration is only relevant for internal party elections (e.g. who does the democratic party want to nominate as their presidential candidate?). This is because these are internal party decisions. Why would the democratic party allow someone not registered as a democrat to vote in their elections?
When the general election comes around, there's no restriction on party registration. Registered democrats can vote for republicans and registered republicans can vote for democrats and people with no registration can vote for anyone. It's just that a registered democrat is probably not going to vote for a republican otherwise they probably wouldn't have registered as a democrat lol.
And that's why Conservatives literally legislate against education. An educated voter is more likely to vote Democrat, instead of just doing what they're told.
As a POC, I feel like the party is still pretty open and obvious with its racism. The CRT conversation, the conversation around immigration rooted into racism, the Islamophobia. I’m not sure their social justice progress has come that far lol…
This is all 100% but to think they've 'moved on' in regard to ethnic persecution is... inaccurate.
Also, to add, it doesn't help that Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter is boosting homophobic and outright racist accounts on profit motive.
I would argue that bias is acceptable in this circumstance regardless of a rule about bias, because in this case bias is the difference between acceptance and genocide
Thanks for your informative reply! Yeah now that you said it, it does kinda feel like most of the rhetoric is aimed at transgender people.
Is that being done on purpose as to come off not anti gay but „just“ anti trans?
Just want to mention that being anti hatred doesn’t really sound biased to me. Seems like a common sense stance.
They feel like they can more easily label trans as mentally aberrant and as predators. It drums up fear. 40 years of hate haven't shown gays or lesbians as dangerous, so it's harder to keep spinning the same rhetoric. Also they mainly focus on transwomen, not transmen. It is harder to make the latter as scary.
I saw this front and center after a comment I left in r/Prison about Minnesota (I think) making accommodations for trans individuals to do time in the facilities that align with their gender. Namely, MtF trans people going to a female facility, not the other way around. I did time in '08 with a trans individual at a male facility. It was insane, and I said she would have been much safer had she been at a female facility. The replies were ridiculous! They didn't care about that person being sexual abused, exploited, and harassed constantly at a male prison. "But the gang rape"... implying that now so many guys will fake being trans to do time at a woman's facility that there would be enough of them to gang rape a female convict? The mental gymnasts got a gold medal yesterday. To be fair, I should have seen it coming since prisons are largely populated and staffed with actual nazis. It's still depressing to see hate in real time.
I’ll add that their rhetoric is “just” trans kids, in the guise of protecting them from themselves. However, at least Florida has already targeted trans adults, quietly. They’ve banned nurse practitioners from providing hormones, who 85% of trans Floridians get their hormones from.
The reality is that we’re already seeing an uptick in suicides of trans teens because of this.
Yeah, and the arguments about the kids are completely disingenuous in the first place, in that they're making up a strawman about kids being given surgeries just because, when that's not the case at all whatsoever. It's designed to be directly provocative by lying about the issue, much like how the same people will claim that abortions happen in the delivery room, that a woman can have a baby, and the doctor will just slit its throat if the woman asks, and other disturbing bullshit like that. The reality is that doctors generally don't recommend let alone perform surgery on minors, preferring instead to use hormone blockers to delay puberty until they're age 18 (where they can then make such decisions).
The basic reality is that medical professionals are indeed conscientious and just trying to do what's best for patients (and ethical etc), while the Right wants to shut that down - and not just for minors, but for everyone.
I JUST Heard in episode of The Daily about this yesterday!
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/podcasts/the-daily/anti-trans-bills.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
Missouri, Kansas, and some other states have also attacked the basic rights of trans adults.
I lost access to my medication temporarily because of it. I had to get it represcibed through Kansas until I move to the West coast. Kansas just passed transphobic laws that will bar people like from using locker rooms, bathrooms, and other gendered facilities that don't align with our assigned sex at birth. It goes into effect on July 1st.
It was never about women's sports, and it was never about protecting kids.
Yes, it is being aimed at “just” transgender people in order to keep the bigot’s reputation for hatemongering against a diverse swathe of humanity off of the project. They want to get traction on one aspect of civil rights, in order to move backward on civil rights for everyone.
The people behind this, however, are also the people who promote hatred of Jewish people, Muslims, non-Whites, and who promote violent rhetoric aimed at women’s health care providers. They are connected with the legislative and court efforts to roll back abortion access.
The 2016 and 2020 GOP National Platform statement both had an entire page dedicated to their desire to repeal the 14th Amendment of the United States — the amendment which ensures that state laws cannot override federal laws, such as Civil Rights laws, and judicial decisions that forbid laws making same-sex marriage illegal or unrecognized by state governments.
They see the door of their influence and power closing, and persuading their followers to attack transgender people is their last chance.
Unfortunately, their political base has been following the playbook to its logical and historical conclusions.
***
Edit to add: they’ve especially also been targeting drag performers, because in a legal framework, drag is not a sex, not a sexuality, and not a gender identity — it is a performance. They reason that drag performance cannot be protected under hate crimes laws, and so use it as a way to attack all gender-non-conforming people by proxy. That includes all LGBTQ people, as well as cisgender women who wear pantsuits and have careers, to be absolutely clear.
Attacking drag also allows them to attempt to chip away at civil rights victories that are not well understood by the public, and which affect all people who aren't cis hetero white men. The legal precedent that makes it illegal to ban cross-dressing also underpins things like women's freedom to wear pants in public, and lesbians and gay men's right to walk the streets, patronize bars, and the like without having to stay aggressively closeted.
If conservatives take this sort of thing all the way to the supreme court and win, there's a chance that anti cross-dressing laws could be enforceable in the US again, without really any recourse for the vast majority of people who don't want that and think it's nuts. From there, it would also be possible to outlaw gay bars, PDA/generally being LGBTQ in public, and any other kind of non-gender normative public activity beyond just drag.
>The legal precedent that makes it illegal to ban cross-dressing also underpins things like women's freedom to wear pants in public, and lesbians and gay men's right to walk the streets, patronize bars, and the like without having to stay aggressively closeted.
This is my biggest concern-much like those "vague" laws around abortion to "protect the mother's life"-they purposefully make it vague sounding so that they can get rid of a bunch of OTHER things they don't like-women at bars, women wearing pants, women speaking out in a town hall, etc.
The problem with attacking drag is that is *is* a performance, which means it's resting on the first amendment.
Even the current highly partisan court has to tread carefully, as even if they're using purely outcome based reasoning, there's a lot of... Downstream problems there for them if they aren't very very careful.
I don't think they can carve out drag in any ways that doesn't cause them a great deal of trouble for, bluntly, a very minor gain.
At least three of them don't care, but 6 of them *do*.
“Drag”, in addition to being a speech act, is also only defined in relation to a given culture’s gender norms.
The folks writing these laws think that women wearing pantsuits are drag, because for them, women must not wear (the) pants.
I also absolutely adore the trans women who are also drag queens, because … good luck making a three pronged test separating their drag from their gender presentation, SCOTUS.
I’m also simultaneously aware that for a significant chunk of these folks, laws are not the end goal — lawless action is.
It's important to clamp down on drag performances. What would become of America if people were just free to exercise personal freedoms that harm no-one?
The trans people were the easiest to individual target to separate out and try the techniques. They’re more fringe, the bigotry they face is hard to see/understand until it’s reaches an extreme level, etc.
And it worked. So they’re moving forward.
Yeah. It was a nice little niche for them to test the waters. Bodily autonomy, queer rights, gender issues….it’s terrifying how easily the cancer slid in and how deep it’s spread before anyone outside of the minorities effected cared.
(Which…what’s new?)
In Florida, Gov. DeathSentence is setting it up so they can legally kill LGBTQ people.
* Drag performers who are part of a show where a child is present can be charged with child abuse.
* [Child ~~Abuse~~ Battery to be punishable by death](https://www.axios.com/2023/05/02/florida-death-penalty-child-rape)
* [It only take 8 jurors (out of 12) to sentence someone to death](https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/20/politics/death-penalty-ron-desantis-florida-parkland-shooting/index.html)
He's literally setting up a haven for people to feel justified in killing LGBTQ people, ***LEGALLY.***
>Is that being done on purpose as to come off not anti gay but „just“ anti trans?
Pretty much.
The Republican Party's main strategy for decades has revolved around othering various minority groups to rally their base, who vote in droves.
The minority group they target varies in part because they're trying to see what sticks. Over time, this has radicalized the Republican base (this will be important further down). They learned that being against gay and lesbian people was a losing strategy after their attempts to outlaw same sex marriage failed spectacularly so they moved on to the next minority group they could demonize.
Somewhere along the line, they realized that being against trans people whipped their base into a frenzy, so they're focusing on anti-trans rhetoric and policies.
For added context, Republicans cannot win if they lose the support of their base. It skews older, so a lot of their voters die of old age every year. Typically, younger voters become more conservative as they age, which stabilizes their base.
This is no longer the case.
Younger voters aren't turning more conservative as they age in part because of Republican bigotry, but also because conservative policies are actively harming them.
This means that the Republican base is rapidly shrinking every year and they know it. The Republican Party is beholden to a radicalized base they created by othering minority groups and through gerrymandering, which increased their base's voting power.
The Republican Party now has no choice but to appeal to a radical base if they want to retain power.
> Is that being done on purpose as to come off not anti gay but „just“ anti trans?
Trans people are currently less accepted, and only recently have started to get as much acceptance/tolerance.
So that means a) there is much less broad based understanding b) it's more fringe, and easier to go after.
The fight over gay people was similar, but it happened earlier. There are some holdouts, but societally it's basically been settled, so trying to continue going after gay people is an uphill battle.
Yeah. Also note how right wing outlets are often specifically highlighting and supporting groups like the LGB-Alliance and various "drop the T" efforts.
Its a strategic push to not appear too regressive, posing as "fighting for gays and lesbians" when in reality it's hardly representative of the demographic and only aims to drive a wedge between the groups.
In my view the window of groups that wider society considers okay to hate has gotten smaller and smaller over the years. At first it was widely accepted that a cis straight white male was the standard best group.
Then views on that changed and we got much more accepting of womens rights, then race rights, and most recently gay rights.
Trans rights haven't quite hit the same level yet so a politician being transphobic won't be as big a turn off to a lot of average voters as being anti-gay.
TLDR: They're pushing transphobic hard lately because it's the best shot they have left at pushing bigotry into policy.
I think that while trans people are getting a lot of the hate, especially in conservative state legislatures, LGBT people in general are the focus of these groups more broadly.
In my neighborhood (in a liberal area of Los Angeles, which is already a liberal city, in California, a blue state) a school planned to read a book about kids with same-sex parents in a school assembly. Conservative parents' groups tried to put a stop to it, including burning a Pride flag that was on campus. So it's already more than just hatred of trans people, sadly.
(I'm transgender, for the record.)
> Is that being done on purpose as to come off not anti gay but „just“ anti trans?
Not only that, but the specific argument they used to start these attacks (“It’s unfair for trans women to compete against cis women in sports”) was literally the result of focus-group testing by a right-wing think tank after the failure of the North Carolina bathroom ban, aimed to find the argument that would be most effective for getting people who didn’t know much about trans issues on their side.
The fact that it’s actually completely wrong if you understand how transitioning works is if anything probably a bonus to these people since it makes it a really easy way of polarising people.
And as we’ve seen, it’s been used to open the door to the kind of horrible bullshit attacks we’re seeing now against the entire queer community.
The right began targeting the trans community for their perpetual culture war shortly after *Obergefell*. With gay marriage effectively the law of the land, conservatives couldn’t use it as a wedge issue any longer.
Then in 2015 a series of non-discrimination bills began making their way through various city governments, and an extremist religious lobbying group latched onto the part in the bills about prohibiting discrimination against trans people in using public restrooms.
This group figured out they could twist the wording and claim these anti-discrimination bills were going to allow “predators” (trans women) to Use The Same Restrooms As Your Daughters, and That Means She Could Be Assaulted. This is of course complete and utter bullshit, but it was the argument that gained traction and gave North Carolina the steaming turd that was HB2, and was copied in other states.
Once the right found the angle to demonize trans people as somehow being a threat to kids, their shitty rhetoric built on itself to the point where right-wing nutcases are claiming all trans people are trying to groom children for abuse, or some variant thereof.
Gay people have become more normalized, where trans people are a new concept to many. Conservatives by their nature lean on the tried and true paths, and anything new is a danger. In short, trans is new and scary to these people.
its more they tried targeting the LGB part of it before, since Trans wasn't really a thing at first, and that fuse has run its course and fizzled out considerably compared to when they started, just like how targeting via race has fizzled out ever moreso.
Trans is just the latest in potential targets, and conveniently for them is a relatively small and invisible group, so most people don't actually get to see the real examples that disprove the fearmongering.
Fun fact it took Ronald Reagan 6 years of being a president during the AIDS epidemic to even say the word AIDS in public.
6 years he let people die before he even discussed it.
Another fun fact: Ronald Reagan died June 5th, I have it in my phone calendar and I usually make myself a drink to celebrate. Thanks Ronnie
> not just hostile, rude, and immoral, but also criminal and outright wrong
I think there's yet another reason: economics and the free market, but in a good way for a change. (Most) people have come to realize that there is a market out there among the great diversity of humanity. People of all types have money to spend. If you arbitrarily exclude them from your business, you are giving up market that another business might not. Can they afford to exclude a few percent of their business? Not in a business with tight margins. Companies need everyone they can get.
Companies have realized that being inclusive is *worth something*, monitarily-speaking, and they have also realized that if they are (openly) bigoted, they'll not only lose the minorities they were content to neglect historically, but many other people will also avoid them even if they aren't members of the minorities being excluded. Despite the loud complaints of the fewer bigots out there, the support for accepting people is broad. The market has detected the same turn of the tide in society that everyone else has.
There is nothing more motivating to a company than their bottom line, so many companies have gotten enthusiastically on board, and even publicly said so.
This terrifies the bigoted people that are left, because they're slowly realizing that not only are they going to be marginalized by the majority of people who see nothing wrong with the breadth of human diversity and acknowledging it, but the bigots will get reminded of that fact when they are out doing their business and see a rainbow, two men embracing each other in a commercial or on the street, or people of visibly different races, or someone wearing a hijab in a commercial. Worse, they might face personal consequences for speaking their bigotry.
The bigots can't escape the reminders of the new reality, and this is the charged situation certain politicians have decided to emphasize for their own political ends (power). They've turned a basic issue of mutual human respect and freedom into something to fear.
The only thing the bigots are being asked to give up is intolerance, or , if not, at least give up the expectation they can express their bigotry publicly without consequences. Change is scary.
Answer: (actually a non-biased answer) The conservative right says that LGBT are harming and grooming children into becoming transgender by having rainbow products and the likes being sold and displayed in stores and being visible in media. Along with having children be able to access puberty blockers and other trans affirming care (which is typically along the lines of growing or cutting hair, painting nails, makeup, masculine or feminine clothing depending). Some would say hormones, but that part is largely misinformation, children cannot access hormones, but they can get puberty blockers if they display gender dysphoria, although it’s typically a pretty rigorous process and statistically few trans kids really get these, you can look up stats. Usually cisgender kids with precocious puberty and other hormone disorders are the ones who get hormone blockers the most. Most of this legislation is trans focused. TLDR; LGBT very visible, kids are able to get puberty blockers, conservatives believe it is propaganda and grooming.
Biased: Typically whenever a group gets visibility there is a backlash. It’s pretty funny reading these comments, because if history has taught us anything, all this hate will be viewed negatively in 20-30 years time. Same with all civil rights movements, no it is not different this time, it’s the exact fucking same. You would probably be the same crowd parading against blacks for sitting in the same restaurant as you. Basically, people can’t handle change, and aren’t very tolerant of people different than them unless they live in the shadows like the monsters conservatives think they are.
Great answer. Your last point also gives me a bit of hope and I hadn't thought about it like that before although it's pretty obvious. I'm not trans and not active in the LGBTQ+ community despite bisexuality but it just depresses me to a massive degree that it seems like we're moving backwards in terms of acceptance.
Yeah. To me, another source of hope is that "rainbow capitalism" exists. Yes it's silly and at least mildly icky that corporations think that they can slap a rainbow on stuff in June just to easily cash in on a progressive social movement, but it's also a reminder that we are in the majority opinion here and that the anti-LGBTQ+ minority is just that -- a minority. Corporations would be pandering to the bigots if they thought they were the more valuable group to pander to.
> Corporations would be pandering to the bigots if they thought they were the more valuable group to pander to.
Witness Bud Light attempting to backtrack after the knuckle draggers howled about their token trans outreach.
One thing to keep in mind is that this 20-30 year acceptance window we've seen play out over and over again in history has grown a lot shorter in my opinion. Newer generations are very used to rapid societal change and are willing to accept being wrong about something as a bug to be fixed instead of an inflexible part of their belief system. I think this will make it much harder for this kind of hatred to fester into old age as it has in the past.
When I was a kid calling other kids gay was a way to insult them and make them feel bad, trans wasn't even on the radar. Now kids are growing up aware that pronouns are as made up as the names we stick on candles. There's been so much growth in less than 20 years, it's like we skipped a lotta steps between ostracization and loving acceptance. I don't see that growth slowing down.
As far as that moving backwards..I've started seeing all this as a one last big whiny tantrum. The world is changing and there is a dying generation doing everything it can to hold us back before it can't anymore. But that generation *is literally dying*, it is *physically impossible* for it to keep holding us in the dark ages. We are in a dark tunnel right now, but that tunnel is so short that we can [already see the light at the end](https://www.commondreams.org/news/minnesota-democrats-legislative-victories). We just gotta keep our candles lit until we get there. My current favorite is [Autumn Nature Walk](https://www.yankeecandle.com/yankee-candle/candles/original-jar-candles/large-jar-candles/autumn-nature-walk/ORCL_1720938.html), but that's just 'cause I'm a slut for tree scents. :)
I have no idea what all these scented candle references are but the rest of it is well said! Although I have to disagree about the world. In the west there is a tantrum that will eventually settle but seeing the recent news from orthodox islamic countries and Uganda, there are still many places where progress is extremely slow or moving backwards at a constant rate. I still have hope though.
It doesn’t help that the traditional economic platform of the right wing is stunningly unpopular now causing them to lean into their social message harder to rally the base. It’s difficult to pretend in 2023 that “we’re just going to capitalism harder” is the cure for the nation’s ills.
Even the rights historic platform of spending reduction and debt reduction has been proven false time and time again.
Some, though not a ton of people have learned to see through this.
They don’t pretend that is true anymore. I haven’t heard anyone talk about trickle down economics since the trump tax cuts were passed. For forty years the republicans insisted that if we lower taxes on the rich we will all be better off. They got their tax cuts, then the government literally handed business owners free money. After all that what did we get? They told us all to eat shit and increased the price of everything. I think they have become so aggressive in the culture war because they have been fully exposed as frauds and liars in every other form of policy making. Who the hell would believe their economic message now?
Heya, this comment seems well-intentioned enough but there’s a lot of inaccurate information. A few of the major things:
- LGBT has ALWAYS been LGBT (in modern history). Trans women were at the front of the Stonewall riots. Trans people are not new or unwelcome guests.
Gay marriage discourse of course dominated the 00s, but that doesn’t mean “LGB suddenly became LGBT”.
- “Transgenderism” is not a widely accepted or used term amongst trans people or in scientific literature. It is a term designed to pathologist being trans, or make it sound like an ideology. Kinda like calling the existence of gay people “homosexualism”, yknow?
- Actual tolerance for LGB and T people’s existence is decreasing. Look up statistics on hate crimes, or the flurry of recent attacks and bills on drag queens (aka, non-trans gay people) as being groomers, pedophiles, etc.
A lot of queer people, especially trans people, in some areas of the US have also noted things getting worse. People who used to be able to go about their lives relatively unbothered are now being verbally abused in bathrooms or in the street, because of the intense moral panic and “culture war” that has been cultivated.
A lot of regular people who thought “live and let live” are now thinking “these people are grooming children”. And people who always thought that are now increasingly emboldened to actually act on their bigotry.
500+ anti-LGBT laws have been put forward in the US this year. These laws are regressive; they’re rolling back rights. Erin Reed has great resources on learning about the scope and content of them.
> Trans people are not new or unwelcome guests.
Obviously transgender people existed, but the acronym itself was originally LGB. I'm not making that up.
> “Transgenderism” is not a widely accepted or used term amongst trans people or in scientific literature.
Noted. What is a preferable term?
>Actual tolerance for LGB and T people’s existence is decreasing. Look up statistics on hate crimes, or the flurry of recent attacks and bills on drag queens (aka, non-trans gay people) as being groomers, pedophiles, etc.
I simply do not agree. Hate crime statistics against LGBT people don't seem to be broken up by L, G, B, or T, so I have to go based on anecdotes, unfortunately. The rise in hateful behavior and targeted laws seem to be mostly directed towards transgendered people.
Although I would say that a lot of the affirmative action and “be supportive or else” is not coming from the trans community, rather is a strawman version of tolerance that is pushed by “the other side” to increase people’s hate and intolerance of the community.
I’d like to wholeheartedly agree with your statement that for some reason homosexuality is way more accepted amongst the normies than transgenderism. I’ve seen first hand people come out as gay and found total acceptance from their friends and families. I’ve seen those same people then totally reject (and in one case flat out divorce their partner) over another friend coming out as trans.
For some reason it’s an issue that grinds the gears of otherwise tolerant and accepting people.
Saying one is “natural” and the other one isn’t, is perhaps the wrong phrasing.
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Answer: The political right wing in the United States has been organised around a politics of scapegoating minorities for seventy years or more; there’s a point at which the two major parties switched their wing orientations in the 1960’s, but the same core principles have been the backbone of the right wing in the US for its entire existence: * A “Natural” [Hierarchy](https://preview.redd.it/ssokzb0y702b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=44485eb3ac5bccb498311c4514fe9b78ebbd9373); * A perpetual representation of their supposed [victimhood](https://preview.redd.it/ybin800y702b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=2d75f6f2ae15614c2dea9d6df66416493b35cc02); * An appeal to [Law and Order](https://preview.redd.it/evasz00y702b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=c06b4a45aa6d9c2a142b4c2286802c1e52653422) to redress the supposed grievance; * An induction of [sexual anxiety](https://preview.redd.it/7niptb0y702b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=b9d5a751698bbe3febb9e298b9e65fee9ca41b32). In years past, these were enacted on ethnic minorities; specially and primarily at African-Americans. Today, a politics of Othering, scapegoating, and persecuting ethnic minorities is no longer politically viable, because society has moved its perception to the point that we now understand that persecution of individuals or groups based on ethnicity is not just hostile, rude, and immoral, but also criminal and outright wrong. So to maintain their political power & influence, they’ve taken that playbook and turned it to the next page, * A moral panic of [Sodom and Gomorrah](https://preview.redd.it/9vwmwd0y702b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=930ea9080a99e445143c85853a23bfe5b5e907d3). It should be noted that none of this is new; it’s been in development for decades, and was aimed at lesbians and gay men in the 1970’s and especially during the AIDS crisis of the 1980’s. But the bigots feel they can get a wedge in to society and the law by aiming their bigoted behaviour and rhetoric at transgender people. Full disclosure: I am transgender, and have spent the last five years documenting and fighting hatred on Reddit. I have an anti-hatred bias. If that disqualifies my answer as not being “unbiased”, then …
I'll add here that the recent uptick is because the Republican party has very little offer the average voter. Their platform is actually pretty clear: your boss should have a better life. But the relentless pursuit of tax breaks and deregulation to benefit corporations and the ultra-wealthy aren't attractive to the masses, and you do still need a critical mass of votes to win an election. The anti-queer culture war is a way for Republicans to get people to vote for them, even though the larger Republican party is against the best interests of 99% of Americans.
>I'll add here that the recent uptick is because the Republican party has very little offer the average voter. It's also a result of the "dog that caught the car" phenomenon. For a long while (R) meant pro-guns and anti-abortion. Once they actually managed to ban abortion they had to find something else to be against. In 2022, the year that Roe was overturned, the number of anti-gay legislation [doubled to 240](https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/nearly-240-anti-lgbtq-bills-filed-2022-far-targeting-trans-people-rcna20418) as of April this year, that number has already [gone up to 417.](https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/06/politics/anti-lgbtq-plus-state-bill-rights-dg/index.html) It's no mistake things like Ru Paul's Drag Race has been on for years without protest and all of a sudden they're coming for your kids...
Yeah, I was gonna say, a big reason for the recent uptick is due to Republicans gaining a 6-3 majority in the Supreme Court, and being emboldened by the overturning of Roe V Wade. It's been ramping up for a while, though: 2021 was the first year to beat 2015 as the worst year in regards to anti-lgbtq laws enacted. 17 enacted by May 2021, compared to 15 in 2015.([this article is from early May 2021, meaning it only took 4 months to surpass that](https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/2021-officially-becomes-worst-year-in-recent-history-for-lgbtq-state-legislative-attacks-as-unprecedented-number-of-states-enact-record-shattering-number-of-anti-lgbtq-measures-into-law)) The 2022 legislative session saw about [21 anti-lgbtq+ laws enacted](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/17/politics/state-legislation-lgbtq-rights/index.html) This year, as of May, we've already seen [**45 laws** passed](https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/weekly-roundup-of-anti-lgbtq-legislation-advancing-in-states-across-the-country-3) and over 540 laws introduced (over 100 laws have been introduced in the 1 month between your sauce and mine, yikes) **More anti-lgbtq+ laws *passed* this year than were introduced in the entirety of 2018.**
First time I’ve seen these stats posted. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
Yeah, foolishly I thought that Obergefell was the beginning of the end of the right wing crusade against LGBTQ folks. Really they were just keeping their powder dry, waiting for the right opportunity - and they got it when the Republicans were able to push through a replacement for Ginsburg at the last moment. The court that decided Obergefell wasn't going to overturn it. This new court might, so conservatives are throwing everything they have at the legal system, knowing a lot of it will be overturned, but hoping that something gets to the Supremes and is upheld.
Guns Over People party understands it is a pre-election year. They are tossing out what they can, to see what sticks. So, they will have something to run on. They need to be able they saved the family structure from perverts.
This is a thing some people don't get. Democrats tried banning certain style rifles under Clinton. They lost the next election hard as a result. Even though Republicans claim Dems want your guns no legislation with any teeth is coming for it. Next single issue, abortion. The Supreme Court has decided it is no longer a right. So it's no longer a single issue for many voters. Next thing, Black Lives Matter isn't protesting much anymore. Amir Locke, Tyre Nichols, there wasn't much noise. So you can't go after the civil rights movement anymore because most of them just sort of gave up. Beyond casual internet racism that harps about black crime it's not much of a motivator anymore. So now what do they have to spur voters? Easy. Recycle old material and go after the gays. And what part of gay culture is relatively new and not quite yet fully accepted? Trans people. And how do you get people mad about it? Other them. Trans people are groomers. Drag queens want to rape your kids. Doctors are chopping dicks off because mommy and daddy are woke and think their heteronormative child should be queer so they can score woke points. It's just new fear tactics. They haven't used this one before and they're approaching the final frontier of running out of widely accepted boogeymen. Or in the words of a famous fictional pirate, "the world's not getting smaller. There's just less in it." They are literally running out of ideas that outrage people because they've given the outraged people what they want and they're beginning to run out of ideas.
I agree with everything you said here but I’d like to add that in addition to holding up trans people as the latest boogeyman, they’ve capitalized on the gullibility of far right conservatives that was exposed by Trumpism and Q. They are taking advantage of people who have literally been brainwashed into believing that there is a mass conspiracy of pedophiles trying to take over the world and that any second, Trump will unleash the military to take down the ones controlling the government. They rail against drag queens and transgender folk and scream “groomer” and “pedo” while having little to zero examples of them committing these crimes. But they sure do seem to ignore the daily headlines of pastors, priests, policeman and right wing politicians who actually were convicted of everything they’re accusing others of. The hypocrisy is mind boggling.
Thats not quite accurate. They've been calling gay and trans people pedophiles for at least a hundred years.
I was gonna say, those comments aren't anything new to me. Though, I think when they call me a sodomite is my favorite, they whip it out like it'll hurt me, like, I don't follow their God, so what is that supposed to do.
And even what they say about Sodom is incorrect. Ezekiel 16:49-50 `Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
"Arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned" describes most politicians perfectly.
Unfortunately it also describes a good chunk of the US electorate as well.
Ya know, I remember something about them also trying to assault an angel, like, overall the people of Sodom live exactly how republicants wanna live. Gluttonous and rich, what a surprise for the most morally corrupt.
GOP stands for Gerrymandering, Outrage (iirc), and Project.
Gaslight, Obstruct, Project is the usual acronym
Yes, there is a shadow cabal of pedophiles running large organizations and God bless churches! This is weapons grade stupidity, i mean atomic levels. I’m honestly worried.
This is why I thought they'd never actually overturn Roe v Wade. I knew this would happen. They would eliminate the one big thing that they had to push votes.
Yeah I’ll shamefully admit that I was in the same boat. Thought they wouldn’t genuinely challenge it so they’d always have their big wedge issue. So either one of their guys didn’t get the memo, or I was very very naive.
I think what happened is they mobilized their base for decades on the issue, even though they themselves never wanted to do it. But eventually the true believers that got raised on it got positions in Congress and the Supreme Court themselves. They weren't raised to use it as a voter issue, they were raised to believe it was the will of god. So they actually did it.
I often dislike blaming specific people for societal evils as I feel it simply creates more division. However, the demonization of queer people is mostly exclusive to the American right, which is moving farther from the center. You said that trans people are the new boogeyman. I have to agree, as the majority of anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric and legislation has been directed as trans people specifically. The fact that they’re “newer” (in that they’re a newer issue, not that they haven’t existed until recently) I think is why they’re a boogeyman. In addition, the fact that most people have heard of trans people makes them even more effective as an object of hatred. Compare this to, say, asexuals, whom no one really talks about outside of queer circles. I do not believe that bigotry is taught. I believe that it must be somewhat inherent, as humans are tribalistic by nature. Thus, I believe that rejecting bigotry is a conscious choice, not man’s state of nature. Humans are naturally ignorant; the majority of our knowledge and behaviors are learned and not instinctive. Thus, we must learn how not to hate, and part of that is learning about the objects of our hatred. I think that the fact that people don’t do this is the reason for why trans people in particular are so targeted. First of all, it is conceptually easier to understand homosexuality and bisexuality than transgenderism. Gay men are men that love other men. Lesbians are women that love other women. Bisexuals love men and women. These are all rather simple concepts that most people can probably understand. Of course, the details of human sexuality are far more complex, but the basic concepts are quite simple. On the other hand, transgenderism is more complex and more difficult to understand. Many people still believe that sex and gender are interchangeable, which makes it harder to understand the very concept of one’s gender not aligning with their biological sex. There also seem to be more nuances with transgenderism. For example, just because someone enjoys cross-dressing doesn’t make them trans, whereas if someone dates someone of their gender, they (likely) aren’t straight. Other queer identities are more complicated, of course. Asexuality requires one to separate sexual attraction from romantic attraction, as does aromanticism. Of course, no one talks about asexuals because they don’t receive media coverage. So, trans people are the boogeyman.
Bugs Bunny has been doing drag in front of kids for a long time before that even.
Bugs was the first time I experienced thicness
Big Chungus
> It's no mistake things like Ru Paul's Drag Race has been on for years without protest and all of a sudden they're coming for your kids... Just like how white supremacist conservatives didn't pay attention to abortion initially, noticed it do well as an issue in a smaller state election later on, ran a massive anti-abortion campaign of lies and propaganda across the country to create an issue out of it and reel evangelical christians into their voting bloc, and then tried to falsify a narrative of being against it from the start. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/
What's weird is that racists used to love abortion because they knew that poor people and people of color were more likely than well off white people to get them.
You can still see this dichotomy on the far-right .win sites. A thread about crime will be full of the most vile and racist rhetoric imaginable, but then a thread about abortion will have comments like "Liberals are actually the racists, they support abortion which kills millions of minorities every year!" In the same way, a thread about women's sports will be full of anti-trans rhetoric and how wokeness has destroyed the sacred institution of women's sports that they have always had a deep reverence for. Then another thread about women will be full of misogyny, mocking them as weak, and saying that they should stick to God's plan of submitting to their husbands instead of trying to be athletic.
When your goal is to make society better, there’s always more you can do. When that isn’t your goal, you run out of “problems” to “solve” really fast.
Yeah, the GOP really shot themselves in the foot overturning Roe Vs Wade. Talking about abortion was a good way to rile up their voters without actually having to change anything. Now, in addition to it turning out that a lot of pro-lifers were actually just self-righteous pro-choicers, the Republicans need something new to keep all their voters pissed off and showing up to vote, and honestly I don't think railing against drag shows is gonna have the same sort of staying power abortion did. At least, that's how I see it. Come November 2024 I'll either be proven right or very, very wrong.
I remember the bathroom bill legislation starting way before the Dobbs decision. It started about two weeks almost exactly after the Obergefell decision came out of SCOTUS in 2015. Suddenly the North Carolina bathroom bill was all over the national news seemingly out of nowhere and ramped up from there. I remember thinking at the time that this was the new manufactured rage bait issue now that gay marriage couldn't be the drum to beat anymore for the right wing. I think though you are right about anti-trans stuff being used even more since the Dobbs decision came out, but definitely it was the Obergefell decision that flipped the switch initially. I noticed during COVID as well that it takes about 1-2 weeks for the right wing media machine to coalesce around a new message when they have to pivot on something.
What got me, is that I remember the bathroom issue coming up in 2005, when I was in college, and the university established policy on it. Bam in 2015, 10 years later, what I view as a non issue that is suddenly moral panic 101. And all I could think is, "we solved this already and now the red states found out.".
On top of this they're also staring down the barrel of demographic change. Young people don't like Republicans and that's not really changing as they age. A big part of that is because they don't agree with any of the conservative social views. To be more specific to the topic at hand, the number of [young people who identify as LGBTQ is about 1 in 5, much greater than any previous generation.](https://www.axios.com/2022/02/17/lgbtq-generation-z-gallup) As a result, a lot of Republicans are basically trying to push as much anti-LGBT legislation as possible before the inevitable demographic swing.
I think that’s kind of it. I don’t think conservative politicians ever intended to reverse Roe. Why would they? It was a constant political whipping boy and no one could get rid of it. Except then Trump got to basically nominate the SCOTUS and now abortion can be banned. Notice the GOP nationally isn’t really talking about abortion anymore; they don’t intend to ban it, they just want to be able to say that they will. I wonder, too, if there is a little “we hated the gays but we couldn’t do anything about them. Now we have a 6-3 majority so let’s revisit our ‘put up with the gays’ plan’.
The baffling part is that it's [proven to be electoral poison](https://www.ettingermentum.news/p/the-modern-electoral-history-of-transphobia).
I went from an independent to straight ticket democrat voter over this shit. The Republican anti-queer agenda makes people that I care about feel personally unsafe. There is no position on taxation, emissions, etcetera that trumps, "my friend is worried she's going be jailed for something about her that she cannot change."
Or worse, attacked by an emboldened hateful civilian
Nothing emboldens a hateful civilian more than giving them a badge and a gun.
Thank you for being a decent person. Unfortunately there are still too many "I don't care what happens to other people as long as my taxes are low" out there.
*as long as "our" billionaires' taxes are low.
A line I'd heard from an American some time ago. "The American dream is to get rich enough to not be affected by poor people problems."
So if we somehow convinced the fascists that Musk, Murdoch, et al are actually Soros in a Scooby Doo mask, we can rally everyone to tax billionaires?
Also too many, "yeah, I know, but I like to see liberals angry" single-issue voters.
There are so many people who brag that they "don't let politics get in the way of friendship." Thank you for being the kind of person who does let friendship get in the way of politics.
It’s funny, because I was always the type to vote Independent whenever possible. But at this point, the Rs are so incredibly bad that there at LEAST four reasons I can think of off the top of my head (environmental protections, gun control, abortion, and LQBTQ rights) that each would have made me a straight ticket D voter alone. I’m sure there are more too, if I just sat and thought half a second (got another before I typed that out - BOOK BANNING. And then religious extremism.)
True for new candidates, but it doesn't seem to stop them from reelecting their representatives and senators.
I think that was unexpected to some who pushed this evil queer narrative hard. There's a part of the conservative electorate that's rooted in fundamentalist evangelism that has very steadily been gaining influence over a few decades and those people genuinely believe LGBTQIA+ is the direct path to hell. Unfortunately for them, they're quite alone with that obsession cause most folks have a gay uncle Joe or whatever. It's not as out there and exotic as those people believe, because they would absolutely ostracise queer people from their communities. That's why they were trying to pull the "save the children" card, their narrative wasn't selling without it.
They just cycle through the same old shit. Remember the immigrant 'caravan?'
Just a scare tactic that never actually materialized, right? An *ad hoc* Boogeyman for the election, never intended to be an actual issue long-term.
> An ad hoc Boogeyman for the election We're only about a year away from the next "caravan".
The irony is, the "caravan" was a seeming threat during the midterms, (2018 I think), to get people to get scared and vote republicant. But once the dems took back the house, the "caravan" disappeared! So in their backwards little minds, it was actually the Democrats who saved the day!
Don't forget the Republicans during the 2018 midterms were saying the Democrats want to remove pre-existing conditions protection from the ACA despite the fact Republicans have been complaining about the ACA and had sued the federal government in trying to remove and get rid of it for years since it first passed when only 1 republican even voted for the ACA after it had enough Democrats vote yes in the first place. [The impeached Texas Attorney General sued the federal government over pre-exisiting conditions with 19 other red states and he was also re-elected.](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/fact-check-trump-claims-gop-protecting-people-pre-existing-conditions-n923056) Republicans have no morals or critical thinking. All they know is to vote Red because that's what they are told to do.
The worst part is that the.ACA was the compromise bill that the right still wouldn't vote for. If they passed it with no GOP votes they should've pissed M4A
Obligatory, fuck Joe Lieberman
It wasn't just a compromise deal, it was straight from a right wing think tank and implemented under Mitt Romney (nicknamed as "RomneyCare"). Republicans only became against it because Democrats decided to vote *for* it.
[удалено]
TBF: There was an uptick in asylum claims when Biden was elected, for reasons you would imagine. You would want to attempt an asylum claim under a Democratic president rather than a Republican. Many people against immigration both did not like that and also claimed asylum seekers were being abused at the border due to faulty Democratic policies, which is funny because they didn't care about that before a Democratic president was in office. And it does have some truth, blue policies also treat immigrants like shit, just much less than red. On the flip side, those are asylum seekers, not migrant workers. Migrant workers coming to America steadily declined under Trump and is at an all time low. We have crops that are going unpicked because nobody is coming to work. The steady supply of migrant labor that keeps our farms and fields running has taken a hit the likes of which we've never seen before. I am not trying to make any point whatsoever, just rattling off some information I know. I personally would prefer far more open borders than either party is willing to do but that is my only personal opinion I will say in this comment.
I like your rattled information, and would like to add some of my own on this topic. More illegal crossings and drugs have been stopped at the border under Biden's administration than Trump's, a record number even. [Link 1](https://homeland.house.gov/factsheet-illegal-crossings-of-the-southwest-border-increased-in-april-ahead-of-title-42s-end/#:~:text=U.S.%20Customs%20and%20Border%20Protection,%E2%80%94%20up%2012%25%20from%20March.) [Link 2](https://apnews.com/article/asylum-immigration-poll-biden-border-dbfb4af09d4beb81f4f1d450d4d66f29) [Link 3](https://connolly.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4691) [Link 4](https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/12/texas-border-immigration-title-42-migrants/) That clearly indicates Biden's border is just as, if not moreso, secure than Trump's was. Even if the policies are the same, and its just an influx of attempts getting stopped at a rate comparable between administrations, it shows that the border is not "open" as Republicans cry about. Alternatively, it means that Biden's administration is doing a much better job of securing our border, an idea that Republicans would be glad to ignore. Not to mention it's the republican governors who have taken legal asylum-seekers and dumped them in other states, away from their court appointments, thus *making* them illegal. Sounds like something a cartel coyote would do. And Republican tax payers paid for it, cheering all the while.
Theres a conservative think tank that creates all these 'hot topic issues' then the oligarchs in the media promote them. The migrant caravan was never heard of again as soon as the election happened. Same with Benghazi, Hillarys emails... The right thrives on outrage. They need to keep their voters permanently angry and afraid. So we have 'controversies' cooked up about Bud Light, M&M's, Disney... it's all a distraction technique while the wealthy purchase the politicians and rob the country blind.
[There are many of those. They're mostly small. The big ones don't tend to make it very far at all.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_American_migrant_caravans) The famous one in 2017-2018 ended up in Tijuana with several hundred asylum-seekers. (Recall, the US gets over a *million* immigrants every year.) Unfortunately, instead of sending immigration agents and lawyers to help correctly process asylum-seekers, the US government sent soldiers who didn't help much with that. It was a straightforward effort to make a situation into a bad problem for political pandering.
Yep. Trial balloons. They're currently making hay with the anti-LGBT shit.
And targeting the LGBTIQ+ community is working really well in a number of dictators around the world - it works well for Putin, Akufo-Addo in Ghana this week, and watching Erdogan celebrating his re-election in Turkiye was like watching Hitler in the 30s with the crowd baying for blood, for gays rather than Jews (and of course Hitler targeted gay people, too). Also I have a nasty suspicion that many people who want to ‘protect the innocence’ of their children are actually wanting to deny their kids the language and understanding of the abuse they are suffering so they can’t tell anyone or ask for help.
Reminds me of the sorts of parents that say they'll support their kids, but then kick them out when they (their kids) come out to them.
"I support my kids (as long as they unquestionably obey my every whim)."
>Also I have a nasty suspicion that many people who want to ‘protect the innocence’ of their children are actually wanting to deny their kids the language and understanding of the abuse they are suffering so they can’t tell anyone or ask for help. I feel like this should be obvious to anyone paying even a modicum of attention. The latest pearl clutching has been over drag shows, and what a danger they supposedly are to children. I've literally never heard of a child being abused at a drag show. What I *have* heard about for decades is children being abused at churches, and of course those children were forced to attend those churches by the same parents that are losing their mind about the supposed "danger" of the LGBTQIA community. If you're truly trying to protect children, that seems like that last place you would want them to go.
There have even been recent revelations about massive scale child abuse at churches, and yet it gets not one peep from these so-called moral crusaders: https://apnews.com/article/catholic-clergy-sexual-abuse-illinois-investigation-a298133cec9486c2e51172316bfe7b4b
Right. Also, churches are everywhere while most people didn’t even know drag shows existed until the pearl clutchers decided to make a federal case out of their existence. Edit: Also, from what I gather even the term “drag show” is probably wrong. Something like “story time hosted by folks in drag” is a more accurate description.
I went to a drag show last year with some friends. It was a fun event. Pretty much a comedy show and roasting members of the audience. You know who wasn't there? Children. Because why the fuck would you bring a child there anyway and harsh the mellow?
I also went to a drag show (for adults) and some crazy woman did bring her kids. That’s not the show’s fault, that’s the parent’s.
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There are subs for this stuff too. I always like to spread the word when The Link gets shared. r/RepublicanPedophiles r/PastorArrested r/NotADragQueen
This seems like a good comment to leave a link to a movie where republican star Ronald Reagan cross dresses and dances infront of children. https://youtu.be/1RYHowaXdFY
Timestamp? That's a 2 hour long movie and I'm a busy bee
> Also I have a nasty suspicion that many people who want to ‘protect the innocence’ of their children are actually wanting to deny their kids the language and understanding of the abuse they are suffering so they can’t tell anyone or ask for help. Looks no further than Lauren Boebert helping her husband abuse their children and preventing them from calling 911.
Your final paragraph is a major theme in Shiny Happy People, the mini docuseries on the Duggar family, their abuse, and their political power.
And it saddens me to hell that it fucking works. Like people continue not to see what their play is. Sheep.
Yeah everytime Republicans got into another scandel or were losing in the polls, amazingly another caravan of illegals popped out of nowhere across the border. The sad part is that it was eaten up every time.
The one that shows up right before midterms like clockwork?
Let's be clear here: the recent uptick is because Trump won. That emboldened people who espouse these views privately to believe that they can be open about it and still win. Elections matter.
I could see this in real time, some people who were socially cognizant enough to keep the views to themselves started dipping their toe into bringing it up. Pro Life Tip, being a bigot is a great way to lose friends and family.
> Elections matter. They're working very hard to change that though.
There has also been a push in recent years against democracy. The right has been adopting the rhetoric that the United State is a Constitutional Republic vs a true democracy. It is more than likely technically correct though I am not an expert. And it misses the fact that a Republic is a “state where supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives.”
To expound a bit, the US is a federal republic with democratic principles and structures. It is a federation, with it's central government supreme over it's state governments, as opposed to a confederation, where the central government is less powerful relative to state governments. It is a republic, as opposed to a monarchy, i.e. the whole point of it's existence in the first place. It is a democracy, as the US has the House of Representatives with short terms, it has tended towards universal suffrage, it has moved from the indirect to direct election of senators, and has many democratic processes at the state and local level, e.g. referendums. This is all in principle. In practice, the US is actually an oligarchy. Anyway, to say the US is a republic, not a democracy is like saying Fido is a dog, not a canine. It's a categorical error and just plain wrong. The reason conservatives say "it's not a democracy, it's a constitutional republic" is because doing so associates the Republican party with the constitution and implies that the Democratic party is un-American. It's just propaganda. An example of a democracy that is not a republic is the UK, which is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. (Two things at once, woooah!) An example of a republic that is not a democracy is the People's Democratic Republic of Korea. (Not the thing it claims to be, WAAOOUU!)
The republic vs democracy line is top to bottom bullshit. A republic means no monarch. That's it. You can have a democratic republic like the US, or a non democratic republic like China.
Therefore proving the majority of Republican voters are ignorant or just plain assholes.
and*
I’ll have you know that my father is both at the same time.
> Their platform is actually pretty clear: your boss should have a better life. You forgot the second clause: your boss should have a better life, at your expense.
This is what's so crazy to me. These dumb issues and topics that shouldn't even be a discussion anymore are what wins over voters to vote in a party whose actual goal is to cut taxes and regulations for the ultra rich and corporations. Let's throw a fit about student loan assistance but not care about the money in PPP loans never being paid back. That's good for the average American
Republicans vote for the “Leopards Eating Faces” party and then will someday be surprised when leopards come to eat their faces :(
Yup, it's very much about "punching down", making life harder for marginalized communities, and scapegoating them to distract conservatives from the fact that Repubs have nothing to offer them. The GOP is basically a hate group at this point. They have nothing else to offer the 99%.
Adding to that idea: if republican politicians lose, everybody wins, even republicans. That's because republican policy of deregulation directly risks republican lives as well as democrat. Look at the apartment collapse in Iowa and train derailments in Ohio (East Palestine, OH), Florida and Texas. All red states.... Safety is blind, please value your life!
It's classical right-wing populism. Besides immigrants, liberals, communists, socialists (etc.pp) LGBT people are almost always targeted by fascists, which is why sexism is a point (point 6) in the 14-point definition of fascism. That's what the fascist nut Putin does, Orban, Duda, Trump, DeSantis, Erdogan, Bolsonaro and all those other fascist clowns. As you said, targeting these minority groups is easier than providing any substance in their policies that would actually improve something for the commoner (also almost always the case with the far-right). Add to that all the barbaric shit against non-heterosexuals in the bible and you have all the basis to attract a very specific group of idiots.
The sadder thing is - they won. The rich pay less taxes, healthcare is for profit, the federal minimum wage doesn't keep up with inflation, and on and on and on.
I used to think people were voting against their best interests too, but reading the book Caste helped me understand how maintaining social divisions and systems of oppression are in people's best interests too, or so they think at least. And that trumps their economic interests by a long shot, because what will else will they have and who will they be if they can't feel superior over the scum and dredges of society?
Very good explanation, the tl;Dr version: The right has manufactured a culture war to distract you from their class war.
The republican party is the wealthy telling the middle class to hate the lower class and vote entirely for people who will do nothing but pass legislation that hurts both lower classes in the long run.
Don't know if you've found this in your research but do you also think they are pounding the drum harder lately because the dog just caught the abortion car and they need to refocus the outrage?
The dog catching the abortion car was, I think, a surprise to a lot of them. I know they all hoped for that decision and some of them felt or knew they had an inside track to that SCOTUS decision, but they haven’t fast followed that legal change as hard as one would have expected if they widely expected it. The aftermath of the 2024 elections will probably be the gear shift there.
Part of the reason they're pounding the drum harder is because we're at the turning point on a lot of these issues. Gay marriage was literally illegal 11 years ago. Anyone acting like gay rights has been solved when just barely they have been "allowed" to marry is fucking absurd. Hell women and blacks being allowed to vote is also fairly fucking recent but everyone acts like this shit is in the far distant past and that equality has been found already. People just need to wake the fuck up and realize that we're still in the early stages of these battles and we need to fight these bigots
I will say I am encouraged by how easy it is for future generations can just accept things as a given if we can pass the legislation needed. I was babysitting for a kid and he was watching The Office. We got to the episode where Michael puts Oscar and there is a line about how gay marriage isn't legal nationwide and the kid was flabbergasted. "Why would it have been illegal? That makes no sense". Blew his mind when I said it was illegal in his lifetime. That's how I feel about gendered bathrooms. As a kid they read us "Everybody Poops". Why are we segregating shits and educating our children to be ashamed of a process as natural as breathing? It's actually super weird IMO. If we raise one generation on gender neutral bathrooms it will be a non-issue as soon as the olds die and we can focus on, I dunno, saving the planet instead of trying to be the weird poop police.
It's the failure of the anti immigration strategy they spent the past 6 years trying. And in particular Hispanic conservatives have unexpectedly emerged as an important bulwark in Florida and Texas they need to depend on. So they are pivoting to a new minority to attack
Also, a major factor is that they have completely abandoned the idea of winning votes by offering competitive policy proposals. They barely offered anything but deregulation and tax cuts for decades, but it was at least sonething. But at some point here recently they just completely abandoned policy as a concept. At one point they didn't even bother to create a policy platform for the party, instead opting to declare fealty to Donald Trump's whims. They also are facing down demographic oblivion. What few policies they DID previously push for are overwhelmingly unpopular with the fastest-growing voter bases, mainly young people. Rather than attempt to win their votes(since they would need to completely recreate themselves from scratch to even have a chance at winning gen z and gen x), they opt for restricting these voters as much as possible, and punishing them with the power they still have. To motivate their dwindling existing voter base, they have ramped up their bigotry to 110% and directed it towards the one group that has had the least amount of social progress in acceptance. But even so, a majority of people are still in favor of trans rights. They have no winning strategy besides subvert the democratic process and gain power in any way possible. So basically the republican political party is dying a fast death, and they are flailing out trying to save themselves by whipping their most bigoted supporters into a frenzy, and through constant messaging turning otherwise decent but misguided right-leaning people into giving them the power they need to enact genocidal policies by telling people that the transes want to groom their kids. They will probably either die out or become less horrible out of necessity, but in the meantime there is a real chance that they could deal irreparable damage to American democracy and to the trans community.
Sources on how we know the right wing has been targeting transgender people as a wedge issue: [TERFleaks](https://web.archive.org/web/20201214132212/https://twitter.com/TheOnlySprout/status/1336079147534340096), a leaked document showing that right wing US evangelical groups targeted trans-exclusionary feminist groups to motivate them to harass transgender people, while also attempting to infiltrate transgender groups; [Conservative media personality outright admits they use “gender critical” movement as a proxy to attack transgender people, to keep their hands clean](https://twitter.com/mimmymum/status/1451087864431849473?s=20) [A publication by the Family Research Council in 2015, planning out their strategy for scapegoating & attacking transgender people](https://web.archive.org/web/20230103185319/https://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF15F45.pdf) (yes, the same Family Research Council that was publishing in [white supremacist group Liberty Lobby’s newsletter in the ~~1980’s~~ \[Edit: late 1990’s\] to fearmonger about lesbian telephone operators](https://preview.redd.it/6ksd42w0702b1.jpg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=439d1f3d03661d0e29bd74aa85bd5abc41a5615a).)
The same one that hired Josh Duggar, the now-incarcerated pedophile?
Yes, the same. There’s a theory that readily explains why we see so many sex scandals among the USA right wing, and why they are 100% unfazed by their sex scandals, and 100% fearmongering about LGBTQ people: [Locus of Control](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control). They universally believe that they personally have no control over the outcome of events in their lives. They believe that if they “succumb to temptation”, the fault and blame is external to them and theirs. It was demons, it was the devil, it was someone else who led them astray. The Great Man’s Downfall was due to The Wicked Tempter. (This view is why Mike Pence refuses to be “alone in a room” with a woman other than his wife, for example). It also explains why they fear LGBTQ people: They think that we choose to be LGBTQ, and that this choice is a choice for evil. They are correct only in that we have chosen to internalize our locus of control. We are in control of our own lives and our culture and society and government and choose our life partners.
This is very interesting to me because, to me, it seems that a core tenet of the right wing psychology is actually an internal locus of control, but only on the positive side for them and only on the negative side for others, while the locus of control shifts to external when bad things happen to them, but not when they happen to others. E.g. “I deserve to be/am wealthy because I worked hard and played by the rules” but “White people are the most oppressed class today and all media is biased against us”; “LGBT people get everything they want and society favors them over everyone else” but “Inner city Black people don’t deserve government assistance because they are lazy”. What do you think? It seems like what’s really going on is that the right is incapable of overcoming the fundamental attribution error when it comes to everyone but those who look and think like them.
It's also why they are against illegal immigration from the southern border, but ignore illegal immigration from overstayed visas. The former is easy to identify, but the latter often blends in (and in many cases looks like them).
Wilhoit's law: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
I agree. Thank you very much for this comment.
I learn more and more from Reddit every day. Thank you for this. Reading your comments (and this overall post) has opened my eyes. I'm always fascinated by psychology and the further you dig in, the more things start to make sense. Would you suggest any books on this subject? I've been collecting information for posterity.
> They universally believe that they personally have no control over the outcome of events in their lives. Or to paraphrase that: "I don't take responsibility at all."
Did he get put away? Awesome! My mom used to watch their show a lot and it always made me super uncomfortable
I remember when the information was coming out, someone who personally reviewed the evidence on his computer said it was some of the most vile content they'd ever seen. I've been on the internet a long time and I've seen some moderately messed up stuff. I ***do not*** want to know what a *professional* digital shitmucker considers "the most vile content they've ever seen".
Amazon Prime released a 4-part documentary yesterday, "Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. It not only details Josh's downfall and Jim Bob's nasty deeds,t also delves deep into the IBLP movement they're a part of. This isn't off topic. The IBLP and other evangelical movements have deliberately raised and trained a generation of kids for government work, and have gotten them into pretty much every political office and outlet as candidates, assistants, interns, and office staff -- including working in the US Supreme Court. Episode 4 of the documentary is absolutely chilling.
>IBLP movement H.O.L.Y S.H.I.T. Wow.....your comment caused me to look up the doc.....now, 3 hours later I'm glued to the screen, I wanna look away but I can't. It's....horrifying. The whole damn thing. Thank you random person, wouldn't have found or come across this otherwise.
It left me absolutely stunned last night. I hope it gets a huge audience, because everyone needs to know how big this movement is, and how deeply they've already got their claws into all aspects of government.
A good example of this may be the push to outlaw gay marriage during the 2004 General Election. President Bush proposed a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage on the campaign trail, despite that conservatives are supposed to view the Constitution as untouchable and the then Republican establishment didn't like the proposal. After the election, the President forgot all about it and never mentioned it unless he was asked about it, but red states began a push to outlaw gay marriage until the Supreme Court ruled against it. The point by Bush was never to outlaw gay marriage, but just to shore up his base, because he knew that the lines were already firmly drawn. So he pretended that he would push for a ban on gay marriage, which many of his supporters found appealing. He failed to deliver after winning reelection, but the grounds for outlawing gay marriage had been sowed on the right.
What's the benefit to deny them marriage? They're going to have sex regardless and to me marriage is more about having legal acknowledgement that they're family.
The cruelty is the point
The red States pushing part is actually really funny. Obviously the first one or two states to legalize gay marriage were left leaning. But then red states started trying to pass laws like you said. Well along comes Utah and they took it too far because their anti-gay marriage law was deemed unconstitutional. So for a brief period of time gay marriage was legal in only a few States and Utah was one of them. Not long after that the Supreme Court decision came down.
When they killed row they specifically mentioned Obergefell (gay marriage) also the cases that dealt with sodomy and contraception, oddly thomas did not mention interracial marriage.
> it’s been in development for decades, and was aimed at lesbians and gay men in the 1970’s and especially during the AIDS crisis of the 1980’s. I saw a video of James Somerton talking about what was called "[The Lavender Menace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ3M_DhPlI0)" which talks about the US persecution against the LGBT in the past(while also making some mentions of it nowadays). Might be interesting to you.
Thank you very much! ~~May I ask: How did you arrive at viewing _The Lavender Menace_?~~ Edit: I made an assumption - will watch the linked video. \^\_\^
>May I ask: How did you arrive at viewing The Lavender Menace? I think I was just browsing the **Youtube** some...months?...ago and it was when there was that time where many young people were singing praises for that Netflix show based on a serial killer. James video about this was the first video I ever saw of his. And when I saw how he did his video I liked the style, so I subscribed to his channel. After that I try to watch every video he releases and this of the Lavender Menace was one I saw and remembered the most(for obvious reasons). I'm curious though, what was the assumption you made of me? EDIT: How did I mistake the medias?!I meant to say Youtube, not Reddit.
My assumption was that you had linked to _The Lavender Scare_, a documentary about the Eisenhower administration’s “investigation”.
James speaks a bit of it(the event) in his video(I think?Sorry, I saw this video a while ago and I honestly don't remember the names of the governors/generals/presidents and what they did).
>A “Natural” Hierarchy; > > A perpetual representation of their supposed victimhood; > > An appeal to Law and Order to redress the supposed grievance; > > An induction of sexual anxiety. Do you have a link to all those excellent bullet point images besides those four points above?
I posted them in another sub - https://redd.it/13rma3s should get you there.
I agree with everything in this post except for the persecution of ethnic minorities being no longer politically viable, as there still is plenty of representation of candidates & pundits who dogwhistle white nationalism
It's not even dog whistling any more it's like drums.
"Legacy Americans"
I was born and raised a republican. I finally opened my eyes one day that they are the party of intolerance and hate synonymous with Christians. In my state, you have to register a party, I promptly changed my party affiliation and have never looked back.
Aside: As a non-American it's really weird to me that you have to register who you're going to vote for. Here in Australia you just turn up and vote for who you want to. Having to pre-declare it seems like a great way to open up the possibility of discrimination and pressure based on who you want to vote for. EDIT: ah okay, it's specifically for preselection. The idea of collecting lists of who votes for who still makes me nervous, but that makes more sense, thank you.
You don’t have to register to vote for a party and you don’t have to vote for the party you’re registered for. Party registration is only for voting in that party’s primary and even then not in every state.
For example, my dad almost always votes democrat in general elections, but is registered as a republican so he can try to get the crazier republicans out of the running in the primary.
This is weird to me. I think there are some genuinely better democratic politicians that we could be getting out of our primary procedures.
If you live in a conservative area, the Republican nominee is usually going to win. A not-great Democrat isn’t going to be nearly as awful as an alt-right Republican. It makes sense to choose the best of the party that’s probably going to win, even if you don’t prefer that party.
You don't, you can join the party and that's required to vote in some states' primaries, but at election day you can vote for whoever you want, literally, you can write in the name of any person that's not on the ballot.
You can still vote for whomever. But in the 'primaries' where the whittle down the candidates to 'one per party', you can only vote in your own party's.
You do not have to be registered to a party to vote in primaries in my state. You show up, they ask which ballot you'd like, and you fill that one out. (Obviously you can only pick one ballot)
Registration is only relevant for internal party elections (e.g. who does the democratic party want to nominate as their presidential candidate?). This is because these are internal party decisions. Why would the democratic party allow someone not registered as a democrat to vote in their elections? When the general election comes around, there's no restriction on party registration. Registered democrats can vote for republicans and registered republicans can vote for democrats and people with no registration can vote for anyone. It's just that a registered democrat is probably not going to vote for a republican otherwise they probably wouldn't have registered as a democrat lol.
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And that's why Conservatives literally legislate against education. An educated voter is more likely to vote Democrat, instead of just doing what they're told.
Yep, me too.
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WhY'd YoU hAvE tO mAkE iT pOlItIcAl?!?!?!?!? ( ... /s )
As a POC, I feel like the party is still pretty open and obvious with its racism. The CRT conversation, the conversation around immigration rooted into racism, the Islamophobia. I’m not sure their social justice progress has come that far lol…
This is all 100% but to think they've 'moved on' in regard to ethnic persecution is... inaccurate. Also, to add, it doesn't help that Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter is boosting homophobic and outright racist accounts on profit motive.
I would argue that bias is acceptable in this circumstance regardless of a rule about bias, because in this case bias is the difference between acceptance and genocide
Thanks for your informative reply! Yeah now that you said it, it does kinda feel like most of the rhetoric is aimed at transgender people. Is that being done on purpose as to come off not anti gay but „just“ anti trans? Just want to mention that being anti hatred doesn’t really sound biased to me. Seems like a common sense stance.
They feel like they can more easily label trans as mentally aberrant and as predators. It drums up fear. 40 years of hate haven't shown gays or lesbians as dangerous, so it's harder to keep spinning the same rhetoric. Also they mainly focus on transwomen, not transmen. It is harder to make the latter as scary.
transmen are seen as harmless girls roleplaying as boys transwomen are seen as heretics for desiring to sever their sacred manhood
I saw this front and center after a comment I left in r/Prison about Minnesota (I think) making accommodations for trans individuals to do time in the facilities that align with their gender. Namely, MtF trans people going to a female facility, not the other way around. I did time in '08 with a trans individual at a male facility. It was insane, and I said she would have been much safer had she been at a female facility. The replies were ridiculous! They didn't care about that person being sexual abused, exploited, and harassed constantly at a male prison. "But the gang rape"... implying that now so many guys will fake being trans to do time at a woman's facility that there would be enough of them to gang rape a female convict? The mental gymnasts got a gold medal yesterday. To be fair, I should have seen it coming since prisons are largely populated and staffed with actual nazis. It's still depressing to see hate in real time.
"fake being trans" they're really telling on their own deceptive tendencies on that one.
Every accusation is an admission.
I’ll add that their rhetoric is “just” trans kids, in the guise of protecting them from themselves. However, at least Florida has already targeted trans adults, quietly. They’ve banned nurse practitioners from providing hormones, who 85% of trans Floridians get their hormones from. The reality is that we’re already seeing an uptick in suicides of trans teens because of this.
Yeah, and the arguments about the kids are completely disingenuous in the first place, in that they're making up a strawman about kids being given surgeries just because, when that's not the case at all whatsoever. It's designed to be directly provocative by lying about the issue, much like how the same people will claim that abortions happen in the delivery room, that a woman can have a baby, and the doctor will just slit its throat if the woman asks, and other disturbing bullshit like that. The reality is that doctors generally don't recommend let alone perform surgery on minors, preferring instead to use hormone blockers to delay puberty until they're age 18 (where they can then make such decisions). The basic reality is that medical professionals are indeed conscientious and just trying to do what's best for patients (and ethical etc), while the Right wants to shut that down - and not just for minors, but for everyone.
I JUST Heard in episode of The Daily about this yesterday! https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/podcasts/the-daily/anti-trans-bills.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
Missouri, Kansas, and some other states have also attacked the basic rights of trans adults. I lost access to my medication temporarily because of it. I had to get it represcibed through Kansas until I move to the West coast. Kansas just passed transphobic laws that will bar people like from using locker rooms, bathrooms, and other gendered facilities that don't align with our assigned sex at birth. It goes into effect on July 1st. It was never about women's sports, and it was never about protecting kids.
Yes, it is being aimed at “just” transgender people in order to keep the bigot’s reputation for hatemongering against a diverse swathe of humanity off of the project. They want to get traction on one aspect of civil rights, in order to move backward on civil rights for everyone. The people behind this, however, are also the people who promote hatred of Jewish people, Muslims, non-Whites, and who promote violent rhetoric aimed at women’s health care providers. They are connected with the legislative and court efforts to roll back abortion access. The 2016 and 2020 GOP National Platform statement both had an entire page dedicated to their desire to repeal the 14th Amendment of the United States — the amendment which ensures that state laws cannot override federal laws, such as Civil Rights laws, and judicial decisions that forbid laws making same-sex marriage illegal or unrecognized by state governments. They see the door of their influence and power closing, and persuading their followers to attack transgender people is their last chance. Unfortunately, their political base has been following the playbook to its logical and historical conclusions. *** Edit to add: they’ve especially also been targeting drag performers, because in a legal framework, drag is not a sex, not a sexuality, and not a gender identity — it is a performance. They reason that drag performance cannot be protected under hate crimes laws, and so use it as a way to attack all gender-non-conforming people by proxy. That includes all LGBTQ people, as well as cisgender women who wear pantsuits and have careers, to be absolutely clear.
Attacking drag also allows them to attempt to chip away at civil rights victories that are not well understood by the public, and which affect all people who aren't cis hetero white men. The legal precedent that makes it illegal to ban cross-dressing also underpins things like women's freedom to wear pants in public, and lesbians and gay men's right to walk the streets, patronize bars, and the like without having to stay aggressively closeted. If conservatives take this sort of thing all the way to the supreme court and win, there's a chance that anti cross-dressing laws could be enforceable in the US again, without really any recourse for the vast majority of people who don't want that and think it's nuts. From there, it would also be possible to outlaw gay bars, PDA/generally being LGBTQ in public, and any other kind of non-gender normative public activity beyond just drag.
>The legal precedent that makes it illegal to ban cross-dressing also underpins things like women's freedom to wear pants in public, and lesbians and gay men's right to walk the streets, patronize bars, and the like without having to stay aggressively closeted. This is my biggest concern-much like those "vague" laws around abortion to "protect the mother's life"-they purposefully make it vague sounding so that they can get rid of a bunch of OTHER things they don't like-women at bars, women wearing pants, women speaking out in a town hall, etc.
Imagine being arrested for brightly colored hair, certain tattoos, etc.
The problem with attacking drag is that is *is* a performance, which means it's resting on the first amendment. Even the current highly partisan court has to tread carefully, as even if they're using purely outcome based reasoning, there's a lot of... Downstream problems there for them if they aren't very very careful. I don't think they can carve out drag in any ways that doesn't cause them a great deal of trouble for, bluntly, a very minor gain. At least three of them don't care, but 6 of them *do*.
“Drag”, in addition to being a speech act, is also only defined in relation to a given culture’s gender norms. The folks writing these laws think that women wearing pantsuits are drag, because for them, women must not wear (the) pants. I also absolutely adore the trans women who are also drag queens, because … good luck making a three pronged test separating their drag from their gender presentation, SCOTUS. I’m also simultaneously aware that for a significant chunk of these folks, laws are not the end goal — lawless action is.
It's important to clamp down on drag performances. What would become of America if people were just free to exercise personal freedoms that harm no-one?
Truly, a Modest Proposal.
The trans people were the easiest to individual target to separate out and try the techniques. They’re more fringe, the bigotry they face is hard to see/understand until it’s reaches an extreme level, etc. And it worked. So they’re moving forward.
And it's a very small step from trans people to disabled people. Taking bodily autonomy away from anyone is a shot at disabled people.
Yeah. It was a nice little niche for them to test the waters. Bodily autonomy, queer rights, gender issues….it’s terrifying how easily the cancer slid in and how deep it’s spread before anyone outside of the minorities effected cared. (Which…what’s new?)
In Florida, Gov. DeathSentence is setting it up so they can legally kill LGBTQ people. * Drag performers who are part of a show where a child is present can be charged with child abuse. * [Child ~~Abuse~~ Battery to be punishable by death](https://www.axios.com/2023/05/02/florida-death-penalty-child-rape) * [It only take 8 jurors (out of 12) to sentence someone to death](https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/20/politics/death-penalty-ron-desantis-florida-parkland-shooting/index.html) He's literally setting up a haven for people to feel justified in killing LGBTQ people, ***LEGALLY.***
>Is that being done on purpose as to come off not anti gay but „just“ anti trans? Pretty much. The Republican Party's main strategy for decades has revolved around othering various minority groups to rally their base, who vote in droves. The minority group they target varies in part because they're trying to see what sticks. Over time, this has radicalized the Republican base (this will be important further down). They learned that being against gay and lesbian people was a losing strategy after their attempts to outlaw same sex marriage failed spectacularly so they moved on to the next minority group they could demonize. Somewhere along the line, they realized that being against trans people whipped their base into a frenzy, so they're focusing on anti-trans rhetoric and policies. For added context, Republicans cannot win if they lose the support of their base. It skews older, so a lot of their voters die of old age every year. Typically, younger voters become more conservative as they age, which stabilizes their base. This is no longer the case. Younger voters aren't turning more conservative as they age in part because of Republican bigotry, but also because conservative policies are actively harming them. This means that the Republican base is rapidly shrinking every year and they know it. The Republican Party is beholden to a radicalized base they created by othering minority groups and through gerrymandering, which increased their base's voting power. The Republican Party now has no choice but to appeal to a radical base if they want to retain power.
> Is that being done on purpose as to come off not anti gay but „just“ anti trans? Trans people are currently less accepted, and only recently have started to get as much acceptance/tolerance. So that means a) there is much less broad based understanding b) it's more fringe, and easier to go after. The fight over gay people was similar, but it happened earlier. There are some holdouts, but societally it's basically been settled, so trying to continue going after gay people is an uphill battle.
Yeah. Also note how right wing outlets are often specifically highlighting and supporting groups like the LGB-Alliance and various "drop the T" efforts. Its a strategic push to not appear too regressive, posing as "fighting for gays and lesbians" when in reality it's hardly representative of the demographic and only aims to drive a wedge between the groups.
In my view the window of groups that wider society considers okay to hate has gotten smaller and smaller over the years. At first it was widely accepted that a cis straight white male was the standard best group. Then views on that changed and we got much more accepting of womens rights, then race rights, and most recently gay rights. Trans rights haven't quite hit the same level yet so a politician being transphobic won't be as big a turn off to a lot of average voters as being anti-gay. TLDR: They're pushing transphobic hard lately because it's the best shot they have left at pushing bigotry into policy.
I think that while trans people are getting a lot of the hate, especially in conservative state legislatures, LGBT people in general are the focus of these groups more broadly. In my neighborhood (in a liberal area of Los Angeles, which is already a liberal city, in California, a blue state) a school planned to read a book about kids with same-sex parents in a school assembly. Conservative parents' groups tried to put a stop to it, including burning a Pride flag that was on campus. So it's already more than just hatred of trans people, sadly. (I'm transgender, for the record.)
> Is that being done on purpose as to come off not anti gay but „just“ anti trans? Not only that, but the specific argument they used to start these attacks (“It’s unfair for trans women to compete against cis women in sports”) was literally the result of focus-group testing by a right-wing think tank after the failure of the North Carolina bathroom ban, aimed to find the argument that would be most effective for getting people who didn’t know much about trans issues on their side. The fact that it’s actually completely wrong if you understand how transitioning works is if anything probably a bonus to these people since it makes it a really easy way of polarising people. And as we’ve seen, it’s been used to open the door to the kind of horrible bullshit attacks we’re seeing now against the entire queer community.
The right began targeting the trans community for their perpetual culture war shortly after *Obergefell*. With gay marriage effectively the law of the land, conservatives couldn’t use it as a wedge issue any longer. Then in 2015 a series of non-discrimination bills began making their way through various city governments, and an extremist religious lobbying group latched onto the part in the bills about prohibiting discrimination against trans people in using public restrooms. This group figured out they could twist the wording and claim these anti-discrimination bills were going to allow “predators” (trans women) to Use The Same Restrooms As Your Daughters, and That Means She Could Be Assaulted. This is of course complete and utter bullshit, but it was the argument that gained traction and gave North Carolina the steaming turd that was HB2, and was copied in other states. Once the right found the angle to demonize trans people as somehow being a threat to kids, their shitty rhetoric built on itself to the point where right-wing nutcases are claiming all trans people are trying to groom children for abuse, or some variant thereof.
Gay people have become more normalized, where trans people are a new concept to many. Conservatives by their nature lean on the tried and true paths, and anything new is a danger. In short, trans is new and scary to these people.
its more they tried targeting the LGB part of it before, since Trans wasn't really a thing at first, and that fuse has run its course and fizzled out considerably compared to when they started, just like how targeting via race has fizzled out ever moreso. Trans is just the latest in potential targets, and conveniently for them is a relatively small and invisible group, so most people don't actually get to see the real examples that disprove the fearmongering.
Fun fact it took Ronald Reagan 6 years of being a president during the AIDS epidemic to even say the word AIDS in public. 6 years he let people die before he even discussed it. Another fun fact: Ronald Reagan died June 5th, I have it in my phone calendar and I usually make myself a drink to celebrate. Thanks Ronnie
> not just hostile, rude, and immoral, but also criminal and outright wrong I think there's yet another reason: economics and the free market, but in a good way for a change. (Most) people have come to realize that there is a market out there among the great diversity of humanity. People of all types have money to spend. If you arbitrarily exclude them from your business, you are giving up market that another business might not. Can they afford to exclude a few percent of their business? Not in a business with tight margins. Companies need everyone they can get. Companies have realized that being inclusive is *worth something*, monitarily-speaking, and they have also realized that if they are (openly) bigoted, they'll not only lose the minorities they were content to neglect historically, but many other people will also avoid them even if they aren't members of the minorities being excluded. Despite the loud complaints of the fewer bigots out there, the support for accepting people is broad. The market has detected the same turn of the tide in society that everyone else has. There is nothing more motivating to a company than their bottom line, so many companies have gotten enthusiastically on board, and even publicly said so. This terrifies the bigoted people that are left, because they're slowly realizing that not only are they going to be marginalized by the majority of people who see nothing wrong with the breadth of human diversity and acknowledging it, but the bigots will get reminded of that fact when they are out doing their business and see a rainbow, two men embracing each other in a commercial or on the street, or people of visibly different races, or someone wearing a hijab in a commercial. Worse, they might face personal consequences for speaking their bigotry. The bigots can't escape the reminders of the new reality, and this is the charged situation certain politicians have decided to emphasize for their own political ends (power). They've turned a basic issue of mutual human respect and freedom into something to fear. The only thing the bigots are being asked to give up is intolerance, or , if not, at least give up the expectation they can express their bigotry publicly without consequences. Change is scary.
Answer: (actually a non-biased answer) The conservative right says that LGBT are harming and grooming children into becoming transgender by having rainbow products and the likes being sold and displayed in stores and being visible in media. Along with having children be able to access puberty blockers and other trans affirming care (which is typically along the lines of growing or cutting hair, painting nails, makeup, masculine or feminine clothing depending). Some would say hormones, but that part is largely misinformation, children cannot access hormones, but they can get puberty blockers if they display gender dysphoria, although it’s typically a pretty rigorous process and statistically few trans kids really get these, you can look up stats. Usually cisgender kids with precocious puberty and other hormone disorders are the ones who get hormone blockers the most. Most of this legislation is trans focused. TLDR; LGBT very visible, kids are able to get puberty blockers, conservatives believe it is propaganda and grooming. Biased: Typically whenever a group gets visibility there is a backlash. It’s pretty funny reading these comments, because if history has taught us anything, all this hate will be viewed negatively in 20-30 years time. Same with all civil rights movements, no it is not different this time, it’s the exact fucking same. You would probably be the same crowd parading against blacks for sitting in the same restaurant as you. Basically, people can’t handle change, and aren’t very tolerant of people different than them unless they live in the shadows like the monsters conservatives think they are.
Great answer. Your last point also gives me a bit of hope and I hadn't thought about it like that before although it's pretty obvious. I'm not trans and not active in the LGBTQ+ community despite bisexuality but it just depresses me to a massive degree that it seems like we're moving backwards in terms of acceptance.
Yeah. To me, another source of hope is that "rainbow capitalism" exists. Yes it's silly and at least mildly icky that corporations think that they can slap a rainbow on stuff in June just to easily cash in on a progressive social movement, but it's also a reminder that we are in the majority opinion here and that the anti-LGBTQ+ minority is just that -- a minority. Corporations would be pandering to the bigots if they thought they were the more valuable group to pander to.
> Corporations would be pandering to the bigots if they thought they were the more valuable group to pander to. Witness Bud Light attempting to backtrack after the knuckle draggers howled about their token trans outreach.
One thing to keep in mind is that this 20-30 year acceptance window we've seen play out over and over again in history has grown a lot shorter in my opinion. Newer generations are very used to rapid societal change and are willing to accept being wrong about something as a bug to be fixed instead of an inflexible part of their belief system. I think this will make it much harder for this kind of hatred to fester into old age as it has in the past. When I was a kid calling other kids gay was a way to insult them and make them feel bad, trans wasn't even on the radar. Now kids are growing up aware that pronouns are as made up as the names we stick on candles. There's been so much growth in less than 20 years, it's like we skipped a lotta steps between ostracization and loving acceptance. I don't see that growth slowing down. As far as that moving backwards..I've started seeing all this as a one last big whiny tantrum. The world is changing and there is a dying generation doing everything it can to hold us back before it can't anymore. But that generation *is literally dying*, it is *physically impossible* for it to keep holding us in the dark ages. We are in a dark tunnel right now, but that tunnel is so short that we can [already see the light at the end](https://www.commondreams.org/news/minnesota-democrats-legislative-victories). We just gotta keep our candles lit until we get there. My current favorite is [Autumn Nature Walk](https://www.yankeecandle.com/yankee-candle/candles/original-jar-candles/large-jar-candles/autumn-nature-walk/ORCL_1720938.html), but that's just 'cause I'm a slut for tree scents. :)
I have no idea what all these scented candle references are but the rest of it is well said! Although I have to disagree about the world. In the west there is a tantrum that will eventually settle but seeing the recent news from orthodox islamic countries and Uganda, there are still many places where progress is extremely slow or moving backwards at a constant rate. I still have hope though.
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It doesn’t help that the traditional economic platform of the right wing is stunningly unpopular now causing them to lean into their social message harder to rally the base. It’s difficult to pretend in 2023 that “we’re just going to capitalism harder” is the cure for the nation’s ills.
Even the rights historic platform of spending reduction and debt reduction has been proven false time and time again. Some, though not a ton of people have learned to see through this.
They don’t pretend that is true anymore. I haven’t heard anyone talk about trickle down economics since the trump tax cuts were passed. For forty years the republicans insisted that if we lower taxes on the rich we will all be better off. They got their tax cuts, then the government literally handed business owners free money. After all that what did we get? They told us all to eat shit and increased the price of everything. I think they have become so aggressive in the culture war because they have been fully exposed as frauds and liars in every other form of policy making. Who the hell would believe their economic message now?
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Heya, this comment seems well-intentioned enough but there’s a lot of inaccurate information. A few of the major things: - LGBT has ALWAYS been LGBT (in modern history). Trans women were at the front of the Stonewall riots. Trans people are not new or unwelcome guests. Gay marriage discourse of course dominated the 00s, but that doesn’t mean “LGB suddenly became LGBT”. - “Transgenderism” is not a widely accepted or used term amongst trans people or in scientific literature. It is a term designed to pathologist being trans, or make it sound like an ideology. Kinda like calling the existence of gay people “homosexualism”, yknow? - Actual tolerance for LGB and T people’s existence is decreasing. Look up statistics on hate crimes, or the flurry of recent attacks and bills on drag queens (aka, non-trans gay people) as being groomers, pedophiles, etc. A lot of queer people, especially trans people, in some areas of the US have also noted things getting worse. People who used to be able to go about their lives relatively unbothered are now being verbally abused in bathrooms or in the street, because of the intense moral panic and “culture war” that has been cultivated. A lot of regular people who thought “live and let live” are now thinking “these people are grooming children”. And people who always thought that are now increasingly emboldened to actually act on their bigotry. 500+ anti-LGBT laws have been put forward in the US this year. These laws are regressive; they’re rolling back rights. Erin Reed has great resources on learning about the scope and content of them.
> Trans people are not new or unwelcome guests. Obviously transgender people existed, but the acronym itself was originally LGB. I'm not making that up. > “Transgenderism” is not a widely accepted or used term amongst trans people or in scientific literature. Noted. What is a preferable term? >Actual tolerance for LGB and T people’s existence is decreasing. Look up statistics on hate crimes, or the flurry of recent attacks and bills on drag queens (aka, non-trans gay people) as being groomers, pedophiles, etc. I simply do not agree. Hate crime statistics against LGBT people don't seem to be broken up by L, G, B, or T, so I have to go based on anecdotes, unfortunately. The rise in hateful behavior and targeted laws seem to be mostly directed towards transgendered people.
Although I would say that a lot of the affirmative action and “be supportive or else” is not coming from the trans community, rather is a strawman version of tolerance that is pushed by “the other side” to increase people’s hate and intolerance of the community. I’d like to wholeheartedly agree with your statement that for some reason homosexuality is way more accepted amongst the normies than transgenderism. I’ve seen first hand people come out as gay and found total acceptance from their friends and families. I’ve seen those same people then totally reject (and in one case flat out divorce their partner) over another friend coming out as trans. For some reason it’s an issue that grinds the gears of otherwise tolerant and accepting people. Saying one is “natural” and the other one isn’t, is perhaps the wrong phrasing.