Tracking the Anti-LGBTQIA+ Movement

[Lexi Darling]

A very good essay on the anti-trans mindset.

[Auroras In Ice]

My post, then, can't be argued with, even if you're trying to make it say things I did not this time say. Just look at the list Lexi's keeping and tell me that's not similar to a list of things Hitler, Goering and Himmler did as soon as the Nazis took power. It's all around us now and can no longer be ignored or played down. How far do YOU think it's going to go?

This is exactly the right framing to start using. Fascism is a process and not just a destination where people suddenly end up in death camps, and the process of the current iteration of fascism is now almost a decade in the making. Those of us who caught it earlier just keep end up being right about the way things have been going despite years of it being dismissed. It doesn't always arrive exactly when or how we might think, but it does keep arriving. We may not be oracles, but you don't need to be in order to see the trajectory of things and where they have an increasing potential to lead especially given historical and contemporary examples to guide us. Here's the other thing, if we're wrong and all of this is for naught... I'll be relieved and happy about that. I don't want to be right about this lol. Being wrong the other way, though... not so great.

Does it lead to mass-exterminations? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, once you are on this path you don't sit around waiting for it to happen... you make noise so it doesn't. Although things aren't there yet, the fact that migrants have been rounded up with some sent off to Gitmo should be a red flag even if things have gone quiet on the news about that and there's a million other things going on. There's only one reason why a place like Gitmo even exists in the first place, which is to get around domestic human rights and legal standards for the treatment of detainees. It seems that the Trump admin is in fact wavering on continuing the use of Gitmo, but the fact that this was even done or was on the table is a very bad sign of where the admin's intent is pointing for the groups of people it demonizes and stirs up hate towards.

[Trollheart]

Oh well, obviously, I hope everyone understands I will be more than delighted to be proven wrong, and I don't want to say "I told you so" as, um, dark satanic mills go up all over the USA. Should that happen, I'd take about as much pleasure in being right as I would had I told my best friend he was too drunk to drive and then he was killed in a head-on. There are times when you pray to any god you believe in, or don't, that you will be wrong. This is one of those times.

[Trollheart]

Trump's worst nightmare

[Janszoon]

Trump's worst nightmare

Trump's worst nightmare is everyone thinking he's lame. 

[Lexi Darling]

Powerful Speeches From Trans Dems Flip 29 Republicans, Anti-Trans Bills Die In Montana
Some more heartening news. While Gavin Newsom capitulates to fascists and legitimizes their false propagandist narratives, trans people in politics are fighting like hell to push back against the smearing of our community and succeeding. So very inspiring.

[Trollheart]

Trump's worst nightmare is everyone finding out he's lame. 

That's the real issue.

[Buck_Mulligan]

Powerful Speeches From Trans Dems Flip 29 Republicans, Anti-Trans Bills Die In Montana
Some more heartening news. While Gavin Newsom capitulates to fascists and legitimizes their false propagandist narratives, trans people in politics are fighting like hell to push back against the smearing of our community and succeeding. So very inspiring.

On issues other than LGBT Gavin Newsom strikes me as a sleaze bag. A company I used to work for had dealings with a company he's partner in, and that company was cited for violating labor laws. Hope he doesn't get the 2028 nomination.

[Jwb]

I would point out that what I said was "a correlation between this and what happened to the Jews" - I wasn't specifically talking about the holocaust. What I meant was, the attempts to strip them of all rights, standing, remove them from society and then eliminate them, which eventually did lead to the death camps, yes, but I'm not saying Trusk are preparing such a solution. Yet. I'm saying they're working from the Nazi playbook. You can also call it a pogrom perhaps. The point I'm making is that it starts like this, and we don't know for sure where it will end up, but this is how it was back then: you identify a target group, you all but authorise/sanction violence against them, you blame them for everything you can, you remove their rights and their possessions, and you as such attempt to exile and then exterminate them. While we haven't reached the latter part yet, pretty much everything else is happening as it did. They're even making it all but impossible for those who wish to leave this fascist state and seek safety to do so, as the Nazis made it harder for Jews to leave who wanted to.

There is no earthly reason for people - normal "good" people - to fear or hate trans people, if they just thought about it logically, but an agenda is being pushed that will use fear and lies to "show" them that they should, must, have to hate these people, that it is, in the end, a battle between good and evil, and the trans people are evil. People will be told to choose, and as with most situations like this, those who are not sure will be swept up in the paranoia and carried along with it. The idea even of "false flag" operations, where people identified as trans say, shoot up a school or something, is not at all unlikely. This administration will bend, twist and break the truth, remoulding it into whatever shape suits it, and most of the population will follow along, believing blindly.

To quote Basil Fawlty: this is exactly how Nazi Germany started! How it ends, depends, I guess, on the strength of will to oppose the party in power, and when and how that will is used. How soon, in other words, before enough people say NO, not in our name?

My post, then, can't be argued with, even if you're trying to make it say things I did not this time say. Just look at the list Lexi's keeping and tell me that's not similar to a list of things Hitler, Goering and Himmler did as soon as the Nazis took power. It's all around us now and can no longer be ignored or played down. How far do YOU think it's going to go?

So you're saying you weren't referring to the holocaust when you said the following:

"I don't care who calls it hyperbole, there couldn't be a closer correlation between how trans people are being seen/treated/scapegoated/targeted and how the Jews fared under Nazi Germany. Anyone who says I'm taking it too seriously needs to open their fucking eyes. Mind you, it will be too late then."

I'm going to try to be good faith about this since I clearly started this,  but come on,  lol.  You can't sit here with a straight face and tell me that's not exactly what you were referring to.  How many strangers on the street do you think you could find  who would read that statement and not immediately assume it's referring to the holocaust?  And it's not the first time you have made the comparison.  So I wasn't trying to put any words in your mouth,  though I also wasn't trying to quote you verbatim.  I could have made that clearer, but really if you don't think the holocaust is a good comparison you can just say that.  But it's not that clear to me that's what you actually think.  Which is why I asked what you actually are referring to. You mentioned how the jews fared and we all know how that story ends.  So how close to that fate do you plausibly see this getting,  is the question.


Now you did attempt to answer that here.  You said:

"What I meant was, the attempts to strip them of all rights, standing, remove them from society and then eliminate them, which eventually did lead to the death camps, yes, but I'm not saying Trusk are preparing such a solution. Yet."

So this sounds indeed like the preliminary stages of genocide.  I don't particularly see this happening tbh. I don't expect to see trans people being rounded up,  stripped of all rights,  and eliminated (even through exile). I expect the Trump regime to basically try to roll back the clock on the culture war.  I think the more plausible worst case scenario for this issue is they basically ban certain surgeries,  hormone blockers etc,  force them into the bathroom of their sex (not gender identity), sports team of their sex, prisons of their sex, etc.  Basically try to repress the visibility of trans people and structurally reinforce what they see as a kind of cultural rebuke of the 'woke LGBT agenda.' I'm not saying that like it's not a big deal.  But I do think you're misinterpreting the agenda by repeatedly invoking the final solution.

So it's possible that we just expect to see different things. I think your threshold for what you think puts us on the likely path to genocide is just too low. I think we have clear signs that they very much want to discriminate against trans people.  I've yet to see any sign that they have genocidal intentions in this regard. I do think you could make a case for it being a kind of cultural genocide if they just tried to erase the identity through restricting access to surgeries and the like. 

I don't think you can really even say that of all the groups facing persecution in the US under Trump, the trans or LGBT community is the most obvious parallel to the Jews under Nazi Germany.  I feel like there's another group with more direct parallels that MAGA thinks is "poisoning the blood of the country" and that Trump campaigned on rounding up with the military.  I think the parallels there are more similar,  though tbh I also wouldn't invoke the final solution analogy there either. I don't read the intent as genocidal. Ethnic cleansing,  you could make a case they do want.

Ultimately,  though,  I don't think that the MAGA movement have the same ideology that the actual Nazis did. I see them motivated more by the spectacle of casual sadism than by the kind of overt genocidal thinking that the nazis were imbibed in.

[Lexi Darling]

Texas has introduced a bill to ban adult trans healthcare including HRT. The initial EO threatened to defund and "investigate" clinics that provide gender healthcare at any age. Cutting off HRT can induce permanent menopausal symptoms, osteoporosis and severe psychological distress. Prisoners are already undergoing forced detransition and removal of their HRT. Maybe not all of this will succeed, but the intention is absolutely to bring us to direct harm, it is state sanctioned violence.

Banning transition, both medical and social by way of anti drag laws which are still on the books in Texas and other places, is their ultimate goal. The "woke culture" they're "rolling back" is literally nothing, it's a boogeyman for "trans people being able to transition and exist as themselves". The performative anti "woke" shit is a cover for their idiot base to cheer while trans people have their entire life trajectories stolen from them and their hope and happiness ripped away piece by piece. I don't exaggerate in the slightest when I say if I were forced to detransition permanently I would not consider my life worth living.

I've agreed with you that the holocaust is not a particularly apt comparison. But they absolutely have the goal to erase trans people from existence, the bills and motions they have made in just two months have given me no reason to believe otherwise. I think you're close on the "cultural genocide" idea but being trans isn't just culture, it's medical and biological as well, and banning it will cause the current generation widespread physical harm, especially those who have undergone bottom surgery where cutting off HRT has much worse physical effects, and will cause future generations to suffer in dysphoric misery for their entire lives.

[Trollheart]

@Jwb I have a headache and you're not helping.

No, I don't necessarily see A FS or Holocaust scenario, because I like to think even the most rabid anti-trans MAGA scum will baulk at actual murder. However, the first steps are being taken and while I take your point about the way they may go about it, I do have to wonder, what's worse for a trans person? Being imprisoned or even killed in a death camp or having their entire identity, personality (and you might say soul, if you believe in such things) erased, then forced to live a life they hate? A fate worse that death? That could very well be the outcome.

Anyway, my post was not directed at just you, but anyone and everyone who downplayed this and said don't be silly it won't happen. It is happening. Certainly, and thankfully, it's not happening as it did over 90 years ago, but it's still happening. As one who was sounding the "don't panic" signal from the beginning, you were one target of that post, yes, but I know there are people out there (not here I assume) who are still saying, storm in a teacup, will soon blow over. No, it won't. It will only get worse.

You know, if what you suggest comes to pass, isn't that a Final Solution all of its own? A different kind of holocaust? Perhaps we're more on the Orwell side of things here, erasing people from history. It's still evil.

Now can you please stop arguing with me? It doesn't help anyone and we're certainly not going ever to see eye-to-eye about this. Let's just say we see it differently and leave it at that, and assume any posts made here don't concern you. You already laughed at my thread, please don't do the same here. It's deadly serious for some people here and they deserve respect and sympathy, not derision and downplaying. This thread does not need derailment. If you have to do that, do it in mine.

Unless Lexi wants to debate you, I don't know. But I don't think your comments here are helpful.

Edited to add: You know JWB, I haven't seen a single instance of you being supportive of Lexi or anyone in her position. Just saying. Your casual attitude towards what's happening does not sit well with me, not that you care.

[Lexi Darling]

Elon Musk and Texas governor celebrate firing of worker over pronouns in email signature

The free speech absolutist, ladies and gentlemen.

[Janszoon]

Elon Musk and Texas governor celebrate firing of worker over pronouns in email signature

The free speech absolutist, ladies and gentlemen.

As a person who works with a lot of people in other countries, and also as a person with a gender neutral first name, pronouns in a signature just makes sense.

[Jwb]

@Jwb I have a headache and you're not helping.

No, I don't necessarily see A FS or Holocaust scenario, because I like to think even the most rabid anti-trans MAGA scum will baulk at actual murder. However, the first steps are being taken and while I take your point about the way they may go about it, I do have to wonder, what's worse for a trans person? Being imprisoned or even killed in a death camp or having their entire identity, personality (and you might say soul, if you believe in such things) erased, then forced to live a life they hate? A fate worse that death? That could very well be the outcome.

Anyway, my post was not directed at just you, but anyone and everyone who downplayed this and said don't be silly it won't happen. It is happening. Certainly, and thankfully, it's not happening as it did over 90 years ago, but it's still happening. As one who was sounding the "don't panic" signal from the beginning, you were one target of that post, yes, but I know there are people out there (not here I assume) who are still saying, storm in a teacup, will soon blow over. No, it won't. It will only get worse.

You know, if what you suggest comes to pass, isn't that a Final Solution all of its own? A different kind of holocaust? Perhaps we're more on the Orwell side of things here, erasing people from history. It's still evil.

Now can you please stop arguing with me? It doesn't help anyone and we're certainly not going ever to see eye-to-eye about this. Let's just say we see it differently and leave it at that, and assume any posts made here don't concern you. You already laughed at my thread, please don't do the same here. It's deadly serious for some people here and they deserve respect and sympathy, not derision and downplaying. This thread does not need derailment. If you have to do that, do it in mine.

Unless Lexi wants to debate you, I don't know. But I don't think your comments here are helpful.

Edited to add: You know JWB, I haven't seen a single instance of you being supportive of Lexi or anyone in her position. Just saying. Your casual attitude towards what's happening does not sit well with me, not that you care.

Um, no. I won't leave you alone.  I haven't said anything that should derail this thread or be outside the scope of the discussion.  You can explain to me exactly why it is that this thread is also "not the right place" for me to disagree with you. I'll wait.

The fact is,  if you are going to make bold assertions I disagree with about a pending genocide, I'm going to be inclined to respond. This thread is just about the anti LGBT movement,  it's not a so called support thread. So I don't even know how it is you find this to be off topic.

And you're still trying act as if you have somehow been proven "right" in your hysterical assertions. Yet you instantly backtrack when I simply ask you to flesh out what it is you mean. 

You said "it is happening, " but what is "it?" I never told you any of this would not happen. I only ever said you were being over the top about it.  Which you're still doing right now. 

And please,  think twice about using the argument "isn't it kinda almost just as bad to ban trans surgery as it is to round people up and slaughter them?" The answer is just no.  They're no where near the same, and suggesting such is just trivializing actual genocide for the sake of trying to make your point more forcefully.  And I just think that's misguided.

[Lexi Darling]

Nobody said banning surgery was as bad as rounding people up and slaughtering them. I mentioned surgery in the context of exacerbated effects of being forced off HRT and TH didn't mention surgery at all. You're misrepresenting our arguments, and I have posted plenty of good reasons to consider the "hysterical assertions" legitimate concerns, yet you haven't seemed to acknowledge what I've posted and instead argue against something neither TH or I even said.

I have tried to keep myself grounded as of late and the crux of my argument has never been "they're going to round us up and kill us". I'm pointing out the textbook fascist dehumanization, demonization and removal of our rights, protections and recognition, as well as their attacks on our necessary healthcare. Which alone is an abuse of human rights and I don't think it's unreasonable to be concerned that the people who openly speak about wanting to remove birthright citizenship and send tens of thousands of people to Guantanamo, and in the cases of Musk, Vance and others, are supporters of Nazism, might also want to escalate their attacks on trans people.